anyone for golf

What goes on in some heads?

2009-10-13T07:04:00.000-07:00

It seems that every person I know has a degree of stupidity associated with them, its part of the baggage we carry with us because of the fact we have a functioning brain that allows us the option of choice, instead of being prisoners of instinct. Its a human trait, while stupidity is easy to recognize in others, it is often difficult to see in ourselves. Maybe we have some kind of a built in filter that diminishes our ability to reason logically when we proceed to do something that advances our self interest or satisfies our wants. Some develop the ability to understand this as we grow older and put decisions to the test, but a surprisingly number never progress past the impulses of an 8 year old to stuff our mouths full of candy at every opportunity.

But there is a solution available and it is centered in looking beyond the immediate desire for instant gratification in our lives and taking just a moment to peer down the road a piece. I have been thinking about this I heard the story of Esau and Jacob extended beyond the trading of a birthright for some stew. If you think about like this, for the instant gratification of a meal Esau gave away his future. The decisions we make that center on self gratification while individually are not as serious as this one single event, collectively are just as damning. Let me present some evidence. Morgan Spurlock dined at McDonald's restaurants three times per day, eating every item on the chain's menu. He also always "super-sized" his meal if given the option—but only if it was offered. Spurlock consumed an average of 5,000 calories per day during the experiment. As a result, the then-32-year-old Spurlock gained 24½ lbs. (11.1 kg), a 13% body mass increase, a cholesterol level of 230, and experienced mood swings and fat accumulation to his liver.

Now is there anyone who doesn't understand that if you treat yourself in a way that leads to high blood pressure, a likely onset of diabetes, clogged arteries and obesity that you are likely condeming yourself to an earlier death, a sedentary lifestyle and debillitating health issues that are going to effect your happiness. If you become addicted to drugs the result will be a lack of success in life, dysfunctional relationships and the scorn of society of a whole.

But the biggest danger comes from simply not acknowledging that success and happiness in life comes from living right and listening to that little voice within us that is constantly trying to steer us towards the decisions that we already know in our heart are right, all we need to do is take the time to listen.

I have collected a few stories, some from my own life as well as a few others that were nothing short of stupidity, some had minor impacts, others severe, but all demonstrating stupidity or folly.

Years ago when I was playing ball around Battleford I needed a new glove. I ran into a guy I slightly knew (his last name was Lundrigan) and he had one I wanted for sale. So we agreed on a price of $10.00. I gave him a check and went on my way, the glove worked great and we were both happy, but apparently he wanted more happiness, so he came up with a sure fire plan to increase his personal net worth.

At months end when I got my bank statement sure enough there was the cancelled check for the $10, but wait whats this, there are two more cheques, one for $15.00 and another for $25.00 that I hadn't written. So I call the Bank, and bring in the two bogus cheques, it wasn't hard to verify it was not my signature seeing as how my name was spelled wrong and wasn't even close to my hand writing. But now, how do we figure out who perpetrated the crime, well he left a clue, the plan involved making the two additional cheques payable to himself. In those days you got imprinted cheques for your account, but you could also go into the bank and get blank counter cheques onto which you could write the account number and thats what he did. I guess that he reasoned that if asked for identification when he tried to cash the cheques he could show that indeed he was the bona fide and authorized recipient of the cash. And just like how a criminal develops a modus operandi this guy had one to, he cashed all three cheques at the same place a few days apart

So armed with this information it wasn't to difficult in a small place to locate the guilty party, especially when the clerk had indeed written down the # of the drivers license of the person cashing the cheque, one ******* Lundrigan.

As I pondered all of this as it unfolded I couldn't help but think, did he actually think he was going to get away with it, probably he did, and the world is full of things gone wrong

Last week there was a news item. Man mauled by tiger may lose arm. Now if this was in India or the jungles of Sumatra or any other place where these man eaters roamed you could understand how this could come about. Guy working in his field, hungry tiger creeping through the tall grass until he gets close enough to pounce on the guy, happens all the time in the jungle. But this chewing of a mans arm takes place in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, a long way from the steamy natural habitat of ferocious orange felines. So here is what happens. Two guys break into the Calgary zoo in the middle of the night and scale a couple of fences around the tiger compound until they can get face to face with the beast. One guy shoves his hand through the wire mesh and tries to scratch the tiger. Surprise, Tony looks at the arm as if it was sugar frosted flakes and turns tiger on the guy. Now this is a foolish act by these guys but what amazes me even more is the official police statement issued later that day.

"The Calgary police are now investigating to determine if any alcohol was involved" duh, even an idiot like me can figure the answer to that one out in about one half a second. But stupidity with tigers is not confined to places like Calgary.

A guy in India was mauled to death by two tigers who also ripped off his left arm as his wife and sons watched.

Digital camera in hand, he sneaked past the first barrier where his wife and their two school-going sons stood with a relative and other visitors crowding Assam State Zoo. He wanted a close shot of a tigress sunning herself.

He reached the tigers’ enclosure a metre away and then made the second, fatal, mistake of stretching his hands holding the camera through the iron railings. A second tiger that he hadn’t seen lurking near the enclosure wall directly below him, grabbed his left arm. In no time, the other tiger joined the attack, sinking its teeth into his arm and clawing his face.Visitors raised an alarm and a zoo-keeper rushed to try and beat back the tigers with a stick. But they let go only when the guys arm was ripped off from the shoulder. “Although one tiger slackened the grip when the zoo keeper intervened, The other did not budge and got away with the hand,” The poor guy was rushed to a Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival. His wife was hysterical. “Oh, God… this is unbelievable,” she screamed, I would have thought she would have cried out "This was predictable, what did she think was going to happen . Back at the zoo, visitors were treated to the sight of a tiger pacing around the enclosure with the severed arm in its mouth, which it later ate. In a wisdom of the ages statement a zoo veterinarian observed tigers can be “very aggressive” . Another visitor to the zoo said that he had learnt a lesson today: “Never try to fool around with a tiger.”

Here is another accident waiting to happen. can anyone believe that a rational thinking human being is going to let a 7 year old boy play with a 20 foot pet python.

Owners of dogs that kill people always say the same thing. " Gee he never killed anyone before" who would have ever thought that an animal like a Pit bull, Rottweiller, Presario or Mastiff, dogs bred for aggression would do a thing like that.

There is an old limerick that goes like this,

There once was a lady from Niger
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger.
At the end of the ride
With the lady inside
The smiles on the face of the tiger.

May I offer the following:
A young boy once played with a snake.
His mother was known as a flake
The python did squeeze
The boy cried "By jeez"
I think someones made a mistake.

I have done some very stupid things in my life that seemed pretty rational when I did them but now that I have a few years under my belt I have to wonder what I was thinking. Fortunately none of them turned out to be fatal.

When I was 5 and 6 and living on the Suffield Airforce base at Ralston in Southern Alberta one of the great pastimes for me and my friends was hunting for rattlesnakes. We scoured the prairie around the base with sticks as our weapon of choice, we had two prime hunting spots. Walking through the thick grass that grew in the ditches because we knew the snakes liked to crawl out onto the pavement to warm up early in the morning and the best spot of all, the local dump. What could go wrong here! Funny thing no ones mother seemed to be worried as we set off armed with words of warning " be careful, if you see one, don't get to close. Hmmm.

We were never to worried about them until one day when we had a substitute teacher who decided to take our Grade 1 class on a field trip across the prairie. All went well until my group of experienced snake hunters found a rattler moving through the grass, our excited shouts brought the pack of about 25 kids running to get a look. The snake did a very snakelike thing, curling up and shaking its tail at the crew surrounding it, at which time things kind of went berserk. Its amazing the effect that a womans high pitched scream of absolute terror has on a crowd of 6 year olds. Suddenly in 25 minds sights of coiled snakes striking out from every bush and clump of grass became a reality and we became a mass of hysterical humanity each trying to work their way to the center of the mob for protection. What a sight we must have been, moving as one all within a 5 foot circle wailing away and making our way across the prairie back to the safety of the schoolyard. True this was a young substitute teacher but surely she must have known this was rattlesnake country and out on the praitie was their favourits place..

My friends and I at about the age of 9 or 10 took up catching and raising pigeons. I had a big box, I put it up on stilts to raise it about 3 feet of the ground as a place for them to nest. Now all I needed was some pigeons so We set off down to Glenmore Dam where pigeons nested in crevices of rocks on the side of a cliff below the dam. Below is a picture, if you went further down the river the cliffs get severe and the rocks extend down to the water. We could see where there was a pigeons nest about 40 feet up the side of the cliff so I decided the only thing to do was to become a rock climber and scale the wall. It was quite a challenge but by taking my time with my face pressed to the wall I found toe and finger holds to inch my way up to the nest. And wow I hit the jackpot so I collected a couple of the baby pigeons and solved the problem of getting thm down by stuffing them inside my shirt which was tucked into my pants. It was about then I realized I had a worse problem, going up wasn't bad because I could look upwards and find cracks to fit my fingers in to keep myself attached to the wall, but descending, no such luck. When you are on a vertical wall you can't get far enough away from the rock to look down, so what to do. Fortunately I had my buddies with me who called up telling me where to move my feet and fingers to reach a hold and slowly I inched my way down. Maybe thats why I am still afraid of heights when I am in a building.

You can't see very well but the railing on the top of the dam is actually a concrete wall about a foot wide. We used to prove our manhood to one another by walking along the rail. I figured that if I fell I would just go into the water and I was a good swimmer. I only came close to drowning a couple of times at the dam and the worst was almost drowning in of all things "shit", pigeon shit that is. If you look at the picture you can see that above the arches there are spaces. Where the arch meets the cement column the center of the column is actually hollow and there is a room with a small doorway leading into each one. We could see there were always pigeons flying in and out of these columns so an idea and a plan hatched. If an group of enterprising boys made a raft so they could float to the base of the arches on the upstream side of the dam and if they cut some long poles that could be used like a ladder it might be possible to get up into those rooms and catch some pigeons. Well it worked and guess who scaled the pole off the raft and was the first to arrive at the mother lode of pigeonville, me, and I couldn't believe what I saw, all kinds of nests. The only problem was they were about 5 feet below the bottom of the entranceway so without thinking the whole thing through I jumped down. The second my feet reached the level of the nests I knew I had a problem because they didn't stop, they kept right on going until I found myself up to my armpits in pigeon shit. Who would have ever thought that could happen. Remember in the old westerns movies when that happened how the hero would push out a stick or a rope and make the rescue. Well I can tell you there was some pretty serious praying going on for Roy Rogers or Hopalong Cassidy to show up, but the best I could hope for were my partners in crime Bryce Saucier and Richard Creelman. It took quite a bit of shouting to explain my predicament and a whole lot more before one of them could bring themselves to leave the safety of the raft and scale the pole to the top of the arch. What a performance, they had to pull the pole up behind them and stick it through the doorway to try and reach me. The pole was so long and the roof of the arch was so short it couldn't be placed straight enough down so Icould reach it, it was way over in a corner But at least now there was hope. I had been struggling in the shit and finally worked myself so I was laying on top of it and with my body weight spread out I didn't sink anymore. But another problem arose. If you lie down try and roll over when you don't have anything solid to press down on with your hands and feet its hard to move. But I found that if I worked my hands and arms into the crap I could get enough resistance to roll over, all I can say is that the experience of being facedown in a room full of shit is exactly what it sounds like. But a happy conclusion was the result as I got to the pole, wrapped myself around it and hanging like some kind of nightmarish looking and evil smelling sloth pulled myself up to the doorway. The worst part in my mind was that I didn't get any pigeons, it was just another day at the office for a 10 year old boy growing up along the edge of Glenmore dam.

About a mile down stream from the dam is the Calgary Golf and Country club, one of my favorite haunts, tobogganing in winter and fishing and caddying in the summer. But it was quite a hike for legs that are only a couple of feet long. One bright winters day my buddies and I decided it was time for a tobogganing adventure so we hiked across the dam and along the far side to the huge hill at the golf course. Losing track of time we tobogganed away until someone noticed it was pretty late in the day so we struck off home. Realizing it was quite a hike home we looked around for a shortcut. Well there it was right in front of us, we would simply cross the river so we set out, problem was although the water was only about three feet deep the current was pretty strong especially when you are tied to a toboggan and a couple of us fell over and submerged, me being one of them. Its funny we never thought much past getting to the other side and never pondered the deeper issues like, how you would feel being soaking wet head to toe in the middle of winter. Fortunately we were a resourceful crew and someone had matches. Being a group who all belonged to the boy scouts we soon had a roaring blaze going. It would have been quite a sight to an observer, a bunch of 10 year olds stark naked hundled around a bonfire with their clothes hanging from improvised drying racks consisting of tree branches and dead trees. It probably would have worked better had we not been in such a hurry but the constant checking by fishing a piece of clothing off a rack with a stick to see if it was dry yet led to far to many instances of someones pants or coat ending up in the blaze which caused a panic to get it out before it was completely consumed. Eventually we were able to get dressed and aside from the crematorium like smell coming from us my only casualty was my parka which now only had one arm connected and a distinct burn pattern on the back. can't remember the result when I got home but I think it was something like, "Did you have a nice day tobogganing", my mother knew that she had raised a survivor. If any of my grandchildren ever read this, here is my message, "You're not allowed to try this".

But not thinking straight is not restricted to just tiger lovers and 10 year old boys, occaisionally even adults of the feminine gender have adventures that don't fit into the category known as "good judgement". Sometimes things that seemed like an Ok idea just don't work out.

A lady thought it would be a good idea to fake her death to find out what the reaction would be by her family. As they gathered around her coffin she suddenly sat upright and said "what the hell is going on" her daughter immediately had a heart attack and dropped dead.

A lady called the poison control center and was quite upset, she had caught her daughter eating ants. The person at the center explained she had nothing to worry about, that ants were not harmful and there was no need to be worried or take her daughter to a hospital. She calmed right down and as the conversation continued she mentioned she had given her daughter some ant poison to kill the ants. I think you had better get her into the emergency room immediately she was told.

Funny but it makes you think that these things were done by ordinary people and sometimes people don't think about what they say.

Mariah Carey said: Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.

Brooke Shields observed: Smoking kills - and if you're killed you've lost a very important part of your life.

Sometimes profound and enlightening thought comes from unexpected sources as highlighted when President Bill Clinton said: If we don't succeed we run the risk of failure. And Philadelphia Phillie Manager Danny Ozark pointed out "Half this game is 90% mental". But do either of those match the astuteness of Washington Mayor Marion Barry who observed: Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country. Kind of makes you want to pick up stakes and move to that paradise Washington DC.
As I was crying and my mother was applying antiseptic ointment to my face I was thinking " I'll bet if I hadn't poked that stick in the hornets nest this wouldn't have happened.

I'm no slouch in the reasoning department. But I have to admit the time I stuck my hand into the fan of a tractor to tighten a bolt I should have known it would have been a good idea to shut the engine off first. And to anyone who doesn't know this, if you stand on a red hot piece of steel with your rubber boots on, it will start on fire and is real hard to put out. Something else, you won't need shoes on that foot for a while because with the size of the blisters that develop, you can't get them on.

I hope someone is paying attention, if you come across a first aid kit with smelling salts in it, don't be tempted to try them out. In case you don't know what smelling salts are they something that is used to bring a person out of an unconscious state. They are made up of a compond called "ammonium carbonate" which kind of short circuits the brain. Another feeling that came close to describing the effect smelling salts have on you was the time I was in the laundry room sitting on a wet floor and I wondered what would happen if I poked a bobby pin into an electrical socket. Anyway I had the unfortunate experience of finding a vial of smelling salts in a First Aid kit my father had brought home when he was in the Air Force. I held it to my nose and took a sniff, nothing. It had been wrapped in a piece of paper, and sure enough there were the instructions. Break the vial in half they said, and place under the nose of the unconscious person. So I thought maybe I'll give this a try, but I was cautious, I broke it and held it quite a ways from my nose and sniffed, nothing, closer, this is nothing I thought so I pushed it under my nostrils and took a deep breath, bad idea, no, worse than bad, in fact probably the worst idea of my life. Bottom line is this don't ever try it the other thing that came close was peeing on an electric fence.

When I got a job playing hockey in Watrous I was around the rink a lot and got to be friends with some of the trades people who were working there. One day the electrician came in with a big tall stepladder to replace the light sockets in the 12 foot high ceiling with flourescent lighting. I noticed he never bothered to shut off the power. I asked about this and he went to great lengths to explain to me how electricity worked and it was perfectly safe so long as you didn't touch the hot wires with something that was a conductor. As he was taking down one of the sockets and the wires were hanging down he came down from the ladder to get a new flourescent light, when he climbed back up the ladder he went to high and the two dangling wires made contact with the top of his head. As he lay on the floor with smoke coming from his hair I couldn't help but think "should have turned off the power".

Around the same time a guy was cutting some two by fours when suddenly the power went out. He couldn't figure out what happened because the breaker was still on. One of the other guys on the crew came over and picked up the cord leading to the saw. "You stupid dummy" he said look what you did, you cut right through the power cord. He picked up the cord that was still plugged in the wall and we all had a good laugh at the dummies expense. the guy holding the cord then proceeded to absently mindedly touch the end of his thumb to the two wires at the end of the cord. It was hilarious as the contact was made and blackened the end of his thumb, everyone thought it was funny how the flesh burned, except him that is.

One of my first jobs was working in a plant that manufactured travel trailers and as part of my introduction to the job I had to go through a training session. One of the girls who worked in the plant was assigned to show me the proper use of an air powered nail gun. She was demonstrating how to use it on an angle to toe nail in two pieces of wood together. Problem was, one of the pieces of wood she chose had a knot where she wanted to nail. When the gun went off the nail deflected off the knot and drove a 2 1/2 inch coated nail into her finger entering right at the end and going straight up into her knuckle. It sounds kind of funny after the fact but at the time it was pretty shocking to see her running around in circles and screaming and crying at the top of her lungs. You would have thought after all the years at the plant she would have known better. But sometimes just like the electrician on the ladder you have lapses of judgement.

Later at the same plant after I had been there for about 4 months I was using a big table saw. I had to change the measurement between the blade and the guide so I shut the saw off. It was big blade so it took a few minutes to stop and I was in a hurry, so I got a bright idea, I would push my thumb against the side of the saw blade and the pressure would slow it down. Lo and behold it was working, but not fast enough, so I increased the pressure, bingo one second there I was with my plan working and the next I was holding my hand with the end of my middle finger on my left hand cut off. What was I thinking?

My brother Malcolm was working as a carpenter and standing on a ladder was nailing facia board around the preimeter of a house, a helper was carrying boards up the ladder and handing them to him. Malcolm had the nail gun hanging at his side when the guy got to close and tripped the trigger with his shoulder. the gun went off and drove a 3" spike deep into his shoulder bone. The guy was in terrible pain so Malcolm rushed him to the nearest hospital. The doctors took him into the operating room to try and remove the nail and patch him up. After about 20 minutes or so he was summoned up to a nursing station where one of the operating room doctors was waiting. Tell me, he asked, "would you happen to have a nail puller in your truck we can't get a firm enough grip on the nail to get it out". So Malcolm headed out to the truck and brought back one of those goose neck nail pullers which did the trick just fine.

Some stupid things can be expected from the young, its not really stupidity just inexperience but as we get older you would think that rational, logical thought would take over. You might think that, but life doesn't work that way and I am a prime example of an adult idiot. For some reason I can hardly bring myself to read instructions, instead relying upon an inborn ability to just know how to do things or ask someone.

When we first moved to PEI something went wrong with our Admiral automatic washing machine, nothing would happen when you tried to turn it on. How complicated can a washing machine be I thought, I can fix this. Now some people with less talent at mechanical things might have started by looking the machine over for obvious and SIMPLE things that could have caused the washer to cease functioning, but not Jim Kinnee. A few hours later as it lay in pieces scattered across the garage floor I noticed a loose wire at the back of the timer which was real easy to fix. But to re assemble the mess on the floor was out of the question as, first, I didn't have a diagram of where the pieces went, second, I had lost some of the pieces, third, I hadn't laid them out in a logical manner that would give me a guide to re assembly and fourth and the clincher, I had applied the Kinnee principle of "don't use force get a bigger hammer" with predictable results.

So what could I do but fall back on what countless millions of my male cronies aroud the world have done for thousands of years. It goes like this and some of you will understand immediately. "Honey" I said "it was broke worse than I thought" no one could have fixed it, I'm afraid we'll have to get another one". Stubbornness is not always a good attribute to have.

Enter the 1978 White Gremlin car with the problem with the clutch. "Take it to the garage" Sharon said " "you don't know anything about cars" and off to the garage it might have gone if it hadn't been the end of the statement " you don't know anything about cars". "Can't be that
difficult I thought, I'll show her". Did you know that its impossible to put a clutch in a Gremlin unless you cut a big hole in the floor of the car. And if you cover the hole with the carpet no one would even know it was there. The job went fairly smoothly and only took about 2 days. But alas, after tightening the last bolt and cleaning up, what would I discover but a couple of substantial looking parts that I had put on my workbench to ensure they weren't lost. Well my objective was met, there they were, but the question remained, "where should they have been after the job was done." and the right answer I'm afraid was , not on the bench. So I pondered the problem and decided that maybe the parts weren't essential after all and started the car up. It moved but there was a problem with the shifter they obviously had something to do with allowing the gears to merge easily, but if you pushed hard it would work. My logic on the Gremiln matter was this, if I put it back together and didn't see where the missing pieces go, who is to to say if I spent another day taking it apart that when I put it back together it would be any different. So here is the solution, "Sharon, it works fine again, but it will be a litle bit stiff to shift for a for a while because of the new pieces" and as with most things in life once you get used to something thats how it should be.

On Jan 1, 1964 at about 12:25 am I made a stupid decision that almost cost me my life. Lets head up to Paynton some one said, they are on slow time so we can make it and bring in New Years again. "Great idea" some of us said, lets go. The problem was that Paynton was 30 miles away and we had to get our coats on and drive across town before we got to the hiway which was only going to leave about 20 minutes to go 30 miles, get out of the car and into the dance hall. What could go wrong, well, a head on collision at 110 mph, a 20 year old boy in a coma from which he woke up from only to finally die from his injuries, a girl whose life was destroyed as her face was ripped off as she went through a window and myself so traumatized that it was 15 years before I could bring myself to get into a vehicle if someone else was driving. Don't you think some one would have said, wait a minute, the roads are icy, its to far, lets forget about gratifying ourselves by trying to do what is foolish and impossible and stay put. The right decision would have been so easy to make.

One of the problems with making poor decisions is that they tend to become habit forming. Some decisions can have instant consequences but for the most part they linger around and it takes years before the true impact of stupidity becomes evident. The most relevant example and the most widespread in early life is not developing good study and work habits in school. Even at an early age most kids have some kind of an understanding that success in life has some connection to how well we do in school. But just like Esau most trade the possibility of a bright and prosperous future away for the immediate gratification of having a good time now.

For older teens and young adults irresponsible behaviour associated with dating and forming the right relationships jeopardize the future of settling down to a stable and fruitful marriage. And for the middle aged the inability to accommodate the needs and desires of their partners leads to the astounding amount of marriage breakdown we see in todays society. And the common thread no matter what the age is that deep inside everyone recognizes the difference between when they are doing right and when they are doing wrong but can't help ourselves. Its the age old struggle between the here and now and the satisfying of the desires of our inner man in the present, or taking the longer road and building towards the future which always seems so far away.

If you want to argue against that, go ahead, but hear what King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived had to say. "Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth"

"Fear God and keep his commandments for this is the whole duty of man . For God shall bring every work into judgement with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil."

Its hard to believe life can be that easy.

There is more than one way to like a horse?

2009-04-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

I grew up in the West, first in Alberta and later in Saskatchewan, so it is only to be expected that horses would somehow have been a part of my life. At a tender age my friends and I used to catch horses off the Sarcee Indian reserve at the West end of Glenmore Dam and ride them with only a chunk of rope for a bridle. We spent days pursuing and cornering horses on the reserve and in a pasture where a nearby farmer boarded horses for wealthy Calgarians. The Indian horses were of undetermined lineage but some of the boarded horses definitely had some thoroughbred in them. It was a passtime enjoyed by a group of friends that all came to a halt when Jimmy Curley took a tumble from one of the thoroughbreds and shattered his arm. Soon the story spread and we were confronted by parents, owners and the farmer and the jig was definitely up, no more riding, we all secretely held Jimmy responsible for being such a wuss and piss poor rider, but what can you do.

I don't know what the cause was, I know it was worthy, but what I know for sure was that for 25 cents I could buy three tickets for draw on a horse. So thats what I did. It was the opportunity of a lifetime for a 10 year old boy, owning your own horse. I could see myself, just like one of the cowboys in the Calgary Stampede parade, it would drive so much envy into the hearts of my friends on the Air Force base where we lived. And sure enough it came true. We received a phone call from one of my dads friends who heard my name called as the grand prize winner on the radio. But all stories don't have the happiest of endings, you see my parents had an issue with me keeping a horse on the base on our 50 by 100 lot, and it was with great saddness I accepted a $25.00 check instead. But it turned out OK as I bought a new 3 speed Schwin bike and my first set of golf clubs with the money.

I had been raised on stories about horses by my mother who in my mind was the Annie Oakley of her time, only better. I knew all about "Biddy" the standardbred that she roamed the prairie on when she was a young girl, with her trusty Remington pump .22 calibre rifle held high with one hand as "Biddy" again raced down the dirt roads out of control. Even her brothers recognized that she had the boss horse and whatever nag they were on just didn't measure up in a race. Life was good until one day when Biddy shied at something and she was thrown into a ditch where the Remington pump came out second best in a collision with a large boulder and she banged herself up pretty good. My grandfather brought some sense to the farm when he decided the horse was to unpredictable and nasty for a kid to be riding. I used to take the old Remington out of the case when we were visiting the farm in Lockwood and try to make it work but the slide on the pump action was just to bent, man it was a beauty to play with. I had a great time down on the farm and had my first experience riding a horse there.

As I look back I realize that my two uncles didn't always exercise the greatest judgement with me. When I was 8 years old and visiting in the summer during haying season I got my big chance and it was something I will never forget. They still used horses for some of the farm work and one day my uncle Don who would have been in his early twenties hitched up two of the draft horses to a hay rake to coil some hay. I of course wanted to go on this big adventure so he agreed and we set out down the road me half sitting and standing on the rake as we headed out to the field. It didn't work out to well when we got there because the rake had a trip that was activated when you pressed on a peddle and there simply wasn't enough room on the rake for us both, so he had an idea. Do you want to ride on the horse he said, Wow, I guess I did, so he hoisted me up onto the horses back which was in full working harness and told me to hang on. What a great time for the first 20 minutes as we plodded around the field putting the hay into windrows but the next few hours were terribly boring and hot. Finally it was time to head home, so down the road we went. Exercising terrible judgement he decided he would let the horses have a run. Everyone has seen old movies of the runaway stagecoach, well thats about what we looked like except that the guy who jumps on the lead horse wasn't a stunt man, it was an 8 year old, frightened out of his wits boy who realized that if he lost his grip of the harness he was toast under the steel wheels of the rake, thats if the hooves didn't get me first.

I had two uncles, Don, the oldest and Neil, and where horses were concerned my uncle Don knew more and had the best judgement and this is after acknowledging that he put an 8 year old in that situation. They used to just roar with laughter when they would tell the story of their father sending them off to Lockwood on a wagon carrying 75 bushels of wheat pulled by a team of horses. The Lockwood grain elevator was about 7 miles away from the farm which made for a long boring trip for a couple of 12 and 14 year old boys. My grandfather had a saying about boys working "one boy, good boy", "two boys, half a boy", three boys, no boy at all" think about it for a minute and you will understand it. The trip into Lockwood would have gone without incident if either one of them had been alone but with two, something was bound to happen. Along the sides of the road in the ditches water collected in low spots and bullrushes grew. If you have never seen a bullrush, they grow about 6 or 7 feet tall with a strong stem and a large brown growth at the top about an inch around and seven or eight inches long. They make great spears and many a boy has spent countless hours tossing them around, so of course it was easy to jump off the slow moving wagon and collect a bunch. After a while the new possibilities of what to do with a bunch of bullrushes gets pretty slim and when boys are bored, strange thoughts enter their heads. If you have been around horses you will have noticed something, when a horse takes a dump it expells a bunch of turds that resemble golf balls, except brown in colour and when the last few are being expelled a horse has the ability to kind of turn its arse inside out to get rid of the last few. And when its last offering drops, the arse kind of retracts and shuts itself up and if you have been around horses much you know they eat about a half bale of hay a day which means many piles every day. So what is a boy to do, there you are sitting on the seat at the front of a wagon, with a 7 foot bullrush in your hand and every 20 minutes a tempting target presents itself, the die was cast, the arse turned inside out and from the seat eager hands inserted the bullrush. What happened next had not been thought through. The arse immediately clamped shut and retracted pulling the bullrush from my uncle Neils hands and sucking it about a foot into the horse. If you watch the chuckwagon races at the Calgary Stampede you can imagine what happened next, except a grain wagon is not built for speed and particularly when pulled by a crazy horse who has no idea of what is happening to him except that its not good and its scary. The wagon hit the ditch, and overturned, the pole hooked to the wagon broke and a wild eyed horse galloped and kicked its way down the road. I can only imagine the stories of how to explain what happened and leave the boys in a good light that were tried, but the long and short of it was when the horse was eventually located by my grandfather and discovered with a seven foot bullrush protruding from its arse nothing would get them off the hook.

Behind the barn at Lockwood there was a corral with a fenced off pathway that led to the door. My grandfather used to buy wild horses that had been caught in the foothills of Alberta and have a full boxcar shipped to the farm at a time. My uncle would break the horses to saddle and they would then sell them off. He got very good at riding and it was his plan to compete in the bucking bronc event at the Calgary Stampede. He was on a horse one day in the corral breaking it and the horse suddenly took off and ended up running into the barn where it continued bucking. My uncle was hurt badly by the horse in the barn when he crushed the ankle on his left foot, he was never able to ride quite the same again and didn't make it to the Stampede.

When I went into Grade 11 I had to attend school in Battleford which meant a long walk every morning or riding a horse up to the Drummond Creek school and leaving it in the barn for the day. Trouble was my sister had a horse and I didn't and since I wouldn't ride on the back of the horse usually I walked. Sometimes one of the neighbours kids would pick me up if they were riding alone. One of the only times I rode behind my sister we were almost seriously injured. We were late to get to the bus that morning so I rode behind her. It was late in the fall and the ground was frozen and there was a skiff of snow on the ground. Because it was cold I was wearing 2 pairs of pants and the ones on the outside were a kind of canvaslike material. As soon as I got on the horse I felt uneasy because the pants were so slippery and we never even owned a saddle so everything was bareback. The horse was galloping full out when we came around a corner at the top of the second ravine and I lost my balance with those pants on because I couldn't get a grip, so off I went onto the frozen ground at about 35 miles an hour. It made for a very unhappy time with all the skin lost and the bruises I received, never rode behind her again.

Whenever she would stay home or stay overnight in town then I had the horse to myself and he was a good one. There were 4 boys around my age that lived nearby and there was nothing we liked better than a good horserace. A couple of events stand out. One spring day when the ground was thawing out and we were heading home we headed into a field of Stan Carletons that had been summerfallowed the year before and there was about 4 inches of mud on it. We started racing, Gerry McNabb and I had horses that were pretty evenly matched, so we were neck and neck in the lead. We could hear Gerry Mants screaming at us to stop so we checked up a bit to see what was happening. Poor Gerry he rode an old ploughhorse named "Dynamite" who couldn't keep up but would try, the mud flying off the hooves of the lead horses completely covered him.

You have to understand that horses are a herding animal and their natural instinct is to travel together, thats what "Dynamite was trying to do, keep up with the other horses and Gerry couldn't hold him back. being the good buddies we were we slowed down just enough that Dynamite could stay about 20 feet behind us, right where the mud was the thickest being thrown off the hooves of our horses. We circled the field several times with Dynamite and Gerry in tow until they both looked like the kid from "Slumdog Millionaire" when he fell into the pit of shit.

I did get hurt a few times with horses though so it wasn't always a good time. Gerry Mcnabb and I were racing once and he was on his sisters horse "Tango", a big buckskin that was a bit faster than mine. We headed off the road at full clip down a ravine where the horses were almost out of control, ahead was a narrow opening into some trees that as just big enough for one horse to get through. Just as my horse going full tilt was about to jump the small creek at the bottom a sheet of old newspaper caught in some brush moved with the wind and my shied sideways. I left the horse headfirst and ploughed in a bunch of willows. Thank goodness I didn't hit a large tree head on but the willows were about two inches thick and were in a cluster. When I hit them a branch went through my pants just below my belt and I got hung up upside down about 4 feet off the ground barely conscious. I was hurt so bad I couldn't get myself out of the trees where I was hanging upside down. Finally as my head cleared I realized how bad a position I was in, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get my belt undone but after a while I was able to slip out of my pants and fall to the ground. Gerry didn't realize what had happened so he just headed on home. Again, no broken bones but it took a long time before I could walk without pain. Makes me wonder somtimes if some of the injuries I received when I was younger that I am paying for them now.

My uncle Donald, of hay rake fame loved horses and had one of the best trained horses I ever saw. It was a quarter horse named Laddie that eventually became my sisters horse. If you told him to stand at attention he would stretch out which lowered his back by about a foot making it very easy to get on him. he was a wonderful horse around cattle and could cut them out of a group and keep them separated pretty much by himself. I was riding him one day when we were moving some cattle across a summerfallow field. A big tall steer decided to take off in the wrong direction and I set off at full speed to bring him back. When we caught up to him I brought the horse alongside and had the horse lean on him to turn him back to the herd, and it worked for a while until the damn steer cut in front of the horse and stumbled. The horse got tripped up and did a cartwheel over the steer with its 4 legs pointing to the sky, Iwas thrown off of course landing on my back just in time to see a thousand pounds of horse coming down on me. Its back landed so close it brushed the side of my head, there is an old Saskatchewan expression of buying the farm, well I came a couple of inches away from buying it that day.

I finally bought a horse of my own when I was in Grade 12. It was a tall rangy black gelding with a pronounced backbone which made riding him something like sitting on a 2 x 4 on its edge. But at least it was dependable transportation. I paid $15.00 for him from an Indian on Sweetgrass reserve and kept him for a couple of years. Once the government put a road by our place I was able to graduate to something with rubber wheels and didn't ride much anymore except to work cattle. So I sold "Chief" back. I ran into the Indian one day in town and he asked about the horse and by the end of the conversation he agreed to buy him back. The buy consisted of a trade, a load of treated fenceposts for the horse. So I delivered the horse and in the spring he was going to get the posts. I kept in touch and one day I arrived with the truck for my posts. They are out in the woods he said, so we set off.

A source of income for a lot of the Indians on the reserve was cutting and treating posts with bluestone in pits. They would cut the posts and set them up in a big hole they would dig in the ground. Into the hole they would pour a few barrels of water mixed with a copper sulfate. The posts would absorb the mixture and when the tops turned blue they were done. We drove along a trail in the bush for a few miles until we came to a pit full of posts so we loaded them up. I found out later that they weren't his, we had driven until he found a pit with no one around.

After we got married Sharon wanted a horse so I traded a steer to a neighbour for a 2 year old palomino which we kept until we moved to BC. Sharon gave the horse to her sister Peggy who rode him for about 20 years.

We had some dutch neighbours, Martin and Johanna Rumpf that we spent quite a bit of time with. A visit usually consisted of lots of coffee and conversation, helping with chores and of course a big meal. The centerpiece was quite often a huge Moose roast. If you haven't eaten moose before it is quite lean, dark and more taste than beef, cooked like a pot roast with onions and carrots its great.

After several years of these feasts Johanna told Sharon one day, it isn't really moose, we just say that, its horse. Quite a look on her face as Sharon stopped chewing and removed a big hunk of roast from her mouth and stared at the remains of "Old Dobbin".

Yes, Johanna said, we buy an old horse from the stockyards every year and do it up ourselves.

I have to admit of all the horses I was around, I liked Rumpf's the best.

When news becomes entertainment

2009-03-14T13:14:00.000-07:00

I am tired of listening to non-news items and think its time for most news shows and channels to cut back. Its a phenomenon that has been building for years, the need for news items to fill up 24 hours a day. What was once taken for granted as life is now sensationalized to become entertainment. When I turn to the news, I want real news, "China Declares war on Japan", now thats news, Man bites Dog is not. I guess everything that happens is news to someone but please come up with a definition that separates the wheat from the chaff.

There are so many sources now and they have an appetite to fill up air time and there is only so much news to report that is real news. I just read an item that made me realize how desperate the networks are to avoid dead air.

Somewhere in BC a wheel fell off a bus and the sidebar was that it happened as students were heading home to start their spring break. This made the headlines!!. All I can think is that I could have been a media star, a real contender for news maker of the day had I only been born in a different time.

When I was going to high school I had about a thirty mile drive from where the bus picked us up at the old Drummond Creek school to take us into Battleford. We were a mixed lot of high school students and as we got closer to town we picked up some younger kids because they didn't have a one room school anymore.

Our bus driver was a fireman from North battleford who was working a second job to make ends meet. He worked shifts and you could tell when he were coming off an all nighter by the way he hunched over the steering wheel trying to stay awake. We had some interesting incidents that I am sure would make headlines today. How would this be for a catchy headline "Bus Driver falls Asleep on Job, 15 students narrowly escape death, or its follow up story "Bus Driver Falls Asleep for Second Time in Year". Wow we could have made the national, and been interviewed on everything from Larry King to Mike Duffy because this happened.

He really new how to burn the candle at both ends. We called him Billy Buffalo because in the winter he had one of those big furry buffalo coats the Mounties used to be famous for. He made for quite a sight when he was at the wheel of the 1948 GMC bus we called home for about an hour and a half each day. He had a habit of putting his hands together and hunching over the wheel so that the steering was done more with his forearms than his hands. It was also a good position to rest in, if you were suffering from the two maladies he was afflicted with, first lack of sleep from working all night, second lack of sleep from partying all night. We liked him because once the Hanterman kids were dropped off (Grades 1, 2 and 4) there was only high school students left on the bus and chaos was free to enter the world. We knew that we couldn't swear or enter into objectionable behaviour while the little kids were aboard, it was a kind of a code we followed.

Enter the sins of Billy Buffalo that made our little ship newsworthy in todays headline hungry world, and what newsworthy sins they were, driving while under the influence, driving while asleep and thirdly driving a bus that at times only had three wheels. But Billy also had talent, particularly on mornings when the smell of stale Seagrams Rye Whiskey enhanced by a raw throaty smokers cough greeted us as we boarded our yellow chariot to higher learning. His talent was that he could drive at all times with his foot to the floor and keep the bus with its half steering wheel of play between the ditches, while reaching maximum velocity in each gear all the way into town. And to make it even more awe inspiring, he did it on a gravel highway and when drunk or hung over could reduce the travel time by about ten minutes as he desperately headed for his lair and some much needed sleep.

We never had an incident when he was in that condition and the best headline that could be expected might be "Drunk Schoolbus Driver Sets new Speed Record Between Drummond Creek and Battleford", wonder which part the news group would hone in on, the drunkedness or the speed?

It was a different story though when he fell asleep, even a talent as large as Billys couldn't keep the bus out of the ditch. But he did have the uncanny knack to keep the wheel straight on the two times he tried taking a different and unsanctioned route to get his charges to safely to good old Battleford. The first time could have happened to anyone, how could anyone asleep at the wheel have known about the 90 degree turn about 400 yards from where the bus on the road from Drummond Creek would meet the highway. It was a magnificent effort as slumped over the wheel, sound asleep, forearms locked, he kept the bus going straight ahead into Nyholts field where after regaining consciousness he made a circle through the wheat back onto the road and on our way without missing a shift change. The second time we were once again saved by the iron grip of Billys forearms as he sped through the dead end where Hantermans road met the highway and we were able to experience the thrill of ploughing across a foot of snow before coming to rest about 100 yards into Stan Carletons field. What a talent the man had for safe driving while sleeping.

But back to our headline story about the missing wheel in BC.

As you left the sand hills on 29 highway heading towards Wilkie the road was straight as an arrow and entered a slight decline that lasted for several miles, a natural spot to make up time. The old bus could really get rolling on this stretch. And on two ocaissions on this same stretch the old 48 GMC decided to part company with the left front wheel. Now the funny thing was that you would think the left side of the bus would drop onto the ground and dig in, but that never happened. It dropped a bit and touched ground, but rather gently. I can still remember watching the wheel speeding down the highway all by itself at 65 miles an hour until as it was almost out of sight when it made the ditch on the left hand side and headed out across Tommy Yeonans summerfallow field. A pack of us headed out to retrieve the wheel and after locating it about 300 yards off the road and a half mile down the highway we rolled it back to the bus. Being a resourceful type Billy had the bus jacked up and had removed lug nuts from other wheels to come up with enough to firmly secure the front wheel back in place. After a cautious drive for a few miles to test things out we were once again back up to speed. Second time was similar except the wheel coming to rest was more spectacular as it headed out at an angle from the bus into the ditch and when it came to the bank at the other side became airborn after taking out a fence and crashing through some trees, it was very exciting.

I think at least one of those items would make the headlines today, but we seemed to take it all in as "business as usual".

Bring back the Lash.

2009-03-03T06:34:00.000-08:00

I have a very unpopular opinion on how to prevent crime and vandalism in our youth and those engaging in drug offences.

I think we should have public adminstration of justice once a week. In the wintertime it could be held on the main stage at the Confederation Centre of the Arts to allow people to come in from the cold. In fact I think we could even turn it into a tourist attraction and make a few bucks. I even have some candidates for the first show. Over the past weekend some delinquents drove around town smashing windows in cars and houses, there were quite a few that were reported and details are in the paper, and Miles and Renae's car was one that had a smashed window.

So these guys are caught, now here is how our present system works. Apprehension, where they are brought in and interviewed, followed by possibly a day in court or more likely a settlement where they have to apologize. If they go to court they might get a fine with no follow up as far as collection goes, maybe visit a probation officer a few times. The bottom line is that there is no real punishment and and no real consequences for what they did, the only consequences are to the victims.

Now here is my solution. Shackle these little pricks for their appearance before the court of public opinion, do a little advertising because I am sure these same guys have built up a reputation with a lot of people. Lead them out onto the main stage in front of the townsfolk and read the charges, give them an opportunity to explain why they decided it would be a good idea to go out and smash a bunch of property belonging to people who they never even met. Maybe they will have a good explantion (laughter). Read what the results of this mayhem was, how it affected people etc.

Now the good part. Bend them over a nice strurdy bench and drop their pants enough to expose their buttocks. Bring a husky policeman with about a 5 foot cane. ( It would be therapeutic for the cops to, because finally they would see some justice dealt out) I think about 6 solid strokes for an offence like that would be fine, enough to make sure the humiliation was matched with the appropriate amount of tears and crying. I say 6 strokes because thats what the Singapore court, who have experience in these things dealt out to the American kid who went on a car scratching spree while visiting that country got.

Remember the incident in Singapore that got all the Americans worked up when an American kid was caught scratching cars with a key. The Singapore court sentenced him to 6 strokes with a cane. Even President Clinton tried to intervene. The Liberal press went wild, the talk shows had fodder for a week or so and the editorial pages were filled with protests. Funny thing is, Singapore has virtually no crime and no vandalism, streets are clean, citizens are safe, its a nice place to live. Children excel in school in a environment where they can learn because there are no spoiled brats that are allowed to get away with mayhem. Compare that to here, lenient courts, schools can't discipline and when a little prince or princess cracks someone with a stick a vicious timeout is administered followed by a counselling session to get hostile feelings out and a dish of ice cream. No wonder we have so many youth that are an embarrassment to themselves and their families.

Like I said it could become a tourist attraction and would bring a sense to the thousands of victims of senseless crimes that maybe there is a bit of justice left in the world. As far as a deterrence method, do you think it might make them think about whether the pleasure they got from smashing something was worth the pain of having a blistered ass.

In the summertime we could move it to Saturday nights at the Charlottetown Driving Park. Might help build up the crowds and maybe we could get it simulcast as I am sure there would be lots of frustrated people who got completely screwed by the court system when they were victimized that would tune in.

So there you have it, I rest my case.

Me and the Duffster

2009-02-14T08:22:00.000-08:00

There has been a story on Prince Edward Island recently that has been getting a lot of play. During his maiden speech in the Senate Mike Duffy made a comment about the Premier of PEI agreeing with the Premier of Newfoundland and he used what he thought was a witticism to make his point.

It went something like this, he suggested P. E. I. Premier Robert Ghiz may get the "shaft" by getting in bed with the Premier of Newfoundland, Danny Williams, and that the sight of two politicians in bed is "a grotesque scene." On the Guardian and the CBC websites the postings are about equal and generally fall into two categories.

1. Some think its funny and tell the others to lighten up, it was an obvious attempt at humour to illustrate a point.

2. Others think it was unforgivably offensive and think Mike Duffy should resign or be kicked out of the Senate.

I tend to agree with the first and mildly think that at the very worst it was an error in judgement, but only because of the climate of political and every other kind of correctness prevalent in society today. I have to ask the question, why have we progressed to the point where the expression of a simple point of view brings such a personal and righteous attack. Surely to God anyone reading the full text can understand that it was simply a metaphor used to describe Danny Wiliams sometimes outrageous and confrontational behaviour and that anyone who gets to close to him will surely be tarred with the same brush. Here is a sample from the Guardian blogs on the issue.

Donna from Alberta writes: Good for Duffy for telling the scandal mongering media to get lost. It is about time someone did it and Duffy is just the person to do it.

Ron Blacquierre from Stratford, PEI writes: Mr. Duffy is turning out to be nothing but an unelected blow hard who was appointed by the PM to act as one of those little yappy dogs that nip at your ankles.

Mervin Hollingsworth from Saskatoon, Sask. writes: This is typical of the media in Canada. They are like a pack of mad dogs with a bone.

Taxpayer from Charlottetown, PEI writes: How do you spell disappointing. D U F F Y

I am afraid that I am like the Duffster, totally understand him, and am going to wander through life with a puzzled look on my face wondering "what the hell was that all about". If everyone fits into one of the two camps I wonder as I draw my last breaths if I will think "I wish I thought the opposite", I don't think I will, and I don't believe I was bad person because if it. It depresses me though that this is where we find ourselves.

Lets Blow Some More Money

2009-02-13T11:45:00.001-08:00

Its always the same thing when it comes to education, just like in Montague. Put up a new building and it will mean a better education for the students, problem is the two don't equate.

The issue is the methods we use to educate our children, not the facility they attend. Until we are able to grasp with the issue, that in our education system, the quality of a childs education is largely dependant upon the quality of the person at the front of the room. Until we deal with that no progress towards excellence in education will be made and all we will have, is another $20 million of taxpayers money spent on another building.

There is not one single person on PEI, who when examing the years they spent in school cannot divide the teachers they had into about three categories.

1. Those teachers that were able to excel in bringing the best out of their students and ensuring they learned something from their time spent. (Good teachers)

2. Those teachers who drew a paycheck, had a job teaching, did not inspire anyone and never pushed anyone towards anything but mediocrity. (Mediocre teachers)

3. Those teachers who were unable to really get to grips with creating a classroom in which kids could learn anything. (Bad teachers)

And if people are honest, anyone can look back and put names to the teachers that fall into each category.

My Grade 12 teachers:

The first was Mr. Buglas who excelled at seeing that everyone in his class learned and enjoyed the experience. He taught history and English, he was pretty strict but everyone respected him and enjoyed his classes. (Good teacher)

Another teacher Mr. Huculak was well liked because you never had to do much, and he inflated grades. He taught Chemistry and Physics, he told interesting stories to pass the day, but nobody learned much, and no one did well on departmental exams. (Mediocre teacher)

Then there was Mr Frizzel, what a piece of work, mad all the time and frustrated with the students, had a mean streak and just couldn't get the concepts of algebra and triginometry across. (Bad teacher)

We all have had a string of teachers that fell into one of these categories, and your school career pretty well parallelled the hand you were dealt. If you had the misfortune to get a bad teacher in a subject like math or english, then you didn't have a good foundation to build on when you were shuffled along in the system. I was lucky enough to be able to get through school whether I had a teacher or not as I was a pretty good student, but what a tragedy for those who had learning difficulties and ended up leaving school after Grade 9.

Here is my teacher scorecard:

Grade 1 - Mrs Whitney - I lucked out, she was a grandmotherly woman who loved children and had the patience of Job (Good teacher)

Grade 2 & 3 - Mrs Lemon - I think she had some family problems, because its the only thing I can come up with that would explain her little breakdowns, she left about 3/4 of the way through the second year for reasons that weren't discussed around children, but she was still OK (Mediocre teacher)

Grade 4 - Miss Meintz, all the boys were in love with her and tried really hard to please, because she was cute and nice, and worked real hard at helping us along. (Good teacher)

Grade 5 - Miss Johnston, I believe she was really Adolph Eichmann in drag, spiteful, unbalanced and scary, with a bony chest from which two long cucumber shaped breasts drooped that gathered in a pouch just above her middle. I know from personal experience because she always picked me out and hugged me hard, pressing my nose into the depression between the vegetables aaaargh!!! If only it had been in a residential school, I could have been set for life. (Bad, No, Really bad teacher)

Grade 6 - Miss Dean, was not really a teacher, she was more of a bundle of nerves wrapped in a 200 pound body, who lived life as a character in a soap opera, there was a lot of drama here, and the class spent a lot of time blinking, with a stunned look on our faces wondering, what the hell is she talking about. But I have to sympathy with her, she didn't do well in the lottery. She ended up with flaming red hair and buck teeth, kind of reminded me of a beaver wearing a Ronald MacDonad wig. (Bad teacher)

Grade 7 - Miss Thomas - A Sergeant major of a woman who reminded you of Miss Hathaway from the Beverly Hillbillies, there was no time for fooling around in this class, but you were going to learn, and learn well, whatever it was she was trying to get across, and as a side benefit, you learned how to jump to attention and click your heels together when she entered the room. (Good . No, an excellent teacher)

Grade 8 - Mr Brock, bless his soul, was a dear man who was in his retirement year, was completely worn out and was not in good health. A short rotund man, he would actually settle back in his chair and fall asleep, we liked him so much the class would be quiet so we didn't wake him. I don't recall him actually teaching us anything for an entire year. The Principal understood this so he would rotate himself and Mr Van Der Geer in and out of our classroom to help out and at least conduct a few classes. (No teacher - he didn't fit any other category because he just didn't teach.)

Grade 9 - I moved schools three times that year so can't remember anything.

Grade 10 - Mr. Cairns, once again I really lucked out, he was a no nonsense, but funny intelligent man who could teach anybody anything and made every kid in his class feel special, if ever a person was born to be a teacher, this was your man (Good, No an - excellent teacher)

Grade 11 - same people as Grade 12

So thats it
Good teachers 5
Mediocre teachers 2
Bad teachers 3
No teacher 1

This probably approximates what the experience was for most of us.

Now here is the kicker, I can say that the type of building that housed the schools had zero effect on my education. Grade 1,2 and 3 were spent in renovated barracks on an Air Force base, no gymnasium, but we had a big schoolyard. But what a wonderful place, there was a big depression in the playground that filled with water every spring and formed a big pond, we all dragged hunks of wood to school and constructed primitive raft things where that we could play pirate on. The school was nice and warm though and we had time to dry out between launchings.

Grades 4 through 8 was in a school that reminded me of Belfast, except the gym was in the basement and was about 1/3 the size of the one in Belfast, but only had an 8 foot ceiling.
Grade 9 started in Richmond Hill in a huge three story old brick building, continued in a sprawling Junior High with lots of facilities and ended in a large Grade 9-13 school that had 14 grade 9 classes. Grade 10 same place.
Grade 11 and 12 was in Battleford, an old three story building with Grade 4 and 5 on the first two floors and 10 - 12 on the third. I never questioned why the odd configuration of age levels but I don't ever remember it causing any trouble.

Sure new buildings are nice but all they really are, is monuments to those who pushed, worked, and argued enough to carry the day. We see this in the exercise that took place in Montague and is underway in Souris, but its folly, because the momentum is kept up by the notion that a big new school = better education, repeated with the same conviction as the ancients who insisted the sun revolves around the earth.

It has been proven time and time again that charter schools that have the flexibility to introduce learning methods which transform the role of teacher, to facilitator of learning, turn out children with measurable higher levels of educational achievement. But unfortunately this challenges the status quo and promotes fear mongering by the educators whose ox is being gored.

As for a K-12 school, excellent idea you can even go and see it in action at PEI's #1 education facility for turning out achievers, Grace Christian in Charlottetown and it works very well.

As for older buildings being renovated or added to, absolutely the way to go. Seems to work fine for Oxford, Harvard and The Sorbonne where if you tried to tear down old buildings you would be drawn and quartered, and they seem to turn out some pretty fine minds from buildings hundreds of years old.

A successful school isn't the building, its the people in it.

Unsolvable Problems

2009-01-26T09:05:00.000-08:00

I am realizing more and more as time moves along that there are many problems associated with every part of the human experience that are simply unsolvable. There is an old saying that contains a lot of wisdom about the circumstances of life that says " what cannot be changed must be endured".

Every day we are forced to endure many things, and for the most part they are not endured with the understanding, they cannot be changed. So I have to ask the question, is it better to face each day with blissful optimism, only to be disapointed with reality as it unfolds in our our lives, than to begin and end each day, knowing that we have no control over improving many of the situations we are confronted with. Most of us seem to choose a path somewhere in between and accept what happens on a daily, weekly, yearly and in most instances for a lifetime without any kind of self determined strategy to bring measured joy to ourselves and others. .

Dr. Phil identifies on a regular basis, a habitual failing with most people that describes how we take action to solve the adversity in our lives, its a simple saying, "hows that workin for ya" is one of his favorite and earthiest bits of wisdom . He is of course reffering to what action we take to solve the personal or interpersonal issues that bring us unhappiness or frustration. What he is saying, is that lemming like, we take a plunge over a cliff each day with a smile on our face, that is until the last moment, when the ground gives way beneath our feet and whoa !! its happening again, we're stuck in Groundhog day.

What he is reffering to is the fixable things in our lives and how we don't utilize learnable strategies to turn the situations around. But I find it somewhat depressing is that there is a heck of a lot of things going on that can't be fixed, and when you realize that in spite of all the good intentions in the actions we undertake and in the actions of others, some things are doomed to eternal failure.

One of the big things going on that can get me down when I dwell on it, and I think of all the suffering that takes place there is the situation in gaza. I don't know why that should be on my mind anymore than the even worse situations in place like, Somalia, The Congo or Zimbabwe, I guess its just that it is the news more.

Self interest is in the midst of every situation and when it is combined with shortsightedness and a propensity to ignore the effects upon others we find a world filled with human misery . Self interest is present in everyone even Mother Theresa, but thank God not to the same degree in us all, which does leave the tiniest sliver of optimism that although we can't solve every problem, at least in some situations a degree of civility will somehow make its way to the surface and we can create at least a hairline of separation between ourselves and the beasts of the jungle, but too many can't or won't control the urge to place self first. Its a spin off from original sin and the root of most of the despair in the world, but sometimes there are even a bigger force at work.

During the recent strife in Gaza I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what the moves would be to bring some kind of resolution to that conflict and to clearly form some opinions that might give me a clue as to what the best possibilities could be. Its a complex issue and when you try and identify the factors driving the passion of the combatants on each side be prepared for a long list. The problem is that when you start heaping the grievences on the two sides of the scale it eventually collapses over the sheer size of the wrongs that each side can compile. The standard line of thinking in the West and in the more moderate Arab states is that this has been precipitated by Hamas by its continual firing of rockets into Israel since 2005 when they took control of the Gaza strip, and Israel has every right to respond militarily to protect their citizens against this act of aggression. But the Palestinians and their allies put the case forward that the nation of Israel as created by the United Nations after the Second World War is on Palestinian land and they have no right to be there. You would think that after 60 years they would have been able to come to some kind of reasonable agreement to preserve peace and allow peoples on both sides to live in some kind of harmony together. Finally I have come to the conclusion that the situation in the Middle east is an "unsolvable problem".

There is no definitive starting point that can be agreed upon from which negotiations can begin, and without it, both sides are doomed to positions of self proclaimed and deeply felt righteousness. A lot of effort is being put into it but in the end nothing is going to work and self interest and something even more powerful will continue to drive the conflict.

The root cause seems to come from the question,Who owns the land? But you can't solve this without determining, when was ownership established and what is the authority that makes the ownership legitimate? If you have a desire to give yourself a massive headache and waste a large portion of your life then proceed to try and figure that one out. I gave it a bit of a try and found myself wound up with the Amelikites, Hittites, Assyrians, Philistines, Turks, Romans, Crusaders, Refraims, Amorites, Zumins, Emims, Shinarites, Elasarites, Israelites, Samaritans, Mamraites, Greeks and a hundred others who possessed and claimed all or part of the land at one time or another. My best guess would be that there are about 500 clans, tribes, warlords and nations that are involved in the Arab - Israelite dispute.

But if we think about it, whats the difference between the situation in the Middle East and that of every other land mass that people occupy throughout the world. The difference is that most nations somehow figured it out, and in many cases from a history that is even more complex than what we find in the Holy Land. The Middle east should be a piece of cake compared to what the situation in China was, with hundreds of dialects, kingdoms and religions to pull together but somehow they did it. Europe wasn't much different and although they didn't consolidate into one nation they somehow have come together as a community of nations after exhausting the options of having one dominant force. I have come to a conclusion, Societies, individuals, groups, clans etc that live in close proximity to each other, can find success, and peace, and harmony, by putting their individual self interests aside and reaching compromises. Those living in close proximity to each other that remain entrenched behind their self interest positions are condeming themselves and others to lives of chaos.

I resolved the problem for myself by taking a look in the bible and discovering the answer is as old as time. and is found in the book of Genesis. It seems that the situation is continuing to unfold exactly as it is always been. When God determined that Ishmael was to be borne by Hagar and become the father of the Arab nation he came into the world with a pronouncement from God.

The angel of the LORD said to Hagar, "Behold, you are with child, And you will bear a son; And you shall call his name Ishmael, Because the LORD has given heed to your affliction.

He will be a wild donkey of a man, His hand will be against everyone, And everyone's hand will be against him;

And so it has been for thousands of years and will continue to be until the end of time, an"unsolvable problem" as defined by human standards.

Erins Drivers License

2009-01-24T06:06:00.000-08:00

I'll just leave the story about me getting my drivers license.

So the system is like this, take a drivers ed course, get tested to make sure you are not blind, can read signs, answer questions, take a written test, wait a year to get a drivers test, then for the first time you have a license graduated restrictions are put on you for a year. Not quite like it was when I got my license, how times change.

When I was 18 I woke up one morning and as it was raining, couldn't get any farm work done, so out of the blue I called the Government in Wilkie and said I wanted to get my drivers license, Ok they said come on in, so i trekked off to Wilkie located the office and got parking spot right in front of the door. I went in told them what I wanted and someone set me down at a desk gave me a paper with a bunch of driving questions on it and said "answer these and then give me the paper back". Seemed simple enough, I finished, turned it in she checked off the answers and said "good, that will be three dollars". I produced the money and she did her thing and gave me a slip of paper with my name on it.

Great I thought until I looked at it and it said - beginners permit, "wait a minute" I said "I wanted my drivers license". "Oh" she said, "well now that you have your beginners permit you can learn to drive" but I replied "I already know how to drive, I've been driving for a long time. I came in for the driving test. "How did you get here" she asked "I drove" I said, "but you can't drive without a license" she responded, "I know" I said, "tha'ts why I came in, to get one. "Well how are you getting home" she asked, "drive" I said, "but you can't drive unless someone who has a license is with you" "really" I said "I came in by myself, my parents were busy". We had hit an impasse.

She went and talked with a guy who came out to see me, "I want to take my driving test now " I told him, "OK lets go" he said. We settled into the car, I started it up and began to back out of the angle parking spot. "That's enough " he said " pull back in". I guess he must have been in a hurry because we never went for the test drive. I have to admit I was kind of disappointed because before I had left to come into town I had had set up a barrel about 30 feet behind the tractor and practiced parallel parking, I wouldn't have minded showing off.

Anyway the girl asked me for another 3 dollars for my license and I tried arguing I had already paid once and didn't want the beginners permit anyway, I felt it was very unfair because I had only had it for 10 minutes, but she wouldn't budge. That was my first introduction to bureaucratic rules, but at least I got my license.

I wonder how my neighbour Susan Mann would make out today if she went in and told them she had been driving a 3 ton truck with 15,000 pounds of grain in the back for her father since she was 11 by sitting on a box placed on the seat. She had to sit on the box to be high enough to see out the windshield but had to slide off it to get close enough to the floor to reach the clutch to shift gears and she used a stick to control the gas. I'm guessing Roger would have had a warrant issued for his arrest, Social Services would have been notified to remove her from the home and a counsellor would have been contacted to get her into therapy for the trauma she suffered.

How times have changed.

Changes

2008-11-26T07:16:00.000-08:00

Its amazing how change creeps up on you. I built a house for one of my daughters last fall and found myself unable to do many of the simple tasks I once took for granted. It soon became apparent to myself that constant climbing up and down ladders was no longer in the cards for me. My days had to be restricted to a maximum of 5 - 6 hours, I simply am not strong enough anymore and don't have the endurance to apply myself to anything physical for any extended period. It came as quite a surprise to me as physical work has always been something that I enjoyed, being physically tired just meant that I would sleep deeply that night. I still sleep well after a day of work but it is offset by the fact that every muscle I used now aches this makes for an unhappy camper. Both Holly and Erin depend on wood as their main source of heat so I decided I would cut about 4 cords of wood for each of them to help them financially through the winter. Again what a surprise, I can only cut and block about a half a cord before I start to wear out. At least I am starting to smarten up though and tried to keep to a schedule of 1 load a day. Anyway its done and hauled and delivered to their yards so I have done my part. The past week I have been putting a partial basement under the house, laying blocks, framing walls etc, just routine stuff found in any construction project. But I am learning to manage myself better. I carry only one board at a time, pace myself, take the time to find a ladder rather than pulling myself up on things, I guess that is what my life has become and there is no use trying to fool myself. It is going to be nice be able to stand up down there rather than hauling myself around like a rat in a vey confined space. The plumbing in the house is all the old galvanized pipe that hasn't been used for about 60 years. I think I will keep it to myself what I find growing inside them when I inspect them after cutting them out when I put in the new pex. I am sure the stuff growing to the walls of the old galvanized pipe will be scary. Am making good progress , finished installing the new furnace and oil fired hot water tank today and just about have the new chimney through the roof. On Friday just before the snowstorm I finally finished and fired everything up. What a treat to have even heat throughout the house. Quite a change for the house as well, after standing here for 184 years with only stoves to heat it, it has finally made it to the age of constant warmth. Now that Sharons mother is living with us I felt it was important that the heat be even throughout the house. It is quite a change living with someone with advanced Alzheimers, as I started working on this blog she has been into my office 3 times in the last 10 minutes asking me if the radio is up to loud and once to find out who I am. She just went into an empty room and is asking no one if the radio is to loud, quite an adventure. It certainly has brought a lot of changes into the house as she requires 24 hour a day watching. Thank goodness for drugs, we finally hit upon a combination that relieves her anxiety which was extreme when she first came last June. She constantly had nightmares about being abandoned or being hit or threatened, very fearful and usually ending up with her standing over my bed crying hysterically. Overall though she doesn't bother me, as I said to Sharon if a person doesn't do their best to care for their aging parents they can't have much character. I remember my grandfather telling me what a change drugs made at the mental hospital he worked at when they began to be used to manage the patients. Individuals who were at one time uncontrollable suddenly became human beings that were able to function. I guess the opposite is also true, as drugs can also turn useful people into shells whose lives are destroyed, strange how it works.

Amalgamation

2008-11-06T06:38:00.000-08:00

I wanted to save this nonsense somewhere and will respond in more detail when I have time.
Guardian Oct 6/2008
Just the facts:Why redraw P.E.I.’s map?The Federation of P.E.I. Municipalities says all of the province needs to be incorporated. It says communities could keep their name and identity, but would be governed by a much larger body.Here’s why they say change is needed:— Municipal governments are underfinanced;— Only 10 per cent of the province falls under municipal land use plans; — Sprawl is expensive, and it costs more to maintain roads, transport children to school, collect garbage, and install and operate water and wastewater systems; — Only 30 per cent of the Island’s land base is covered by a municipality, and most smaller municipalities don’t have emergency measures plans; — Loss of agriculture land;— Land use conflicts;— Car dependent communities;— Environmental degradation;— Loss of wildlife.

Response on the Guardian blog.
wondering about it from pei writes: There are reasons why many people desire to live away from populated areas and I like the choice. It seems our municipality is doing just fine, except that we now have to drive about 40 miles to get rid of a bag of garbage and run trucks up and down our roads every day hauling away what we used to manage by ourselves. Our school was just fine until they decided to amalgamate after grade 9 and drive our kids an extra 30 miles a day. If you understood the shambles the EMO has always been in you would be scared. If something major ever happend, believe me it would get figured out quick enough what to do. Please someone tell me what is wrong with losing some agricultural land, there is no one to farm a lot of it anyway. The minute you try to put a land use plan in place you automatically start conflicts, where there was none in the past. And it is immediately out of date the moment it is implemented. So what is wrong with a car dependant community?? The only environmental degradation I see is where the cities are. That land used to be woods and meadows with lots of birds and animals living where there is now pavement and buildings. Please keep your nonsense about incorporating to yourselves and if anyone chooses to live in a congested area, crowded to gether like a bunch of rats, living lives governed by traffic lights, sewage smells, night clubs, waterfront noise, congestion and a fast food outlet on any corner, well go ahead. I really don't want my property tax dollars supporting such a system, I'll remain living where I have some space and not a whole lot of other peoples rules.

Europe

2008-10-27T14:26:00.000-07:00

I was in Europe for about 3 weeks in September and spent some time in London, Calahonda in Spain and Paris. London was not quite what I expected, especially the old downtown. It was very congested and I am just not used to that, but that was more or less the condition of every city I visited, it only makes sense though, what has to be realized is that these cities were laid out in the middle ages when foot traffic or horse and buggy was how people got around. Down town London has very little private vehicle traffic, it is almost exclusively commercial vehicles, taxis etc. I don't think there is any places to park so I am guessing the traffic is all transient. Its not as bad though as the old Spanish cities as it is newer, the entire city of London was destroyed in the great fire of 1666, by that time the administration of cities was becoming more sophisticated so there was some rudimentary planning took place as the city was reconstructed. We tried a number of British pubs and weren't disapointed with any of them. Funny thing though at The North Star which was just around the corner from the place we stayed at cut the food menu off at 5 o'clock and only served drinks after that.

I would not rent a car in London as the volume of traffic combined with having to drive on the opposite side of the road would prove to be to much for me and the result would be ugly.

Two things about London that need to be seen, St Pauls cathedral and the Tower of London ( which isn't a tower but a garrison and armory). St Pauls was the highlight of the entire trip and is difficult to adequately describe. I had watched a TV travel program recently in which members of a primitive tribe from Papua New Guinea were brought to London. The old chief after touring St Pauls said, "this place could not have been built by man but by God himself", and that just about sums it up. The main dome, which is only surpassed in size by St Peters in Rome was the site of possibly the scariest situation I have ever experienced. I decided I would climb up to the dome and take a peek inside to get an idea of how high you are. The staircase leading upwards is not for the faint of heart it has so many steps but at least it is completely enclosed so you never know how high you are. As you get closer to the top the stairs narrow until it is just wide enough for one person to climb. When I got to the top there is a sign that says you can't go back down the way you came. Instead you have to go through a tiny door that takes you to a walkway that circles the inside of the dome. It is so terrifying to be clinging to the wall with hundreds of feet of open air between you and the marble floor below. I along with some other terrified souls who also no idea what they were getting into pressed against the walls and inched our ways around to the other side and the exit.

The place completely overwhelms you with the height and the magnificent ceilings. I wandered up the middle aisle trying to take things in and eventually made my way to the front of the pews. After passing the pews there is a space of about 50 feet and then about 100 feet of raised seats that are on either side of an aisle before you get to the pulpit. I wandered along until I got to the pulpit, I climbed up and took my position as Archbishop of Canterbury and imagined delivering a sermon from there. It is so far to the back of the church from the pulpit you wouldn't be able to recognize people at the back. I continued my wanderings toward the front where after another 50 foot space there is a raised alter with a huge polished marble slab on a pedestal with three or four steps leading up to it. This is covered by a magnificent ceiling about 20 feet high, something like a huge 4 poster bed with a canopy over it with a mural painted on the inside. I noticed some papers on the top of the alter so started reading them, they were a collection of benedictions. After a while I looked around and noticed a bunch of people were surrounding the alter but they were all 25 feet away and behind these big velvet ropes and were interested in me. It was then a hand descended upon my shoulder and I turned to face a large man in black with a coloured sash draped over his shoulder. "How did you get up here" he asked, "Oh I just walked up the aisle from the back" I said, well you are not supposed to be here he said and prompltly led me out a side door, I got the distinct impression he was not amused.

Watch at Queen Elizabeths funeral and I am sure you will find her coffin laying on top of the marble slab, only very important people get to visit that particular piece of real estate, a club I am now a member of.

The tower of London is much smaller than I envisioned, although it occupies acres of space there is nothing impressive about it. The walls are no more than 30 feet high and the inside is not very fancy. The crown jewels are stored there and you can get quite close to them. I asked about the seeming lack of security and was told we just didn't see it, beheath the floor of the jewel room there is a battalion of soldiers ready to take whatever action is necessary to protect them. At the entranceway there is one of those soldiers with the big high beaver hats that is posted as a guard, similar to the ones you see at Buckingham Palace. The ones at Buckingham are out in the open and are ornamental, you can walk up to them have your picture taken etc. But the ones by the crown jewels are actually real guards and are located behind a barrier that keeps about 15 feet away. I sat down on a bench for a while and did some people watching while I rested my feet. Along came a group of young guys, early twenties I would say, they gathered in front of the guard and were doing " see if you can make him smile routine" one got braver and jumped over the fence to get right up to him, big mistake. At about the same time as his feet hit the ground two guys dressed as beefeaters came out of nowhere and roared at the guy as they ran towards him, scared the daylights out of the whole crew. I had noticed these guys in the traditional costumes throughout the grounds and assumed they were there to create ambience. Apparently I was wrong, and when I asked one of the guides I got the story. The guys stationed at the tower are all ex members of either the British SAS units or the special services divisions of the Royal Marines that are nearing retirement and have a minimum of 22 years service. This is a kind of reward to them by giving them a less strenuous type of posting.

On the side closet to the Thames River there are quarters with some original furnishings where the King lived. I guess that when you consider this is from the 12th century that it wouldn't be very fancy. Stone walls, small doorways and small rooms in the quarters. In one room there is a throne where you can sit and have your picture taken. It is more of a fortress than a palace and the middle where the white hall is it is really just an armory. The British Kings would retreat here during times of trouble. What surprised me was that a one point in history the people of London overran the place during when the King was in disfavour. I can't see how the walls could be scaled and that could happen. There is a very wide moat on one side that is now a field where they have displays of weaponry, but at one time it was filled with water and stocked with fish. The place was designed with the idea that it could be self sufficient during times of siege, so there was areas for gardens as well.

After visiting St Pauls we headed over towards the London Eye which is that big ferris wheel that is located on the banks of the Thames kind of kitty corner from the parliament buildings. To me it looked out of place, here is this old city and particularly in that area is this ultramodern contraption in the middle that looks like a giant bicycle wheel. We had to cross over Westminister bridge to get to it and there were peddlers on it selling what I guess was a local delicacy, some kind of roasted nuts. I think it cost us about $25.00 each for our tickets and it wasn't very busy so we didn't have a long wait. The gondola cars are nice and spacious and made of clear plastic so you get a real good view. I was a bit tentative on going up after my experience in St Pauls about spending that amount of money to terrify myself again, but thought you can't go all the way to London and not go on it. Surprisingly it wasn't scary at all even though we were 430 feet up when the wheel got to the top. I think its because you are eased into it as it revolves slowly taking a full 30 minutes to complete a circuit. There were only 10 of us in our gondola so there was ample room to walk around and take pictures. The other thing I remember about this location was that in the building beside it there were the best bathrooms in London and they were free.

London bridge is pretty big and is impressive, even more so than the parliament buildings. We got some pictures the first evening we were there Not much else though and certainly nothing to compare with either Spain or France.

People are moved around on either a subway, bus or train. And the public systems are incredible, They put me in awe even more so than some of the architecture. It is difficult to imagine the staggering numbers, but the London subway averages 3 million users per day and runs with clockwork precision. If it ever shut down the entire city would come to a standstill. The Paris subway is even more impressive as it moves 6 million a day, both are truly magnificent pieces of engineering and organization. The longest we ever waited for a train was slightly over 3 minutes and that was at about 10:30 one night. Most of the day the trains are on about a 2 minute apart schedule. Once you understand how the sytem works it is very easy to get around. I took a few pictures of the underground escalators to try and get an idea of how far underground you are. Some of the intersection stations are 5 levels deep. It is about 50 feet between levels so you can be down 250 feet hurtling through a wormhole at 60 miles an hour. It is a city on the run, after a while it becomes apparent there are very few people who are overweight. Once Clancey noticed this we made a point of looking for them and although its hard to believe, they simply aren't there. When you are riding the down escalators you actually have to keep to the right as people run down on the left hand side.

We took the subway down to the British Museum and found it in a beautiful London neighbourhood. Streets with fairly modern and stylish apartment buildings and several nice parks between the tube station and the museum. It was the only spot I saw in London that I thought I might actually like to live. The entrance to the museum is quite impressive and has a glass roof that dominates the building when you first arrive. That part is fairly new and was opened by the Queen in 2000 as some part of a larger celebration. When you look at the booty that has been hauled home by generations of British conquerors you understand why the British were hated in centuries past like the Americans are today. I found the museum interesting but static, which is pretty well my impression of every museum ever since visiting the BC Museum in Victoria which in my opinion has no equal. I think the highlight for me was some of the ancient Persian wall reliefs with their huge carvings and the Rosetta stone. It wasn't that the Rosetta stone was impressive but that it was ancient and the fact that it contained the key to understanding hyroglyphics by following translations through Demotic and Greek. I think what I remember most was the restaurant on the top floor which had prices that made you suck in your breath, we ate across the street at a place where we could get authentic English fish and chips served with of all things "mushy peas".

We took in shows at 2 comedy clubs while we were in London. The first one was in a part of town that wasn't in a high real estate district. One of the interesting things we passed on the way to a club was a large hangout for what looked to me to be teenage street people. They spilled out of the bar and were sitting all over the streets with various combinations of coloured hair, piercings, leather and chains, kind of unsettling, not so much from a safety issue but I couldn't help wondering what circumstances brought about what to me looked like a total waste of lives. The Comedy Club was about 4 blocks down what appeared to me to be nothing more than an alley. It was definitely an adult oriented performance by 3 or 4 comics that were starting out and 1 guy who closed the evening off who was pretty polished and was very funny. The club was run down but the food was exceptional.

The day we got back to London we went to another club, this one was in Piccadilly circus which is in the theatre district, it was quite a bit larger and had comedians that were all pretty funny, one of them was the same guy that had closed off at the previous place. I would recommend an evening like this if you haven't experienced one before, very entertaining, but very raunchy. A word of advice, unless you have a thick skin don't sit close to the comedians or you will pay a price by becoming the subject of many of their jokes.

On a number of occaisions I found myself almost to exhausted to enjoy the experience. After spending 4 days in London I flew into Malaga airport, picked up a rental car, found the resort and did some exploring, I completely crashed that night, it was almost like switches that kept my body going had turned themselves off. Its something I am not used to. I had exchanged my time share at Fun Royale for a unit in Calahonda that slept 6. Two bedrooms and a living room with a sofa bed. The first night we were there I told the girls I had to have the room with the queen size bed, even though I was by myself as I had to have a good sleep. I really liked our unit at the Crown Resort in Calahonda, it was the first exchange I had made with our timeshare and it went very smoothly. We were on the 4th floor of a terraced building with a beautiful view over the Mediterranean sea from 2 balconies. It was nice to eat meals outdoors in such a lovely setting.

There is a lot of stress involved in a persons first trip to Europe in trying to adapt and understand how countries operate when what is normal to you is a place like PEI. I found the driving to be a nightmare with the roundabouts in heavy traffic, the lack of signage and the congestion of very narrow streets. There was 2 way streets that only had room for a single lane of traffic. You had to watch at the intersections and try and look down them to see if they were clear before you proceeded. I saw cars parked in the oddest places, including the sidewalks. I don't think I would rent a car again unless it had a GPS navigation system. And I wouldn't rent a car in England under any circumstances as I would instantly kill someone.

What a change from living on the farm in Saskatchewan when a trip to North battleford was a big adventure, living with no running water, dirt roads, outdoor plumbing, house miles apart to finding myself in a luxury apartment with 2 bathrooms and balconies overlooking the Mediterranean sea in the south of Spain.

But when I look back, it probably would have tired out a younger person. Left Palmers Lodge (where I was staying in London) at 6 am to catch the subway from Swiss Cottage station down to Victoria Station, then the train to Gatwick airport for an 11 am flight. Stood in a line for about an hour at Gatwick before making it to the boarding gate. Then a bus out to the plane, and a two hour flight to Spain.

I am getting used to being physically tired but not to the extent that I have started to experience. I think I push myself to much in short spurts and haven't yet adopted a structured regimen to build up endurance and strength on a regulated daily basis.

I am glad I went to Europe though and didn't put it off any longer as I can see that if I don't see and do the things I want to over the next few years I will probably never do them at all. The experience of seeing architecture dating back a thousand years is pretty awe inspiring and humbling. We had visited Marbella and Malaga and toured the downtown and waterfront areas, I have never seen a city I loved as much at first glance as Marbella. The waterfront promenade and beach area right in the middle of a city is so beautiful it makes you feel like you could spend the rest of your life just sitting and watching the world go by. The downtown borders on a beautiful beach, then there is a boardwalk made of marble that extends along the waterfront that is about 10 feet above the beaches. The boardwalk is about 75 feet wide with beautiful landscaping and benches. On the other side of the boardwalk single story shops and restaurants front it and there is a constant flow of people walking and eating, talking and enjoying paradise. Behind the first row of shops there is a service road and then 7-8 story apartments stretching for miles, all with balconies overlooking the beach area and behind the city are beautiful mountains. Then behind the apartments is the commercial area of the city, it is the perfect layout. I could easily see how a person could spend a lot of time there. There would be no reason to go anywhere else.

We attended a bullfight on the Sunday afternoon in Marbella. It was an amazing spectacle that was well worth seeing. I had wondered for years how I would react and enjoyed the whole thing. I hadn't expected it to be so well orchestrated even though I had read Hemingways account in Death in the Afternoon. The music from the orchestra sets the tone as it starts with a well known piece to introduce the bull, which charges into the ring. I was not prepared for the ferocity of the animals. We were close enough to see the faces of the bulls and I could follow what was going through their minds. When they first enter the ring they focus on one of the attendants who is waving his cape and you can see the bull thinking, hooray someone to kill, wow am I ever lucky, then they look around and see the other 2 attendants and you can see the joy on the bulls face. The bull thinks, not just one person to kill but three, life doesn't get any better than this, and then he proceeds attempt to carry out his plan. I now understand an article that was in the program about the Spanish fighting bull. It gave the history of the breeding programs and of the bullfight and then mentioned something I had never thought of. There has been a movement afoot for years to shut down the bull rings and stop the fights. But it said that if this were to occur it was bring about the extinction of the species as there is no purpose for these animals except to fight. They are not beef animals and are far to dangerous to ever allow them to be in the proximity of people. Just like you can't stop a bird dog from hunting birds, a border collie from herding or a waterdog from swimming these bulls are so highly bred their nature is to fight anything that challenges them, its what they do, its all they do.

The fight is so passionate and dangerous that no one feels sorry for the bull. As the fight progresses the music changes and grows more somber until it ends in a dirge as the bull is killed, but at least it is killed doing what it obviously loves to do.

Fortunately when we went into Malaga Erin and Stephen had spent a couple of days there before we arrived so they knew the city. Erin had mapped out a parking garage that would have been impossible to find without local knowledge so the trip in was not the usual harrowing experience that is Spanish traffic. Downtown Malaga is built for people to enjoy life, no big stores, no traffic, just marble streets for pedestrians only, little shops and outdoor restaurants by the hundreds and thousands of people enjoying life at a relaxing pace. It followed the downtown European architectural tradition of ground level shops and 4 stories of apartments above, I could live like this. Not understanding how the city worked yet, I made a mistake as we were going to lunch. I saw a scarf in a store window and thought, I'll buy that after we eat, seemed like a reasonable plan. Except I hadn't counted on the Spanish timetable. Late to get up, open at 10, work until after lunch, then close everything down for 2 or 3 hours and open again at 4 and get ready for the evening shoppers and eaters and strollers who turn out by the thousands after 8 o'clock.

After visiting Malaga in the morning we drove about an hour to the east where the caves of Nerja are located. This was a nice drive along the edge of the Sea with not as much traffic as there is on the other side of Malaga. One of the things I noticed was the number of house that were built on barren hilltops that were a long way off the road and from any neighbours. Most of these houses were quite large, probably better fit to the term Villa with pools and what must have been incredible views of the Mediterranean, and very private, don't know if I would like to live in one or not. I kind of regret that we didn't go right down into Nerja while we were there as when I took the time to read about the town ( after we were long gone it sounded very nice.) It is the location of what is known as "The Balcony of Europe" which is a walkway high above the sea where you can sit and watch the boats go by and just enjoy the views from a height. It also has great views of several beaches which are located just to the sides of the plateau. The countryside of Spain is very different than I had expected. The best word would probably be "brown", Spain is brown. If you have ever driven through the badlands of Alberta around Drumheller then you have seen the countryside of Spain if you can imagine maountains in the 2 - 4000 foot range in height everywhere. There can't be much rain there as the only greenery we saw was where there was irrigation. The hillsides are covered with olive trees, all set out in straight lines and all looking very parched.

When we got to the caves we arrived right a siesta time or whatever they call the midday break so we had a drinkl in a restaurant that had lovely views down to the sea. They had a seafood display on ice with namesattached to the various fish, one variety will never grace my plate no matter how good it tastes, it was so disgusting, it is called "rapee" and the picture is flattering, also known as monkfish.

The caves are pretty incredible and aren't claustrophibic at all because they are so large. As we went through I commented to Justin that it would be incredible to take along a blaster and a CD with the opening to The Phantom of the Opera. As we moved through the caverns we came to a spot where it was set up with seats like in a theatre, I read that they actually have a concert series that takes place inside the caves featuring Symphony orchestras, That would have been the highlight of the whole trip had we timed our visit with a concert.

It was 2 hours to Granada from our place in Calahonda where I got my first eyeful of things majestic and undescribable. We parked by the bus terminal and took the Metro downtown where we got off near the Cathedral of the Incarnation. At first I didn't recognize it as a cathedral as the streets are so narrow you can't really get a good look at what is above you. We decided to have lunch at a tapas bar and low and behold they had paella on the menu which we all had. I went over and watched the cook get my plate which was doled out using a huge ladle from an equally large wok. The paella was incredible, small clams and crayfish still in their shells, saffron and tomato sauce and chunks of chicken thighs, what a feast. There is an online market where you can buy the pans that are used for making paella. As you can see from the photo some of these can get very large and are typically cooked over an open fire.

Across from the bar there were long tables set up alongside the cathedral wall, we discovered it was a combination spice maket and pharmacy with all the ingredients in large bags. They were all plants and spices with explanations about what the plants were good for. Apparently there is no malady known to man that cannot be cured from these bags. The market is squeezed along one side of a street that is only about 25 feet wide and fronts against the cathedral. All of the ingredients are from plants and some are ground up to a very fine powder. What also caught my attention was the bright colours of some of the spices with very vivid reds and greens that looked more like dye than medicine. As we made our way around we eventually arrived at a small square where you could back up far enough to see the outer facade up to the top of the cathedral. It absolutely takes your breath away. It was designed in 1529 and took 181 years to build, the front is 260 feet high with huge granite blocks that seem to rise up to the sky. A fitting resting place for the bones of Queen Isabella and King Phillip 11 of Spain. Inside there are about 75 immense columns of white polished granite that must be 100 feet high that hold up the huge arches of the roof. I can't even imagine how they built it. What is even more amazing is that compared to St Pauls Cathedral in London this building doesn't even come close.

A local gypsy learned a lesson about one particular tourist from Canada called Stephen. Don't try and con him into letting you tell his fortune by handing him a sprig of Rosemary, which is how they get you. If you accept the sprig they will begin telling your fortune and demand money from you. Stephen told them NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

After lunch we made our way up the Alhambra, and I mean way, way up, to the top of a hill that dominates the centre of the city. It was an exhausting hike on a very hot day. Now here is some advice, when you follow the trail from downtown it doesn't take you to the ticket booth, its located down the hill on the other side. Don't try and follow the obvious way from the top of the hill to pick up your ticket because when you get in sight of the booth they won't let you through, you have to walk back up to the top then around to the side of the hill to a path that takes you to the booth. It would have been so easy if they had put up a sign. The site is worth the walk but the administration of the place is terrible, the attitude of staff approximates that of Romenesque waiters. The Alhambra consists of three separate attractions, the Alcazar, which is a big fort or garrison, I climbed to the top and it is scary but what a view. On the one side the white village part of the city which consists of the typical white homes, and on the other a magnificent view of the city and the valley and plains which stretch out into the distance. King Phillips palace which was constructed after the Moors were driven from Spain and purposefully built so that it overshadows the Sultans palace, and finally the Sultans palace which is the main attraction. There is no point in trying to describe the undescribable so I won't even try, if anyone ever reads this look up all 3 on Google images.

After 4 days of exhausting sightseeing the next 3 days were spent relaxing around the pool at the resort which I desperately needed. We went to supper one night in the restaurant on the first floor of our resort and they had Karaoke. Erin and Clancey of course were able to perform at a high level and did a great job. We discovered that if Justin, Stephen and Jim consume enough alcohol they transform into the three tenors and lose all of there natural shyness about belting out a tune in public. Stephen and I hid behind the singing talents of the girls and participated in duets but Justin let them all know he was the King of the karaoke world as he laid the Toby Keith classic on them " I Love This Bar " one of the guests tried to remove her panties and throw them at him but her wheelchair got in the way so her caregiver took her back to her room. The other thing we experienced at this restaurant was a night of "Flamenco". I wasn't overly excited about going , thinking that it would just be another evening distraction to fill an hour or so. Was I ever wrong, besides seeing a bullfight, the other mandatory thing that must be done to really experience Spain is to attend a Flamenco show. It is done with such energy and passion that you are swept along with the perfomers as they weave their story through both song and dance. It was only a small show we saw with 2 mature dancers and a young man as the third. They danced with conviction and intensity, Justin interpreted it as a tale of a woman torn between an old and a young lover and I think he may have been right. Now I would like to see a large show with many dancers and musicians as I know it would be quite a treat.

I took Erin and Stephen to the airport on Wednesday for their flight back to London. I got lost in Torremolinos coming back to the resort and spent an hour trying to find my way back to the A7 highway which was just up the hill but impossible to get to, finally by sheer luck I located a turn off and found it. But this time I was pretty stressed and almost got myself killed a few miles up the highway. The coastal road divides about a mile from where I entered with a two lane highway suddenly turning into 5 lanes. Sounds pretty simple except that the lane that I was in and that went to the left would take you to the AP7 toll highway and the 3 new lanes that branched to the right changed to the A7. When I realized what was happening I ended up caught between the highway to the left and the other which left me stranded in the middle of an expressway with the nose of the car against a concrete meridian and cars flying by at 120 kilometres on both sides. What made it worse was this divide happened just after you came over a hill so I couldn't see if a car was coming on my right until they cleared the hill which was so close that they would barely have time to stop when I pulled out to get back iinto the traffic flow. After 3 or 4 minutes of cars speeding by with their horns blaring at me at me I realized I would have to chance it as the traffic was so heavy, I had to back up to position myself for a run at the fast lane which only increased the pointing fingers and horn blowing. Finally it seemed clear so with pedal to the metal and with a peel of tires which would have done a teenage boy proud the black Peugeot laid rubber and I left pit row and made my return to Daytona. On Friday I took Clancey and Justin to the airport catch a flight to Rome, and decided I would try and find where I would have to return the car to on Saturday when I would be headed off to Paris. Have I mentioned that I hate roundabouts in these congested places. Unless you know where you are going they are very difficult to navigate, not to bad if you have someone to watch for signs because really all the driver can do is try not to hit the cars that are on both sides of you. The car rental place had a map in the car which described where their offices were but alas it just didn't make much sense to me. What showed on the map just didn't add up. So I set out, carefully avoiding getting onto the road to Torremolinos. It seemed that my turnoff was at a round about but after spinning around it a couple of times I just couldn't find what appeared to be an exit so in desperation I hit the panic button. I stopped in the middle of the roundabout and took out my map, as cries of El Stupido drifted from open windows and the sounds of screeching brakes filled the air I studied the map. Finally I determined that a dirt trail that seemed to branch off might be the rainbow I was looking for so I worked my way up to speed whirling around the circle and inching my way to the outside lane until I was able to exit. And after a while of trial and error I located the car rental building and the next morning was able to return the car without incident.

I would recommend Vueling Airlines to anyone, they ran a tight ship and got me into Paris right on time. Charles De Gaulle airport is another adventure and they have a particularly unique way of delivering confusion to the first time arrival. Normally things are numbered in sequence 1, 2, 3 but not the French, for some reason the terminals are laid out 1,3,2 and I cautiously followed the pack through underground corridors and shuttle trains until I located Terminale 3. I had some instructions to catch a specific RBR train to the Chatelet des Halles subway station, a few trains went by but nothing with the number I was looking for. Finally I asked what appeared to be a seasoned traveller who told me all the trains went to the same place so I jumped on the next one that came along thinking that the worst case scenarion would be catching another train back, but things worked out.

I got to my Hotel around 3 pm after spending 30 minutes looking for it and never being more than 200 yards from the entrance and on occaision within 20 feet. Finally I asked a gendarme who pointed to an 4 foot wide alley about 50 feet away. Websites can be deceiving and the Hotel de la Vallee has one of these. It never shows a picture of the Hotel from the outside and the main page has a smiling picture of a casually dressed decked out in a white shirt and blue blazer, creates a nice warm feeling. What a place, the entranceway has a faded sign on a wall announcing to the world that you have arrived at a hotel, but omitted the part that tells you which one. That was left to some letters on a tattered awning displaying the words Hotel de Vallee. The doorman was indeed there, but his uniform had been replaced by a t-shirt and found when you made your way up a dark winding staircase to the second story where a room about the size of a bathroom served as the check in. My room was on the 5th floor was about 16 feet long and so narrow I could reach out and touch both walls. The room had a sink and of all things a bidet in it along with a 12" television a desk and a close closet. There were only 3 bathrooms to serve the 40 rooms and they were located between floors off the side of the winding staircase which were barely wide enough to pass someone on. The Hotel turned out to be adequate and was well run, I was initially concerned that it was a flophouse for whores and their clients but it turned out it was simply a 1 star hotel catering to people just like me who were travelling on a budget. If you wanted a shower I think the fee was 2.5 Euros and you got a key from the desk. It was truly a scary place. The first thing I did was come up with a fire escape plan because if there was ever a fire there was no chance of ever getting out. It was rather ingenius as I devised how I could rip a sheet into strips, tie them together and then by looping them around the iron bar that ran across the front of each room I would be able to work my way down 1 floor at a time to the street and my neighbourhood. And what a neighbourhood it was. Directly across a 20 foot wide street from the entrance was a door with a flashing neon sign above letting you know you were at SEXY PARIS and a poster on the door saying DVD's, giant projection screen and private booths. On one side there was a lebanese style restaurant with a giant hunk of Shwarma (meat) on a rotisserie and a display case full of giant hotdogs smothered with cheese. I noticed these hotdogs in a lot of street hawker stands and when I bought one I discovered that what they did was lay two hot dogs end to end and then fill the piece of French bread they came in with melted cheese.

On the other side another "gentlemens" establishment but with an added feature, a large picture of a scantily clad asian girl with the tag "Come in for A Thailandese massage", guaranteed to completion, whatever that means I will leave to your imagination.

Around this swirled the pandemonium that is Paris on a warm Saturday afternoon. There are so many people, that the Boulevard de Sebastapol which is a major street was blocked off for pedestrian traffic only. Many of the other streets are for walking only and were shoulder to shoulder humanity, this is only a guess but I think there are more restaurants in Paris than anywhere else on the planet. And all full of people sitting on the sidewalks at bistro tables sipping coffee or wine. and this goes on until late at night. These European cities must be wonderful places to live when you are young, the architecture is such that the streets are lined with marvellous old buildings that are all 5 stories high. The bottom level is shops, restaurants and the 4 stories above are all apartments, so there is a huge downtown population which makes the city very vibrant. Amid all of these incredible restaurants I discovered the most incredible of all, in fact it was so incredible there was a continual lineup that spilled out through the doors into the street, it was called Kentucky Fried Chicken. There was such a collection of restaurants that I hardly ate anything the first two days because I couldn't decide where to eat, I became like a zombie walking around reading the menus posted outside and being afraid I would make the wrong choice.

I spent 14 hours over the next 2 days just walking in downtown Paris, its no wonder I lost 12 pounds and slept like a baby each night. Back to London after 4 days of experiencing the most incredible sights, The Arc de Triomphe is the crown jewel of Paris, just a bit ahead of Notre Dame, The Church of the Madeleine, The Champs d'Elysee, The Louvre and Sacre Couer Cathedral. I was lucky enough to arrive at Notre Dame as a service was going on so spent some time just sitting and reflecting. It is an amazing place and it was awe inspiring to sit and listen to the incantations and songs delivered by some chanters in latin, all very mysterious. I hadn't realized that Notre Dame is actually on an island that is formed by the river Seine branching into 2 forks which join up again about a half mile downstream. The oldest structures in Paris are found here as this is where the original settlements were. One of the interesting things pointed out to me was the narrowest house in Paris which is squeezed between two large buildings and is about 12 feet wide and 4 stories high.

I decided to walk from my hotel past the Louvre and all the way up to the Arc de Triumphe along the Champs de Elysee and what a walk. The Louvre is U shaped and each of the sides is about a half mile long with a huge square in the middle, this is where the glass pyramid is located. I wasn't impressed by this but I was by the fountains that surround it, I took a picture of one of them and used one of the the enranceways to the Louvre as a backdrop. What I found interesting was that the way the water shot up and folded back on itself created a mound of white water, very pretty. The square is comprised of a white dust that marks your shoes, I noticed that you could tell anyone who had recently been there. There is a huge arch erected by Napoleon with a sculpture of 4 horses and a chariot driver on the top that proclaims the glory of France and how they conquer their enemies. As you read the inscription it makes you realize how pompous we are as human beings in our own surroundings and in our own time.

As you leave the first of the squares you come to a giant granite obelisk known as the Obelisk of Luxor in the middle of a roundabout. There is lots of information there and tells you that it was a gift from Egypt and is pretty impressive. There are hyroglyphics on it from 3300 years ago and it tells the story of Rameses 11. But what is interesting is that it also contains the engineering required to erect it once it was received in Paris. When it was put in place a crowd of 200,000 people showed up to watch. The story goes that they couldn't quite get it up as a mistake was made in the placing of the winches, but it was so close that a seaman told the engineers to wet the ropes and when they dried they would shrink thats what happened and it produced the extra couple of inches that were needed for it to slide into place. I spent about a half hour there because it is an intersection of 4 streets each with magnificent architecture extending down each of them. One towards the summer palace, one back to the Louvre, one up to the Arc de Triumphe and one towards the Royal palace. As I was sitting reading my guidebook I discovered that the obelisk was erected on the site of where the guillotine was erected during the French Revolution, where Marie Antoinette was executed and where about 60,000 members of the aristocracy bid goodbye to their heads. I wonder how many people who whiz around the 9 lane wide roundabout at this location realize this. Gave me the same sense of history as I experienced while visiting the Alhambra.

The second day I walked along here I took the side street towards what looked to me like the Acropolis in Athens, it turned out to be the Church of the Madeleine. It wasn't near as large in size as many of the other churches I had visited but was impressive because of the size of the huge columns which held up the roof. It somehow seemed out of proportion as the columns were to numerous and big for the size of the building. If you look closely at this picture you will see there is a second row of columns inside the first. It has nice big wide marble stairs leading up to it from the street below and these were filled with students taking art classes, there must have been a hundered of them all sitting quietly with their sketch pads and wondering if they had it in them to be the next Monet.

On the corner before you get to this church is the Hotel Crillon and for about $1000.00 a night you can have a room about the size of childs bedroom. While I was passing by there was a commotion as about 25 papparazzi were whirling about a side entrance surrounded by a crowd of several hundred people. I clued into the fact that someone of interest was coming out but I never saw anyone. I asked one of the groupies who was there, it turned out to be Lewis Hamilton, I asked who he was and somewhat disgustedly she told me about he was the famous English Formula 1 driver, who knew, we haven't had one of those races recently on PEI. I discovered by accident that behind the Hotel is Paris's most exclusive shopping district with names like Cartier, Dior, Boticelli, I looked around but didn't find anything I liked so after taking a tour of Maxim's I wiped the dust from my shoes and continued my stroll up the most famous street in the world, ending at the Arc de Triumph. In my humble opinion the Arc is the most impressive landmark in Paris. The size of the thing is incredible and the inscriptions at the base are very interesting. It is a memorial to all the soldiers who had fallen while serving France and it contains information about all of the major battles the French army had been engaged in.

The walk is very pleasant as you move closer to the Arc de Triumph, with gardens on both sides and two large ponds about 500 yards apart on the walk. Each of the ponds is several hundred feet across with lovely fountains in the middles. But what impressed me most was that the ponds are surounded by chairs where you can simply sit and either watch the people passing by or just enjoying the ducks and the water shooting up into the air.

As I walked farther up the Champs de Elysee I was confronted by the "gold ring" scam twice and by a very pretty dark haired girl who was offering some companionship for the "first time" because of her bad circumstances. Let it be noted that I returned with neither a new ring or with "the clap".

The Sacre Couer cathedral in the Montmarte district is very beautiful, its kind of a French version of the Taj Mahal with Arabic overtones. The interesting thing about it is that worship takes place there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The catherdal is located high on a hill and when you reach the top it overlooks all of Paris. I can imagine that at night it would remind me of the view from Griffith park in Los Angeles. The climb to the top is broken by several flat vantage points where you can stop and either reat or enjoy the view. On one of the stops a man had set up with a big harp and I stayed a while and listened as he gave beautiful renditions of some well known hymns. It really set the mood ad I enjoyed it very much. On the way back down I stopped again and this time realized he was doing the Frank Sinatra song, "I did it my way", so much for the total spiritual experience" Paris is an amazing city, I found it clean (except for the smell coming from dark corners where people have stopped to pee) and the people very agreeable, easy to travel in and overwhelming in its sights and sounds.

At the Gare du Nord which is a main train station, 19 trains arrive and depart from there. Outside the main entrance there are lots of people who live on mattresses along the front wall under a big canopy, kind of shocking as was seeing people urinating in the streets against trees, or in corners

The Eurostar train from Paris to London in 2 hours under the English Channel was a neat experience. I think when I visit again instead of flying from London to Paris I would take the train. It is so smooth you lose the feeling of great speed, it wasn't until we pulled alongside a major highway with traffic going the same way as we were, probably moving at about 120 kph and we were passing the vehicles like they were standing still. A word of advice to anyone travelling, visit London first, then carry on to the other countries, London seems small and worn out compared to the other places I visited and except for St Pauls Cathedral and Anglo saxon history it can be passed by.

A few more uneventful days in London and then home. Can't wait to go back on a more extended timeframe with more days set aside for relaxation. I purposefully did not visit some major attractions in Paris like the Opera house, the Moulin Rouge where I would like to take in a show and of course Versailles.

At the end of the day it was a very worthwhile experience, now when I am watching a travel show about one of places I visited I can relate to it because I have been there and I saw those wonderful things and when i fall asleep at night my head can be filled with visions of magnificent things have to be experienced because they can't be imagined.

Saw Something Stupid Today

2008-08-20T11:25:00.001-07:00

Miles is away for a few days so I have been coming into the office. Parking is always a problem downtown so I decided to bite the bullet and use the Pownal Street parkade, pay my six dollars a day and avoid trying to figure out when the meter guy is coming around to spread his special brand of cheer.

This isn't a huge parkade with its 4 levels, probably room for about 300 cars. I think its pretty typical in design with the ends being open so the air can blow through, concrete construction throughtout, no decoration or paint. But it does have something that is pretty impressive, a full blown sprinkler system. And I mean a sprinkler system, pipes like you wouldn't believe, they go everywhere and the size of them makes your arse muscles tighten up. Through the centre there are these big 4" to 5" round pipes that go vertically the whole height of the building and then there are two extensions of 4" pipe that run horizontally the length of each floor.. From these, pipes of about 2 " branch out between the concrete beams with sprinkler heads about every 20 feet. There must be miles of the stuff in there.

Makes you feel so safe knowing that in the event that someones car catches fire the concrete won't get burned up. If the system ever goes off, hope you're not at houseparty in Charlottetown taking an emergency dump in their bathroom because there will be no water left to wash away the pile you have left behind.

I have never seen a car on fire, I must have driven a million miles and lots of it in traffic but have never come across smouldering heaps of twisted steel and glass with the tires burnt off them. When I look at this building I somehow think I must be missing something, because I can't envision anyone making a builder install a sprinkler system that would have the capacity to extinguish the Great Chicago fire unless there was a pretty high probability it was going to happen. And if it did happen the fire department is just around the corner, wouldn't they just haul a hose over and put it out.

Last time I checked CONCRETE DOESN"T BURN. I wish I hadn't seen the damn thing now because suddenly I resent paying the six dollars a day when 50% of the cost is in a sprinkler system that will never be used and if it wasn't there they would only charge me three dollars.

I hate bureaucrats and inspectors and regulators they are screwing up the world with their rules and regulations. In the paper the last few days there has been a story about a couple from Illinois who bought a summer home in North Rustico for themselves and there 11 children and grandchildren to use. They leased it over the winter to a family with an expiration date of the lease in April. The people refused to move out, they say the owners shouldn't have the right to use the property for their summer holidays. Apparently issues like this go to IRAC who are the rental enforcers. Guess what, the people are still there, but horror of horrors for them IRAC is going to send them a letter.

Same thing happened in Murray River a few years ago, people stopped paying but decided to keep living in the house.the owners couldn't get them out. It went on for a year or more and when the owners showed up with a truck to move the renters stuff out were told by the RCMP they would be arrested if they tried. The worlds a crazy place!!

Svend Robinson

2008-08-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

I came across this and realized I had never posted it after writing it, I'm not really a redneck but this guy has always gotten under my skin. This was when he was caught stealing the ring for his boyfriend. The next day I heard the former long distance runner Bruce Kidd on the radio going on about Todd Bertuzzi and Dany Heatly, there ws something about the whole thing that made me see red.

I see in the newpaper that Svend Robinson is going to challenge Hedy Fry in the riding of Vancouver Centre. Please, Please Hedy kick the daylights out of this guy at the polls so I never have to be revolted by either seeing him on TV again or listening to him spout his self serving and ridiculous crap again.

I was listening to Bruce Kidd the other morning on CBC radio as he was making the case for not allowing Todd Bertuzzi or Dany Heatley represent Canada at the Olympic games because they didn’t represent what he thought was the stereotype of a typical Canadian and their values. I get sick of these guys with their righteous indignations, but then I guess its our right as Canadians to have opinions, that is, its OK if your opinion happens to support the belief system of the touchy feely boys.

Ok Bruce you have the right to say you don’t think they are fit to be hockey players and represent Canada because of the rough tough life they live, well I don’t think that Svend is fit to be a Member of Parliament.

Todd Bertuzzi was one of the participants in an unfortunate accident where Steve Moore from Colorado who blindsided one of Bertuzzi’s teammates wouldn’t take the honourable route and settle things the way they have always been settled in Canadian hockey with a good old 30 second fight. And Dany Heatley as a young man with a Ferrarri was involved in a car accident in which his friend was killed, terrible thing and he has repeatedly said his irresponsibility is going to haunt him forever. So those two incidents make them unfit to play hockey for Canada. I watched the many press conferences these guys had to endure, and you know what, I was a heck of a lot more convinced that the tears these MEN shed were a lot more real than anything that Svend squeezed out. And you know the difference they weren’t crying over themselves, they were torn apart by what happened to someone else as a result of actions they took which they freely admitted they were responsible for, thats what real men do, not whine about themselves. Did I hear you say they should be in the same category as those using drugs?
Lets hear about Robinson and what his special personality traits are that make him a prime candidate for helping run our country from information I have seen the follwoing is pretty representative of this guy.

* Married his high school sweetheart but she divorced him when he cheated on her with a man.Way to go Svend thats what being a Canadian is all about. Don’t you think the RIGHT thing to do was to speak to her and tell her about your feelings for men instead of her having to catch you.
*Became an alcoholic as his way to cope with his mothers death.My mother died to but I don’t recall needing to have a drink 20 times a day to make me right. We all have major times of tragedy in our lives but the rest of us pick up the pieces and move on, its called strength of character Svend.
*Became a lawyer, but left the profession after a year.Way to stick it out Svend
* Was removed by his party as Justice critic after he publicly came out in favour of establishing red light districts and making whorehouses legal.Just what we need to help prop up the families of the nation, a whorehouse on every corner. Tommy Douglas, Stanley Knowles and David Lewis the architects of the core human rights we enjoy would roll over in their graves if they knew the causes their beloved NDP party was now promoting. Svend even you are way to far to the left for the likes of Jack Layton.
* Heckles President Ronald Reagan in the House of Commons after he has accepted an invitaion to address the MP’s.Most people learn on their mothers knee that you are polite to a guest. What a dork you are Svend to go headline hunting with such a cheap exhibition to a captive audience.
*Sentenced to jail for criminal contemptHelps kill Sue Rodriguez and my guess was this was more about publicity than compassion
* Gets hurt while hiking and credits his love for his boyfriend as the reason he survived by crawling 400 yards.What kind of a gooney bird is this guy, he sprained his ankle.
* Tables a petition in the House of Commons to remove the word God from the preamble to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.Svend before I checked up on you I just dismissed you as being a bit misguided but now I am seeing a pattern emerging, I don’t think you are a nice person.
* Travels to the Middle East to try an see Yassar Arafat, who refuses to meet with him.Even Yassar knows a fruit cake when he sees one and he won’t even let this one in the country let alone in his office.
* After a few days in Israel and no one will give him the time of day he pronounces that Israel is guity of torture and murder. He then resigns as NDP Foreign policy critic.Wow Svend you sure showed them a thing or two.
* Svend steals a $64,000.00 diamond ring and after he realizes he has been caught on tape (anyone who doesn’t think he got tipped off please step forward - no one thats what I thought) he fesses up.His track record to this point makes me question a lot of things about this bird, this clinches it this guy is a cheating, lying, publicity seeking, unbelieving, man with no sense of morality, nothing more than a petty thief who is not above trying to use every ounce of political correctness to his advantage to have to get off. What a weasel
* Instead of standing up like a man and admitting his guilt he whines about how his love for his partner and the stress he was under made him do it, so he really wasn’t responsible.Come on Svend even an wanker like me knows from my limited exposure to Doctor Phil that there is some serious sick stuff going on in the head of anyone who can’t accept repsonsibility for their actions.

And you know what, I bet the NDP leadership is cheering Hedy on, come on Hedy, put on those stompin boots, get his raisins into those vice grips! I think the NDP leadership all got the same sick feeling in their stomachs when he announced his return as Lucy had when she moaned her famous lament, “Aaaaarrrrggggh— my lips touched dog lips”

So Bruce baby I rest my case. This sick depraved, spineless piece of humanity isn’t suitable in my opinion to be elected to be a local dog catcher let alone be given a stage like the house of Commons.

But wait there is a special kind of disgusting reality called political correctness that will protect this puppy. He can’t be held responsible for anything because, if he is ever criticized for anything, he plays the “you are discriminating against me because I am gay card”. PS I have some gay friends and they’re darn nice people, No wonder this country is in such trouble.

The Big Apology

2008-06-12T12:38:00.000-07:00

The world is filled with stories of good intentions gone bad and bad people put in positions of trust. There is nothing right about what happened in the past with the aboriginal schools, but the Canadian conscience once it became aware of the realities of what took place has responded correctly. The issue I have is not with the present Government, but with the spineless milksops that came before them.

But I can assure you I will not be dressing in sackcloth and pouring ashes on my head over mistakes made by others in past generations, but as a society my hope would be that we gravitate towards being a more understanding and thoughtful people because of those mistakes.

Having lived close to 4 reserves out west, Sweetgrass, Poundmaker, Red Pheasant and Cochin and daily observing first nations peoples I can tell you I have absolutely no understanding of why the conditions on many reserves are as they are when I saw the resources that were available to the bands. Sweetgrass and Poundmaker both had excellent farmland on them and it was available to any Indian who wanted to farm along with all kinds of assistance to get them started.

Housing was available to anyone who wanted it, the effort was minimal on their part. It used to burn me when I was working myself to exhaustion and barely keeping ahead of the game that many Indians I knew never seemed to do a days work but somehow had a better vehicle than I could afford. They started a plant on the one reserve to produce prebilt homes for the reserves in the area. This came along with training, good wages, the best of tools and working conditions but in no time at all, no one showed up for work, all the tools and lumber had been stolen and the place was left to rot.

There is lots of talk about the value of the native culture and tradition as being the good old days and how it has been taken from them. I can't see why anyone would want to return to the poverty, living conditions, disease from a past that is nostalgically looked on as the good old days of life as a hunter gatherer. But its hard to grasp how defined group of people can expect to enjoy the benefits of a modern society, with cars, 4 wheelers, ski doos, canned food, electricity, televisions sets, etc without fully participating in an economy and contributing on the same terms as everyone else.

But maybe there is a solution, the plains indian lived off the buffalo, well maybe we could start raising buffalo in captivity and provide the men in each reserve with horses, spears and bows and arrows. We could then turn one or two buffalo loose each day and they could hunt them down, hack themm to bits and lug them home. It might take a while to accumulate enough skins to make tents and clothes so we could provide them enough from a tannery to get them started. A couple of big stocked ponds should provide fish and we should make detours around the reserves so they could be isolated again. Make it easy to get back to living like prehistoric man again. maybe that would be the best solution, but somehow I don't think that is what they want.

What I have seen is indians who want everything modern, want it paid for by someone else and to put as little effort as possible into getting it. Think have you ever seen an indian with a job? My experience with the indian kids I went to school with was this, while going to school there was no difference between them and anyone else but after leaving school it didn't take long to catch onto the fact that you could do better by doing nothing than by working. Of all the Indians I knew only one worked hard enough to achieve anything, the rest just went onto permanent pogey.

Like I said I can't understand and am glad I'm not charged with the responsibility of addressing and finding solutions to the multitude of aboriginal issues that swirl around.

Residential Schools

2008-06-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

I see that Stephen Harper is doing the right thing, its about time Everyone knows how wrong it was and the Prime Minister is making an apology on behalf of the people of Canada. It is not any different from the unjustices done to the Japanese as a result of internment or the Chinese because of the head tax or the sterilization of individuals deemed to be slow by the Province of Alberta.

What repulses me is that a series of Governments did not have the fortitude to acknowledge that all these practices were wrong and do it in a timely fashion. Liberal and Conservative alike ignore taking steps to do the right thing until eventually it happens and then everyone jumps on the bandwagon. I don't give much serious credibility to those who attach them selves to what is now tainted with political correctness. The problem as we look back in history is that it is difficult to view these and many others issues in the context of the time and prevailing attitudes that existed. Governments and courts will continue to make grievous errors today that when examined in 40 years I am sure will be judged to be insensitive and harmful but will be supported today. A good example is the Provincial Nominee programs, it is nothing more than the 2000 version of the old head tax except now its not $500.00 but about $140,000.00.

The unaccountable will of Governments will continue to treat its citizens as only a cut above criminals if they feel anyone is infringing upon their agendas and will continue to do so. If anyone thinks that these apologies are driven by any thing more substantive than a tinge of guilt sprinkled on a plate full of political agenda you are much less skeptical than I am. But anyway, good for Stephen Harper he's more of a man than the busloads of pretenders that came before him.

The Queen of Mean

2007-08-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

Everyone leaves some kind of legacy behind them when they die. Its probably something that most of us don't think about until we are to old to effecively do something about it. But that legacy is usually going to fall into one of three categories, either positive, negative or neutral.

I've known some people who fall into the neutral category which may be the greatest indicator of a wasted life. Mostly because it indicates someone who never had any time for anyone but themselves, remained isolated and went through life with no passion or involvement, the best that can be said is they didn't do any damage, but then they never contributed either. There is a parabble in the bible about that its the people that were given talents and one decided to bury theirs and do nothing with it.

Unfortunately I know to many people whose legacy is negative. Lots of those people can be outgoing and pleasant to be around, but when it comes down to it they will have made the lives of others miserable. Adept at political correctness they are worse than those who make no bones about it and are plain unpleasant to people. One marchs down the street amd carries a banner and trumpet making the world aware to keep your distance or I will make you sorry. The other in sheeps clothing lulling everyone into a false sense of security but waiting for the opportunity to slyly spread their special kind of misery around.

I love to surround myself with positive people, those who honestly have a true sense of obligation and compassion for those around them. These people will have slips from time to time but its easy to forgive them because you know they have a good heart.

I hope people remember me for the good things I have done.

Leona Helmsly who recently died at the age of 87 will be remembered as "The Queen of Mean". she was given the tag name during her trial for tax evasion for which she went to prison. Even though she was a legitimate billionaire her true nature was so strong she couldn't help but try and put one over on the IRS. It was revealed that her style was to terrorize the people who worked for her and who needed a job. In the last few years of her life she tried to rectify things by giving away about $30. To little to late though, the "Queen of Mean is what her legacy will be, she should have thought about it earlier.

Fucking Canada Revenue Agency!!!!!!

2007-08-16T09:42:00.000-07:00

For three days I have been calling 1-800-959-5525 to get a business registration number so I can send them monies due for payroll deductions for a new Company I recently formed. This 3 days of concerted affort follows intermittent failed calls over the past 3 weeks.

It is impossible to get past a busy signal. So finally out of desparation I tried the http://www.gov.pe.ca/ website to see if I could register online. Whoopee there is a site and instructions on how to register. So I assemble all the information I need SIN's, addresses, Corporation # , Corporation Registration Date, contact info for directors etc.

Its a nice easy to use site so I type away for a while and finally get to the end and submit. I am greeted by the following message.

Your Business Number Registration Summary

Registration limit has been exceeded for use of Business Registration Online. Please call our toll-free CRA business enquiries line at 1-800-959-5525 if additional business numbers are required. State Information Code 1002

WHY THE FUCK THEN DID IT ALLOW ME TO WASTE ALL THAT FUCKING TIME ONLY TO TELL ME IT ONLY CAN DO A LIMITED NUMBER OF REGISTRATIONS.

Some days I want to go down there with a stick. Only that wouldn't do any good since you now are not allowed to talk to anyone because they are all hiding behind the wall they built. But in the interests of public service there are phones where you can waste your day away dialing 1-800-959-5525 and listen to the busy signal in air conditioned comfort. So thats what I do, go down to the local Revenue Canada office. The girl who collects me the money directs me to a cubicle. There is a big laminated sign lying on the desk that gives me the 1-800-959-5525 number, I dial and listen away to the busy signal for a good two minutes. There is no one else in the office so I complain to the girl who then tells me that if I just dial the number 1 on the phone it will connect me direct to an agent. Good news I dial away and sure enough after about 10 rings someone picks up the phone. We talk and he tells me a couple of things, first I cannot get the business number over the phone and secondly he will have to make an appointment for me at the earliest tomorrow. Also I will need to bring down the articles of Incorporation, he tells me to wait and he will set up the appointment, I hold on the line for approximately two minutes at which time the line goes dead.

Being a persistent soul I call back and I am connected to an agent named "Joseph" who proceeds to register me online and issue me my Business, Payroll tax and GST Number all in less than three minutes. I was so pleased with him had he been closer I would have given him the tongue.

The high pitch of his voice hinted he would have liked that.

Turning Back the Clock

2007-08-15T12:54:00.000-07:00

When I would visit my grandparents as a child there was a truck that would come around everyday in North Battleford with a big tank on the back. It would pull up to the houses on its route and fill a barrel that was located in each house with drinking water. Water for washing was collected in either a cistern located in the basement or in a 1000 gallon tank connected to the downspouts on your house.

This was the same in both town, and in the country on the farm where my other grand parents lived. My grandmother on the farm had it really easy because she actually had water in the house. My grand father had dug a well beside the house and had installed two hand pumps with a sink in the kitchen. The one pumped drinking water and the other connected into a big cistern in the basement. You didn't drink from the cisterm pump though, I remember when I was quite small being held by my feet and lowered into the cistern with a pail and a long stick to fish dead mice out.

As I was returning from downtown today there was a big truck blocking the street, as we passed it I noticed it was full of racks with big jugs of water. He was delivering drinking water to offices on the street. Struck me as kind of funny how we have progressed.

Photo Radar and other Annoyances

2007-08-07T09:54:00.000-07:00

So city council in Charlottwtown voted to try and get the Provincial Government to approve the use of photo radar to catch speeders.

Sometimes I think I must be living on another planet when I read this nonsense. Like virtually every other Islander I am only vaguely aware there is such a thing as a speed limit. I always drive at a safe speed , if there is no traffic on the road I speed up a bit and if weather or heavy traffic is a factor I slow down. It is so rare that I see someone driving dangerouslyI feel its almost non existant. And if someone wants to drive like a nut they are usually paying attention to where the police are. After 40 years of driving I got a speeding ticket about a month ago for doing about 105 KPH on the Trans Canada when there was no traffic going my way, on a clear Sunday morning on our way to church in our van, from a mountie who was so close to a car coming the other way I couldn't see him. So I got my chance to be a statistic and some snot nosed cop had me waiting on the side of the road with my wife, daughter and 3 of my grand children for over 20 minutes while he ran every check available to make sure he didn't have a terrorist or escaped felon on his hands. I was annoyed over the ticket but it was his complete disregard for the fact we were late for church that bugged me more. Don't they give some profiling lessons in cop school, you wouldn't think 2 older people and 3 children under 9 with their mother fit anybodys notion of a dangerous crew.

Will my driving habits change, no, am I a danger on the road , no. Its political correctness at its worst, believe or not all speed cameras in a place like this will do is create an animosity towards the police and I am guessing they would cause more traffic accidents that it would prevent. It wouldn't take long until everyone would know the location of every speed camera and would be extra slow when going past them. But once out of sight would speed up excessively to make up for the lost time, creating a dangerous situation Should you speed , of course not but this isn't the answer. Want to spend some money productively. Put a few more drug detectives on duty and solve more of the break and enter, assault and theft that takes place daily.

Spending Tax Dollars

2007-07-27T12:17:00.000-07:00

There is a local issue that is getting quite a bit of chatter and it is starting to bother me that we don't have people of higher quality thinking these issues through. One of my pet peeves is that I feel the education system is letting a lot of young people down.

The solution to what ails us that has been put forward is that we need a new high school in the region. What a bunch of rubbish, we have a perfectly good 100,000 square foot high school now and the proposal is to replace it with another 100,000 square foot school in another location.

I don't see how moving the school less than 1/2 a mile is going to improve the quality of the educational system. Through the ages it seems that when rulers feel some discontent amongst the people they want to put on a spectacle for them, helps them deflect attention from their own inadaquacies by giving the people something to look at. Some rulers built huge monuments to themselves like statues and gardens, the Romans moved it to a new level with the coliseum.

In each case it was the same tactic, give the people something to make their slack jaws drop in wonder and take their minds off the real issues, that incidently are much harder to solve.

So we replace a building with a new building and those lobbying for it can stand around and pound each other on the back for how they made government listen to them and spend that 22 million . I wonder if they realize in about 40 years a new bunch of unimaginative twits will rise up and propose that all they need to do to solve the educational dilemna is to bulldoze the school that is now the focal point of their frustration and propose a new one to solve the problem.

How time flies

2007-07-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe it has been over 6 months since the last time I posted something to this. Its not that I haven't got anything to say, I just got out of the habit.

Life has gotten to be a blur for some reason, I think its because I have to much to do and not enough time to do it in. Maybe thats normal when you are over 60, and subconsciously your body realizes that is exactly the state you are in.

I think the constant stream of despair coming from Iraq has also had an effect on me as I find it depressing to constantly be reminded of the madness the human race is not only capable of, but drawn towards. Somehow I keep coming back to my belief that we were created for better things than practicing acts of savagery, one upon another.

God must be terribly disappointed! But then I suppose nothing surprises him so maybe thats not an emotion he practices, but then maybe it is. The better emotional description might be troubled.

When Jesus came to the family of Lazarus he saw the dead mans sisters grieving and his friends weeping, the bible uses the term "troubled" to describe the feelings Jesus had. And the action following his feeling gives us the shortest verse in the bible. "Jesus wept".

God must spend a lot of time weeping, that makes me sad.

I also spend a lot of time being confused because hard as I try I can't make any sense of the whole mess no matter which side I try and look at the issues from. The prince of this world is having a field day, but then I guess he always has been.

What About Saddam

2006-12-29T08:51:00.000-08:00

For some reason I don't feel comfortable about the upcoming execution of Saddam Hussein.

Don't get me wrong and think that I have any sympathy for him because of what he was involved in because I don't, but I do question the morality and the right of anyone making a conscious decision to end the life of another person no matter how barbaric they have been. Thats quite a change for me as at various points in my life when the question of capital punishment has come up I, along with millions have reasoned that some criminals are so sick and their deeds so repulsive that they deserve to die and I can somehow feel justified in wanting them dead. We have certainly had our share of individuals who have killed without thought or justification or sometimes for pleasure many, many times over and they have been put to death by hanging, or the gas chamber, lethal injection, electrocution and god only knows how many other methods.

But has their deaths brought anything that contributes to the well being of our society or any individual within it, or has all that has happened that another life has been ended and a need to feel revenge been fulfilled. I am definitely against the death penalty being ordered through any court, we have simply got it wrong to many times. I am basically against taking a human life for any reason.............. except.

There's the problem, we all have this "except" and it becomes an measuring stick of tolerance against what we all know is wrong. What if he bludgeoned a baby girl to death in her carriage in front of her mother, does that warrant the death penalty? How about killing someone who you think wants to kill you, guess, what that, doesn't count as an accountable killing even though the end result of both is that someone is left dead. I can't wade through the maze of compromises that determine guilt, innocence or somewhere in between. What I have to do is to clasp onto the idea that I know is right, you can't take another life.

I have watched the Iraqi mess along with the rest of the world and simply cannot make any sense of it. Soldiers kill civilians with their guns and explosives and planes and guess what ,its categorized as collateral damage, but the bottom line is that someone was walking their kids to school and their life was taken, and no one is guilty, isn't it amazing how we can justify the unjustifiable when it is in our interest to do so. And who could we point the finger at, the soldier who pulled the trigger, no he's just doing his job. The commander who sent the soldier out, nope he's just following orders. What about the General who devised the "rules of engagement" that allowed for the civilian to be shot, not him, he's just carrying out military strategy as it was taught to him. Well what about the guys who started it all, can't be them, they're just protecting the national interest even if the national interest was never threatened. Since the time of "Old Methusalah", "people love the big bamboozala" was never truer.

So somebody decided that the lives that were lost when Saddam Hussein sent his General to deal with the insurgents who tried to assassinate him, who then sent his Commander to deal with it, who told the soldiers who went into the village, who shot everybody up is going to result in somebody gettin hanged.

Kind of reminds me of Mai Lei, only Johnson or Nixon or whoever was steering the ship went on to a nice retirement, guess they're lucky the Vietcong never came to their town.

The Supreme Court Got it Right

2006-05-05T09:15:00.000-07:00

I was very interested in hearing what the verdict would be when Canada's Supreme court rendered its decision on the issue of "is a host liable for the actions of a guest in their home who leaves drunk". You have to feel for Zoe Childs who had her life changed and for the boy who was killed in the accident but to have found the couple who hosted the party found either criminally or financially liable would have been wrong.

It is a reality that we are all subject to the laws of time and chance, it rains on the just and the unjust and no matter how carefully we try and manage our lives sometimes the dice crap out.

I think it was a case that the courts should have brought before themselves rather than leaving it to the girl and made it a directed initiative to bring clarity to the question that has been debated in various homes for years.

The problem with the ruling is that it singles out the fact that it was a BYOB gathering and didn't address the issue of what is the liability if drinks had been served by the host so we'll undoubtedly be hearing more.

What is even more significant was that to me it again pointed out to me how flawed a subjective sentencing system we have. This drunk driver had been sentenced to 10 years in what was the harshest sentence ever handed down as the result of a DUI conviction. So that tells me that the loss of this particular life demanded more to satisfy society than the lives of the thousands of others who have died as the result of drunk drivers. What a bunch of nonsense. We have a situation now on PEI where a mother and her daughter were killed by a drunk driver while going for an early morning walk. I wonder if he'll get 10.

I like the direction taken by the new Federal Conservative Government to impose mandatory minimums on crimes that fall into certain categories. It removes the reality of the situation we now have that the guy with the smartest or most creative lawyer has justice dispensed in a kinder, gentler way.

I Think some parts of the Justice System is Insane

2006-03-17T12:44:00.000-08:00

I just read a piece in the news that has me literally foaming at the mouth. It concerns Colin Thatcher, the former Saskatchewan Cabinet Minister and rancher who was convicted of killing his wife by a combination of bludgeoning her in the head with a bat and then shooting her. A parole board has just granted him limited parole where he can have unescorted leave from the prison for up to 72 hours.

I bet you think I am going to say "the bastard should never be released for such a cold blooded crime" but I'm not. The thing that has me going is a statement made by one of the corrections officials. It is the same statement made on each occaision he has appeared before a parole board in the past. Here is the deal 'he won't admit that he killed her" and I have no comment on that. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, who knows when we take a look at all the cases in Canada where the court totally fucked up and sent a whole slew of people to jail who were later absolutely 100% proven proven to be innocent.

Here is what it is all about. Thatcher always denied he killed his former wife. That's one of the reasons he has not succeeded in two past attempts to win early parole, by using the "faint hope" application process for those serving life sentences.

Without an admission of guilt, corrections officials say, there can be no real rehabilitation, did they ever take into account that maybe the guy didn't do it, because if that did turn out to be the case then his being denied parole would be because he wouldn't admit to something he didn't do for the purpose of getting out.

Shouldn't parole be based on a combination of serving time for your conviction and the likehood of a person reoffending.

Think back to when you were a kid, was there anything worse than being accused and convicted of doing something you were innocent of.

What about Basic Human Rights

2006-02-15T08:18:00.000-08:00

There was an article online today about a report into the French prison system and the appalling conditions within it. The quotation from the report used is "totally at odds with a modern society's requirements". It seems that certain inmates of the French prison weren't being treated with the respect for their human rights, seems they didn't all have access to a hot shower every day.

The opinion I am going to express is probably going to be "totally at odds with the definition of human rights within a modern society'. But I'm really not someone with ideas fostered during the Spanish Inquisition, but I do put forward the notion that possibly it is hypocritical of any society that has a tradition of laws and the rule of law to have much to say about "human rights". I think that if you don't follow the accepted laws and moral standards of a society then you lose the right to have the same rights as those who do follow them.

In case you are unfamiliar with it I am going to quote a section from the American Declaration of Indepenence and its reference to basic rights which expresses the concept as well as anything else I have found

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I think that anyone would agree that this more or less forms the basis for rights within any of the civilized nations of the world. But having said that, many civilized nations have laws that provide for execution of criminals, so that does away with the life part, we also confine people to prisons which definetely throws liberty out with the bathwater, and the Government of Canada has deliberately put some laws in place that most definitely have made me unhappy. For an example you can't keep a clam that is under 3 inches long, this makes me very unhappy when I am digging them, because most of what comes up is only 2 3/4 inches long and I have to discard them. Now I don't necessarily disagree that for the public good these are good laws, but each infringes upon rights in the strictest sense.

Here is one of my pet peeves. On PEI if you want to do some plumbing in your house it has to be done by a licensed plumber. So if I wanted to put in a sink and I went ahead and did the work myself (which I am quite capable of doing I am breaking the law) If I had to hire a plumber it would definitely infringe on my pursuit of happiness, whatever happened to a mans home is his castle as a founding principle of English common law.

So all I can say then is that there are no absolute rights, that everything is fair game and if these self evident rights can be compromised by legislative means, this makes human rights "subjective" because we compromise even the most basic ones.

The question that I have to ask myself then is this, "is it reasonable to conclude that if a person wishes to conduct their affairs outside of the rules that society has set for itself that the basic rights that everyone wants for themselves are reduced because of their "opting out". I think the answer has to be yes because we have already established by precedent this is within the rights of society as represented by our Governments and courts in putting restrictions on the ability of non conforming members to the pursuit of life , liberty and the pursuit.

So I say this, it is impossible to pass a law without infringing upon the basic rights of someone

Last time I heard this kind of an argument I think alcohol and mind altering drugs were involved If you don't agree then "no soup for you" and you can take it up with the "soup nazi" who claims it is his right not to sell to the likes of you.

Things Are Simpler Than You Think

2006-02-08T08:31:00.000-08:00

I remember about 27 years ago when by chance I came across one of the principles of marketing that gets overlooked by the experts. They are all aware of it but because its pretty mundane I think it gets shuffled aside because its to simple, but the reality is that it works. It made quite a difference in my business and personal life and when I periodically give my head a shake, just like cream it rises back to the top. Everyone has heard about word association to help you remember things, well here's how you can remeber this thought just say "Bob Dylan".

And when you think of Bob Dylan connect him to these lyrics that he wrote and immortalized in his song "Positively 4th Street"

I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment
I could be you

Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is
To see you

What a lesson in life that is, to realize that what you think and how you perceive things may not be how the rest of the world sees it. And if you are a marketer its a lesson you had better remember if you want to be successful.

But you don't have to be a professional marketer to get a benefit from understanding this. Its one of the most valuable techniques you can use when trying to accomplish anything that is going to involve people. There are certain things that people respond to, attitudes that bring reactions, ideas that have appeal to everyone and its good to have a list of these positives in your arsenal no matter what you are doing, and particularly if you are trying to win people over to your ideas. Knowing that you'd think I would have learned to use those concepts effectively but alas I haven't, I'm like the kid who brings home the report card with rows of "T"'s on it. The legend at the bottom says it all T - Tries and has some success.

And you'de think I would get it through my thick skull. The successes in my life have come when I remember what I am preaching, and the failures when I abandon them, and take firm grasp of the jawbone of an ass which I keep dangling from my belt and begin swinging.

Instead of looking at every situation from your eyes try changing places and you will be amazed how the world looks different and how your interactions with people become so much more productive.

But its so hard to admit I'm not always right.

I'll Guess I'll Never be a Gamer

2006-02-02T16:26:00.000-08:00

I did something out of character for myself yesterday, I bought a game for the PC. It is well known around our place that I hate games. I hate them for a whole lot of reasons. It seems to me that the craze of gaming has ruined the potentials of an generation of kids who lack the will power to turn them off and get on with living. There is no wonder we have a nation, which for the first time in its history has identified child obesity as being its number 1 health problem, and I blame video games as the main reason.

The youth of today has become obsessed with an unhealthy, addictive pastime that involves them in relationships with mythical beings whose main objectives seem to be the electronic destruction of enemy caricatures. This constant interchange can't be healthy. It used to be said you are what you eat and you can tell a lot about a person when you look at the company they keep. And you know what its still true. The environment we place ourselves and the relationships we make eventaully define us. Its kind of scary what we are going to find in 20 years as the first generation of addicted gamers reach their mid to late thirties.

Anyway, back to my game. I bought Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf 2006. I only got it because it was storming out, I had a gift card to Future Shop in my pocket, I enjoy getting out and golfing, but mostly because I had a momentary lapse in judgement. So I thought when I am at home this evening I will start this up, relax by pretending to play some golf and enjoy the scenery of the replicas of famous golf courses. Notice I put in the word relax, let me give you a look into the future - "not to be". Now my wife is an avid gamer, she glues herself to the computer screen for hours on end playing things like Laura Croft, Doom, Age of Mythology etc, etc, etc. So when I told her about the game I had purchased, her eyes lit up (even though she hates golf) and she set about doing the installation.

I left for the corner store and when I returned after my daily socializing and catching up on the days happenings in Eldon she said to me "this is a big game, its still loading". So I made a cup of tea and sat in a corner of the living room while she continued her struggles with the demons of technology. One thing I learned a long time ago is that no matter how much frustration she is experiencing at her computer, even if you could fix it in a moment its best not to interfere. Finally she informs me that the game is installed and I look forward to starting it up, but whats this, her eyes glass over and she is giving it a try, so knowing my place I have some more tea.

As the strings of profanity increase in both volume and frequency I realize that all is not well in the land of the "Tiger". Finally she says, I'll figure it out tomorrow and leaves. Its not that I have any great love for mental anguish but I think well I'll give it a try and start it up.

Here is what I have now learned about "Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06". First the fu**er that put this together is a mean, mean b*st*rd. You can't just play this game. In fact it takes you an hour to figure out that you have to create a character and when you do you can't just start playing, you have to go through a zillion steps to find out how you buy your clothes, clubs, lessons etc. Then you find out that there are only a few select courses you can play except they don't tell you which they are or where to find them. So I thought I would go online and find out the answers to these questions, thats when I discover that the only person meaner than the b*st*rd who programmed the game is the evil piece of sh*t who figured out that how to squeeze every nickel you ever hope of owning from your greasy little palm right into his pocket if you want to actually play it.

The whole game is structured to get you paying to play online, and pay for every moment you play, and for every question that you ask. Now I understand why they do not include a user manual with the game.

Bottom line, I hate the game and everything associated with it, from the little pr*ck who sold it to through the designer of the ATI 9200 Video card that makes it work to the programmer, and ending with the Board of Directors of EA Sports. The Pox on them all, may their d*cks all drop off, I'm going back to Wednesday night cribbage and wait until spring for the real thing.

NOTE: I was listening to a conversation yesterday between two avid gamers. The topic was that games are getting to complicated and one said they were getting sick of getting an expensive game and then not being able to use it either because it didn't fit with the computer or some part of it and then because it takes to long to figure the damn thing out.

David Cooper, One in a MIllion

2006-01-31T11:23:00.000-08:00

David Cooper is an interesting man and one that could be an example to the rest of the world. He is a storekeeper in an age when the word has pretty well disappeared from our vocabularly. Every morning he has the front door at Coopers Red and White unlocked at 7am and it doesn't close until 8 at night 9 in the summer 6 days a week, 7 from mid June until the end of September. But if you need anything on a Sunday the rest of the year or some gas at 11 at night David opens the door puts on a smile takes care of you.

If there is anything David understands it is taking care of customers, want some groceries delivered, David is your boy and there won't be any fees for gas tacked on. He has more energy than anyone I have ever met, never complains and works tirelessly for the community in which he lives. I was over at the store the other night and he was talking with the manager of the rink, seems David was down volunteering on Sunday running the Zamboni and generally looking after things. If anyone needs at truck or a ride to town or something picked up David is the first to step up. Never misses a wake no matter how busy he is.

He is a very successful businessman, totally devoted to his family and his community and friends, I don't think he would know the meaning of the word enemy or petty, friends with everyone.

You certainly couldn't call David educated in a scholastic way but man does he know about what it takes to be successful. He will quickly tell you how much he hated school and avoided it as much as possible. I've heard him say on many occaisions "God, but I hated school, I'd rather shovel shit all day long than have to go. He says that sometimes he has a terrible nightmare. God, he says I woke up with the worst nightmare, I dreamed I was back in school, you know I'd rather shovel shit all day long than have to go back there.

He would make an interesting lecturer for a Masters of Business Administration class. They probably wouldn't pay much attention to him as he told them about getting up early, working late, satisfy your customers, keep your books straight, make friends of everyone you meet, never make anyone feel bad about themselves and smile no matter what. That is they wouldn't pay attention unless his personal net worth statement and balance sheet from his business was projected on a screen. You would hear the collective sucking in of breath and arseholes snapping shut then.

But Davids biggest successes are not monetary, they are the way he enjoys living life and relating and helping out the people around him. Now thats a real man.

Whats Wrong with being happy

2006-01-27T09:13:00.000-08:00

I had to read deeper when I saw a headline on the www.canada.com website that read:

Canadians too "hedonistic" to change politics overnight.

First I had check on the meaning of hedonistic which I always understood to be a positive term meaning being happy. I was right, the online Merriam Webster dictionary says its "having a goal to find happiness." Once again I am confused, because usually the news focusses upon unhappiness or controversy as headline grabbers. Would I be right in jumping to the conclusion that pursuing happiness is a negative thing, because thats how I read it.

Apparently Paul Weyrich did an essay for the Free Congress Foundation, a US based think tank. He is of the opinion that its going to take some time under a Conservative government for us to turn from our public ethic of hedonism. He goes on to say, "but with leadership it well might be possible to change the public ethic". Now maybe I'm way off base here, but I don't think that even in the darkest corner of Stephen Harpers political policy ambitions there is a thought that it would be a good thing to actively seek to have Canadians to want to be unhappy.

I wonder if he will have a comment if he discovers that one of the goals I have in life is to not be hit by a car. I am pretty sure it would hurt and the long term effects could be "terminal". Would he write

"Jim Kinnee enjoys life to much to seek death by being hit by a motor vehicle."

And you know what, no matter how long or persuave an argument someone makes about the benefits of being "run over", I'm not going to change. But maybe I will, Weyrich goes on to state that the solution to this happy, want to live thinking can be overcome by appointing more small c- conservatives to the courts.

I must be dull, I just don't get it

I'm Starting to Look at the US Differently

2006-01-25T08:44:00.000-08:00

I have always been a big supporter of the United States. When someone trashes the Americans I have always been quick to remind them about how much we owe to them as world leaders, but lately I am beginning to have some real concerns about how they conduct their affairs. Maybe its because as a Canadian we seem to put more value on things like honour, negotiating with a sense of fairness and believing that being polite and reserved are admirable qualities.

The squabble over softwood lumber that has been going on for years is a good example. I don't claim to have an understanding of that industry but I do know that there have been many decisions brought down in the dispute by trade regulatory bodies that rule the United States is clearly wrong in what they are doing. It seems that no matter what these agencies say the US is not going to abide by the rulings of the mechanisms they were instrumental in setting up say. It helps you to understand why there is such opposition to "free trade " with the US in other jurisdictions. They are becoming known as a rogue nation when it comes to living up to its standing agreements. The simple facts are, that they are imposing duties on lumber exports from Canada that apparently have no basis to be in place and then as an act of double dipping are paying these penalties out to United States lumber Companies. Thats the very worst kind of behaviour and blatent protectionism, shame shame on you.The US is becoming a classic example of "talk the talk" but can't "walk the walk" in a so many areas it is becoming part of the American culture.

It all came home to me when I was watching a documentary about a man on trial for war crimes. The man was Saddam Hussein and when his government was in jeopardy he ordered that his troops destroy their enemies and that included killing some of them. Suddenly it hit me, when the United States was in jeopardy George Bush ordered his troops to destroy their enemies and that included killing some of them. Apparently Saddams troops killed some innocent civilians, and apparently Georges troops killed some innocent civilians, interrupt me if I'm wrong but in both instances weren't the dead innocent Iraqi civilians. The difference is that Saddam is on trial for war crimes and George is portrayed as a defender of all thhings good and holy.

NOTE: I see on the news this morning that Saddam Hussein is beginning a process to have George Bush tried as a war criminal in the same fashion as he is being tried.

I have to stop for a while and sort this out in my head as suddenly I find it very confusing.

The part that I have real trouble rationalizing is that it just might be that George ordered the rain of destruction on Iraq for no valid reason, just like the US Dept of Commerce has placed duties on Canadian softwood lumber for, you got it, no valid reason.

Doesn't something seem a bit immoral here, its hypocritical to apply standards to others that you can't measure up to yourself.

Next item, the reconstruction of Iraq. During the first Gulf war the United States bombed the fuck out the Iraqi nation, basically destroying their infrastructure, oil terminals, roads, bridges, power plants, public buildings, the place was a wasteland. I remember General Swartzkoff and his famous pointer as he was showing who he referred to as the "unluckiest man in Iraq" to the laughs of the press corps and his staff. There was a bridge and the screen showed a laser aiming point in the middle, suddenly a vehicle sped into the crosshairs and the bridge suddenly blew up as about a ton of high explosive landed on this poor guys head.. HA HA HA the room exploded with laughter. What if this was the situation, the poor guy has his pregnant wife in the vehicle who was in labour and his two kids in the back seat, he's crying as he speeds along trying to calm his terrified wife and kids and get to a hospital. Wouldn't be quite as funny would it. Isn't it great to fight an antiseptic war and kill all these poor bastards from 30,000 feet and watch it from half a world away.

From what I understand the destruction to Iraq was about the same in both wars, here is a list from the 1991 war of the destruction

Schools and scholastic facilities – 3960
Universities, labs, dormitories – 40
Health facilities (including hospitals, clinics, medical warehouses) – 421
Telephone operators, communication towers, etc. – 475
Bridges, buildings, housing complexes – 260
Warehouses, shopping centers, grain silos – 251
Churches and mosques – 159
Dams, water pumping stations, agricultural facilities – 200
Petroleum facilities (including refineries) – 145
General services (shelters, sewage treatment plants, municipalities) - 830
Factories, mines, industrial facilities - 120

The difference was that after the first war Iraqi engineers went to work and within two years basically had eveything rebuilt. Now after the second Iraqi war the United States who decided they couldn't depend on the unskilled Iraqi construction forces to rebuild so they insisted it be done with good old Markan know how. (I use to love Lyndon Johnston come on TV and say "MA FELLO MARKANS"). Well sixty billion dollars and three years later you still can't turn on a light on for more than an hour in Baghdad. But at least as George loves to say, "we are the friends of the Iraqi people."

I think the whole world is starting to think, "with friends like this who needs enemies".

The Importance of a Vote

2006-01-24T12:53:00.000-08:00

I had an interesting experience about democracy to day. I was talking with a business man friend who was very sour that the Liberals had lost the election. It kind of surprised me because this is a conservative thinking person who constantly grumbles about hye gives the government to much money all the time.

So I said, I'm surprised you would feel like that because it seems to me that the issues brought forward by the Conservatives are much closer to what you believe in. I would have thought you would probably have supported them.

"I'd never vote for a conservative" he said, "never have and never will!!!!

Now I am naive enough to think that the wonderful thing about democracy is that you get to listen to what the issues of the day are, analyze them and try to make a decision about which party has the best platform to serve the nation and yourself the best given the realities of the day. Apparently I was wrong, its OK to not pay any attention to what those issues are and just vote the same way no matter what. No wonder we have such a fucked up country in many ways.

I Think Voicemail is a Curse

2006-01-19T07:32:00.000-08:00

For about 12 years I was the Administrator of a Government facility where 75 people from 8 Departments worked from. I came to recognize something about approximately 50% of them, they didn't understand that the most important of their jobs was to serve the needs of the public who incidentally paid all their salaries. This group looked upon interaction with the public as being an intrusion on their time.

Under the system that I had implemented at the time it was difficult for them to avoid that contact because every call coming to the center was answered at a receptionist position who could track them down and who knew where each person was. She could see at a glance from this wonderful thing called a switchboard if they were on their phone and maintained a status board where she could see if people were out of the office or in a meeting.

The culture that was in the facility was that the most important function of every person was to serve the publics requirements before the institutions. This meant there was no excuse for not responding promptly to a member of the public who was trying to reach someone. Now I believe every business or organization needs to put at the top of its list of priorities the necessity of managing contacts with clients and customers. Once voicemail is installed about 50% of individuals and probably 90% of government use it to avoid having to be in contact with the unwashed.

I get so fucking sick of phoning places and hearing "I can't take your call right now I am either away from my desk or on the phone, please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible. WHAT A PILE OF CRAP" What it really means is that I might check my messages at some point in the future and then if I think you are important enough I might get back to you.

One guy who worked in Charlottetown actually told me how much he loved voicemail because he never had to answer his phone anymore. I think that someone needs to design a telephone killer app that you could use to fill up a persons voicemail with electronic recorded messages and distribute it for free over the Internet with VOIP I think this could now be possible. Everytime you phoned someone who made you go through a menu, a system would deliver 50 voicemails to them which would fill up their voicemail box. They would then have to clear the messages out one at a time. The messages could sound like this.

"Thank you for taking my call on your voicemail. Its encouraging to know that my call is so important to you that you have chosen to record it for posterities sake. You must be psychic to know that my time is no importance and I have so much of it to spread around. Its nice to be treated with such respect by an an important person like you. In fact you have convinced me that hearing from me is so important I think I'll call back and leave you 50 more messages."

Please, Please someone invent a voicemail virus that kills the whole fucking thing.

John Says Future Shop is the Craps

2005-11-10T09:00:00.000-08:00

John Rowe had quite a run in with Future Shop the other day, his experience makes you wonder who does their customer relationship training, he thinks it might be somone from the Soprano family.

He needed a new laptop so shopped around and found what he wanted at Future Shop the price was a bit better than Dell or Staples so he set out to buy it. He reviewed all the details of the laptop with the salesman and verified the price. We don't have a Company Credit Card so he checked with the store to find out about payment. They said they would take a certified check. So he came back to the office and got a check and took it down to the Bank to get it certified and returned to Future Shop. At this point they informed him they didn't have one in stock. OK John said "how about that one". "We can't sell that one" they replied.
Hmmm he thought, why the hell didn't you tell me this when you knew I was going down to get a check.
OK when can you get one then, next week was the reply. But you can't have it for that price.

"But" John said, its right here in the flyer thats the price and you already told me it was. "Mistake" the saleman said, its only in some stores even though they advertise it Nationally.

Sometimes there is a case for justifiable homicide.

Hand in my Pocket, hand in my Pocket

2005-10-29T09:17:00.000-07:00

I think I discovered why politicians try so hard to cling to office, they have so darn much fun taxing people. Wow talk about the ultimate freak out lift to the stratosphere, shit on everybody who ever wronged you power trip. Being a politician on the winning side is definitely the place to be.

And to top it off if you are a politician you get to doubly crap over the heads of the masses when you decide that, because you are a "special person: you can create "exempt allowances for yourself," that allow you to live the elevated life style and not pay the tax piper. Excuse me while I finish with the results of a shoving a finger down my throat. In my opinion every time they dip into the royal treasury and start ladling the contents into their rice bowls they are stealing from me and every other hard working Canadian. These guys need to be reminded about the third commandment, "Though shall not steal".

I don't mind most money spent on Education, Health, Defence and Social Programs to help those who are hungry and for any number of legitimate reasons are having difficulty in making their way through life. Can I make a further definition on that last point, I don't consider criminals, drug addicts or dealers and just plain old lazy fucks as being legitimate beneficiaries to the money milk coming from the public teat.

And having the power to tax can be highly addictive because it gives you a high to be able to solve peoples problems, kind of a fly by the seat of your pants Dr. Phil" and the prevailing thought around government is that with enough money you can solve every problem anyone can throw at you. But you know what I have learned in life, having money or control of money causes as many problems as it solves and this increases with the less you do to get it.

We are fed a constant diet of politicians handing out cheques and getting their pictures in the papers. People are so fffing stupid they make the connection that this must be a good guy because he's giving money to all these causes and projects. Give your head a shake it's not their money. What I hear is that little ditty that is being played on TV now "hand in my pocket" hand in my pocket.

The Labchuk, NDP, Tree Hugger Blues

2005-10-26T13:08:00.000-07:00

We are having a plebiscite here on Prince Edward Island on Nov 28 to see if we want to change how we elect our Provincial Government. The idea of proportional representation is being floated around and I will be voting "NO" and encouraging those around me to also give a hefty sound of "Raaaaspberries" to this kookie notion.

At one time I would have been all for it, say about 40 years ago when I was still idealistic and supported all kinds of nonsensical issues. I use to burn me when I supported the NDP for instance and only a handful of MP's would be elected even though the popular vote showed there should have been more. But you know what, looking back there shouldn't have been more sent to Ottawa than were elected the good old fashioned way, first past the post.

The way I analyze it third place parties with fringe ideas play a role the way the current system works. These minor parties are always going to attract the screwball set. And its great there is a place for them to be accommodated, but I really don't want their total agenda forced on me. I was a big NDP supporter years ago and the NDP party of the Sixties and 70's did this country an enormous service by raising issues into the public agenda. But I couldn't support all of their policies because they just didn't fit with my values or make common sense. The problem with them is they go to far and that's why I never want to see narrow focused groups with to much power. The middle of the road parties will evaluate the ideas coming from extreme left, right and single issue groups, mull them over, and when the collective wisdom of millions of Canadians judge these ideas to be correct they are fit into our system of political agendas.

In Wednesdays Guardian newspaper there is a story that outlines exactly what I am trying to get across and I quote ' A coalition of labour, feminist and activist groups stepped forward to declare themselves the "Yes on MMP (Mixed Member Proportional) Coalition. These people just don't get it, I think part of the appeal of working outside the system is to be able to wail at night how everyone is against them and they are "after all special people, with special needs, that no one understands" . I say smarten the fuck up. These people have something that parties with a broad based agenda would love to have working for them, enthusiasm, passion, energy but these birds just don't know how to get past their single issues. They need to take their blinders off and work within the middle of the road groups to move their agendas forward by degrees, that's how you get things done. But the downside is they miss out on being able to feel sorry for themselves and that feeling of righteousness that comes from the bolstering of their wackiness from their closed group of friends. Rational people might ask them to take a broader look at their issues and what the hell fun would that be.

I really hate the idea of having a Government composed of a hundred warring factions, that's no way to run a railroad. And a move to proportional representation would also lead to that most hated political game ever invented and elevated to a fine art in the United States the "rider". Minority Governments end up surviving by participating in the market of the buying and selling of votes. If you want my vote and believe me these birds are so desperate to hang onto their power if it can be spun they'll deal for it. So we get legislation supported that is not palatable pushed through as part of the deal. Just look at the way things are unfolding in Ottawa right now. The NDP are forcing the Liberals to be fiscally irresponsible because if they don't, they won't get their support in critical votes, I call it Government by blackmail.

In the US they are more sophisticated but also more greedy. When you are on a powerful committee crafting important legislation, members will attach a rider that must be included in order to get their support. Usually these riders are very self serving for the riding the politician represents and have nothing to do with the bill being considered. If the bill is to establish rules for granting school lunches to underprivileged kids, someone on the committee will attach a "rider" that might say " Bunionville has to get a $20,000.000.00 economic development grant". Because the sections of the bill are all approved at once, the game is "I won't support it getting out of committee unless you give me this". Add a few more riders and you get pork barreling at its worst or best depending on your point of view.

But then again maybe I could make this work for me, you see I am a member of a group that got pissed on by Government last year. I'm a golfer and am not happy that Government put a Tax on my membershp and on green fees paid, there is about 10,000 others just like me and we could form a bloc of angry litte slicing, hooking bastards that could recognize this as a chance for a mulligan. We could register as a party and have the golfers coalition vote us in as second choice, that could give us a seat or two and we could sell our vote to get have the Tax removed. But what a bitch this could turn out to be, someone would have to sit in the Legislature and listen to this cranky bunch day after day to collect their $45,000.00 which is tough when you have no political agenda beyond dropping the 10% tax on golf.

But it could be interesting though, maybe Sharon Labchuk would make it and if I was the poor bugger who had to give up my spring and fall golf I could be there when she trades in her potatoe field protest to sit buck naked on the desk next to me. That I think I could take, in small doses, but if Leo Broderick makes it I'm afraid I could only last through one of his high pitched 500 word a minute whine sessions before an assault an battery would take place. I could become the Todd Bertuzzi of the PEI legislature and Leo could be my Stevie Moore.

Is This Guy for Real

2005-10-21T10:55:00.000-07:00

I see in the newpaper that Svend Robinson is going to challenge Hedy Frey in the riding of Vancouver Centre. Please, Please Hedy kick the shit out of this guy at the polls so I never have to be revolted by either seeing him on TV again or listening to him spout his self serving and ridiculous crap again.

I was listening to Bruce Kidd this morning on CBC radio as he was making the case for not allowing Todd Bertuzzi or Dany Heatley represent Canada at the Olympic games because they didn't represent what he thought was the stereotype of a typical Canadian and their values. I get so sick of these pantywastes and their righteous indignations, but then I guess its our right as Canadians to have opinions, that is, its OK if your opinion happens to support the belief system of the touchy feely boys.

Ok Bruce you have the right to say you don't think they are fit to be hockey players and represent Canada because of the rough tough life they live, well I don't think that Svend is fit to be a Member of Parliament.

Todd Bertuzzi was one of the participants in an unfortunate accident where Steve Moore from Colorado who blindsided one of Bertuzzi's teammates wouldn't take the honourable route and settle things the way they have always been settled in Canadian hockey with a good old 30 second fight. And Dany Heatley as a young man with a Ferrarri was involved in a car accident in which his friend was killed, terrible thing and he has repeatedly said his irresponsibility is going to haunt him forever. So those two incidents make them unfit to play hockey for Canada. I watched the many press conferences these guys had to endure, and you know what, I was a hell of a lot more convinced that the tears these MEN shed were a lot more real than anything that Svend squeezed out. And you know the difference they weren't crying over themselves they were torn apart by what happened to someone else as a result of actions they took which they freely admitted they were responsible for, thats what real men do, not whine about themselves. Did I hear you say they should be in the same category as those using drugs?

Lets hear about Robinson and what his special personality traits are that make him a prime candidate for helping run our country.

* Married his high school sweetheart but she divorced him when he cheated on her with a man.
Way to go Svend thats what being a Canadian is all about. Don't you think th RIGHT thing to do was to speak to her and tell her about your feelings for men instead of her having to catch you.

*Became an alcoholic as his way to cope with his mothers death.
My mother died to but I don't recall needing to have a drink 20 times a day to make me right. We all have major times of tragedy in our lives but the rest of us pick up the pieces and move on, its called strength of character Svend.

*Became a lawyer, but left the profession after a year.
Way to stick it out Svend

* Was removed by his party as Justice critic after he publicly came out in favour of establishing red light districts and making whorehouses legal.
Just what we need to help prop up the families of the nation a whorehouse on every corner. Tommy Douglas, Stanley Knowles and David Lewis the architects of the core human rights we enjoy would roll over in their graves if they knew the causes their beloved NDP party was now promoting. Svend even you are way to far to the left for the likes of Jack Layton.

* Heckles President Ronald Reagan in the House of Commons after he has accepted an invitaion to address the MP's.
Most people learn on their mothers knee that you are polite to a guest. What a prick you are Svend to go headline hunting with such a cheap exhibition to a captive audience.

*Sentenced to jail for criminal contempt
Helps kill Sue Rodriguez for a publicity stunt

* Gets hurt while hiking and credits his love for his boyfriend as the reason he survived by crawling 400 yards.
What the fuck kind of gooney bird is this guy, he sprained his ankle.

* Tables a petition in the House of Commons to remove the word God from the preamble to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Svend before I checked up on you I just dismissed you as being a bit misguided but now I am seeing a pattern emerging I don't think you are a nice person.

* Travels to the Middle East to try an see Yassar Arafat, who refuses to meet with him.
Even Yassar knows a fruit cake when he sees one and he won't even let this one in the country let alone in his office.

* After a few days in Israel and no one will give him the time of day he pronounces that Israel is guity of torture and murder. He then resigns as NDP Foreign policy critic.
Wow Svend you sure showed them a thing or two.

* Svend steals a $64,000.00 diamond ring and after he realizes he has been caught on tape (anyone who doesn't think he got tipped off please step forward - no one thats what I thought) he fesses up.
His track record to this point makes me question a lot of things about this bird, this clinches it this guy is a cheating, lying, publicity seeking, unbelieving, man with no sense of morality who is nothing more than a petty thief who is not above trying to use every ounce of political correctness to his advantage to have to get off. What a weasel

* Instead of standing up like a man and admitting his guilt he whines about how his love for his partner and the stress he was under made him do it, so he really wasn't responsible.
Come on Svend even an asshole like me knows from my limited exposure to Doctor Phil that there is some serious sick shit going on in the head of anyone who can't accept repsonsibility for their actions.

And you know what, I bet the NDP leadership is cheering Hedy on, come on Hedy put on those stompin boots, get his shrivelled little nuts into those vice grips! I think the NDP leadership all got the same sick feeling in their stomachs when he announced his return as Lucy had when she moaned her famous lament, "Aaaaarrrrggggh--- my lips touched dog lips"

So Bruce baby I rest my case. This sick depraved, spineless piece of humanity isn't suitable in my opinion to be elected to be a local dog catcher let alone be given a stage like the house of Commons.

But wait there is a special kind of disgusting reality called political correctness that will protect this sick puppy. He can't be held responsible for anything because, if he is ever criticized for anything, he plays the "you are discriminating against me because I am gay card".
No wonder this country is in such trouble.

Crappy Electrical System in 2002 Sonata

2005-10-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

I finally bought what could pass for a luxury car in October of 2002. I had thought about something like a Toyota Corolla Above - Pic of Hyundai Presidents Curse which would have been the wiser move, but the Greenish coloured Sonata looked and rode just to nice. I took out a 2002 Camry at the same time and the Sonata rode and handled better.

All in all I have been reasonably satisfied with it, it has to many miles on it 161,000 at last count, but thats what you get when you live in the country. My wife is described well by an old PEI saying "She runs the roads al lot, but she makes good pickles". I guess that makes everyting allright.

Anyway last spring the park lights wouldn't turn off which of course is going to run the battery down so I have to remove a fuse to shut them off. The problem is that when the fuse is out the taillights don't come on, so whenever we want to use the car at night I have to pop the hood, get into the fuse box and install a fuse. Then when I get out of the car I have to reverse the process. I have had a mechanic look at it twice and spend about an hour trying to find the problem. I took it over to Hyundia and they said replace the circuits that hold the fuses because trying to find the problem could take a long time. The cost $700.00, that really pisses me off a frigging little box that I am being gouged for. Hell I can buy a whole computer for less.

So my comment of the day is "The pox on Hyundai". Actually pox isn't exactly pox its syphillis. So, President of Hyundai when you start to break out with scabs on your dickie I want you to know that if you put a reasonable price on your electrical parts this wouldn't have happened to you. Try explaining that to your wife.

The Trouble with Teachers

2005-10-11T09:39:00.000-07:00

When I first sat on a school board it didn't take long to understand that the whole education system is totally fucked up because of teachers and teachers federations. Sounds like an off the wall, don't give this guy a shred of credibility kind of statement, but when I explain some simple facts you will understand why its true.

Have you noticed how many times that whole industries have gone bankrupt because of employees unions. Have you noticed that militant unions are concerned with only one thing, themselves, and that they all operate from the same basic philosophy, get more for yourselves and do less for it. Something I have noticed about Buzz Hargrove, he isn't looking to do things better for the Company that is writing everyones paycheque, he's always looking at, more for less.
No different than any other labour leader, protect the interests of the membership at all costs. Union leaders don't give about a rats ass about the industry that supports them.

Take the case of the Teachers Federation in British Columbia, they have walked off the job and the issues are:
1. More money
2. Smaller class sizes
and at a news conference the Teachers federation leader stood up and with a straight face and declared, "we are doing this to take a stand for public education. What the fuck does that have to do about whats going on. Can't make the connection myself but then as my wife constantly reminds me, "I'm not all that smart".

But I have learned a few things from my love of the game of golf that I think apply, and they are simple truths.

The first is, "if you have a poor swing and don't correct it, you will never have a good golf game."

The second is " if you keep practicing your poor swing you will get better at doing something badly". Now how does this have anything to do with our education system, and here it comes.

First you have to accept a few things before we look to solve the education problem.

1. The primary responsibility being practiced by every Teachers Federation is to strengthen the postion of teachers within the education system, not to improve the education system itself. The question that is asked by every teachers representative about any proposed change is " what effect does this have on the teacher." If you accept that as reality then try this statement that comes from every teachers mouth , "all we care about are the children" That one wouldn't even fool Col Sherman T. Potter who when he heard it bellowed to radar O'Reilly "Horsehockey". Translation - Bullcrap, when it comes down to it they care about those paycheques and having to do less, wrapping it up in "what we really care about is a better education for the children" is a wonderful feely good statement that masks the way the are screwing up kids lives.

I remember in the small Saskatchewan Town of Nokomis in about 1963 or 4. There was a car accident and two young people from the Town were killed. The liquor was supplied by a guy who lived on the edge of town, can't remember his last name, Russian I think, but everyone knew him as CPR Joe. He bootlegged some booze to these kids and they got drunked up rolled a car and they died. I was underage at the time and was visiting with my two uncles. Somehow we ended up at a party and Joe was there, he was bemoaning the fact that it wasn't fair that he was being blamed for the kids death, after all he said through an alcohol fueled logic that " all he was trying to do was help them out". I guess somehow that made him feel better and he was probably working at believing it but if you are standing on the outside you realize how ridiculous it is. Same thing with teachers "its all about helping the children" Bullcrap "its all about helping the teachers get more and do less. But the real saddness of the whole situation is that a sytem that clearly is failing so many children is being perpetuated. Guess what the weak link in the system is "The Teachers Themselves" and here's why, because the system (designed by teachers - administered by teachers - evaluated by teachers ) depends upon teachers as the center of the system, around which everything revolves. And when the system doesn't work they blame the curricullum, the class size, the facilities, a lack of money, social situations everything but the teacher.

And the teachers federations have worked hard to remove themselves from ever being evaluated, remember when there were Provincial exams and every kid in the system wrote the same tests at the end of the year. Seems to me that it wouldn't be to hard to figure out that if every kid in Mrs Bullcraps class was 15 points behind the Provincial average that their might be a problem with Mrs Bullcrap. So they have removed themselves from ever being held responsible for failures. If I remember right their main argument was that it wouldn't be fair to compare teachers when some taught in uppercrustville elementary and others in dogpatch, something about stronger gene pools.

Now I want you to think how the system would be turned upside down if we make a simple shift in in our thinking about the rights of a student. Don't we base our existing thinking about schools place in society on this premise ' Every child has a right to an education". Doesn't hang anybody out to dry, its like saying Moms are great, on the surface its like, as American as apple pie. But use your imagination and base our system on this alternate statement. "Every child has the right to be in an environment where they can learn". Whoa now, half the kids I know of don't learn worth a shit when the sytem supports a dependancy upon Mrs Bullcrap as the centrepiece of the learning game. So if thats true then we have to look at alternatives where the prime factor in whether your child learns anything more than colouring inside the lines is not the teacher, its the system itself. The answer by the Teachers Federation is more professional development days, smaller class size and more resources, but don't change anything that diminshes the status of teachers. How innovative is that.

Everyone can remember back to their schooldays and I bet there is not one of us that can't name the good teachers and the bad ones. My list of good teachers is not that long and the ones on it could teach anything to anybody. But the others, man what a bunch of losers, uninteresting, unmotivating and unable to hold anyones interest. In fact with the bad ones if you weren't able to educate yourself you wouldn't make much progress in those classes. In todays classroom its compounded by the fact that if little Johnny doesn't want to pay attention but wants to talk and cause a disturbance all day long there is almost nothing that the teacher can do about it.

My kids all went a small school after we moved to PEI and how their education went was dependant on two things down at the school, who was in the class and who the teacher was. for those that started grade one with a juvenile delinquent or two in the class they had to endure their constant disrupting of the classs for nine years. That problem child robbed the other 25 of an education at the same level as those in a class where there was no class clown, and no Mrs Bullcrap. I wonder if I could start a class action lawsuit, not to get anything but to get the issue of the negative effect of having a bad apple in a class on the public agenda. You see, having discipline in a classrom goes against the new premise I introduced about being in an environment in which they can learn.

The behaviour problem in the class can't learn in that open environment because it gives them a forum to act out all the fucked up stuff stuff they have inside and it doesn't place the student who wants to learn in the ideal situation because they are constantly being distracted by little Johnny screw up and not being motivated by Mrs Bullcrap who is the center of the learning experience, the environment isn't there for anyone.

So what do we do about it, first we look at how classrooms are set up and look at alternatives to rows, big rooms and teacher at the front, then establish the different ways in which the curriculum can be presented to each student, then we take a look at what is the best way to create an environment where everyone can thrive academically.

Let me give you an example of a system we used when we started a private school and I am sure there are additional innovative methods being used that cut to the heart of the education dilemna.

In a square room face all the kids towards and outside wall with stations(desks) having about 4 feet of room. Then put up a wall divider between each desk so that each child has about a 4 x 4 space that is theirs, they can't see or disturb the child on either side of them. This is an important step because it creates an environment where the class clown is out of site, he no longer has a stage. When the teacher is talking they turn their chairs around and face the centre of the room where the teacher is.

Instead of having large textbooks, have small ones that each contain about three weeks of material that is contained in a workbook that the kids can write in do their assignments. That puts the information and the exercises in the same book. When the child has completed the workbook they take a test on the three weeks of work in the book. If they pass with 80% they get the next book , if they don't they get the same book again and they repeat it until they know the work well enough to move on. If you keep moving kids ahead when they don' understand the work that future lessons are built on how can they do well. That why we have kids in Grade 9 who can hardly read or understand basic math.

Using workbooks many children are able to learn by themselves with minimal interaction with a teacher. This frees the teachers time to spend more one on one time with those that need extra help or to conduct small sessions at a table for small groups while others work away by themselves. This is possible because when each child has their own workspace they are free from distractions.

By breaking the learning experience into a series of three week modules and removing the teacher from being the center of learning and relying more on a system, it is possible to keep children in a classroom setting where they remain in an age group, but each child can be at a different place in their learning journey because the idea of grades has been abandoned. It is not uncommon to have a two year spread in the progress of students using this system and it is no ones business but the childs, the parents and the teacher where each child is at.

Our experience with this caused some problems but not with what you would expect. Some of the teachers had difficulty adapting at first because they suddenly realized that these kids were succeeding and the teachers role had changed to being a facilitator rather than the leader.
The second problem we encountered in the second year of operation was that many of the kids were moving to far ahead of what would be expected at a grade level so we had to expand the curricullum horizontally and offer more subjects.

The third problem we had was that even by expanding to offer more subjects the kids were still progressing to fast so we had to reduce the school week to 4 days. This was done by having school finish at 12 noon on Wednesdays and by having every Friday afternoon as a school activity day where the kids just had fun. The Wednesday afternoon off each week meant parents could schedule any appointments involving children on that day and it gave the teachers a midweek break to evaluate the students, discuss any issues they had or search for more effective ways to run things.

Some of the other innovations we used was that on Monday mornings each child set a goal for work during the week and had control over which subjects they were going to work in. So long as they met the minimum amount of work for the week. This is possible because most of the learning is done from the workbooks and teaching is done mostly one to one or in small groups.

Because we determined that in order to join the learning experiance a child had to read it was mandatory for children once they reached grade 7 to have scheduled time with students in the Grade 1 and 2 classes to work with them in developing their reading skills as well as with kids up to grade 4 with math.

Once a child had completed a years worth of work it was up to the parent to decide if they wanted the child to continue attending every day so many kids could have a summer holiday of 4 months rather than 2, its called giving a reward if you do well at something.

Another thing we discovered was that there was no need for homework because the kids did so much work in school. In order to document that standards were being met we had the kids do the California Achievement Tests to establish at what Grade level they were at every six months. What we found was that when a child first entered the school they were all either at the expected level or below it. After six months most kids had dropped a little because of the repeated work they had to do to get up to speed. This was expected because of the 80% requirement to move on and many of the kids had advanced in the public school system without mastering previous work they had done. By the beginning of the next school year the majority of students were ahead of the expected Grade level and later were considerably ahead.

It is really hard for a teacher benefit and status building organization like a Teachers Federation to endorse a system like this because it reduces their role so much. Now what do you think about that

Happy Birthday Sweetie Pies

2005-10-09T07:51:00.000-07:00

Two of my grand daughters are having their Birthdays today and the whole crew is assembling at my place for a big pot luck birthday celebration, all 6 of my kids and 13 grandchildren. Was a man ever so blessed. If I can figure out how to post pictures on here I will put some up of the big party.

I've been up to some skullduggery though, the Birthday cake that someone purchased yesterday and I found this morning on the kitchen counter is missing some icing. Somehow some icing detached along one side and a slab fell off, I discovered that you don't just put it back on without doing some serious damage to the cake so I have reversed it in the package and have it now displayed with the wound against the wall so no one can see my fingerprints where I tried to push it back into place. Honest thats what happened, I'm calling it an act of God.

Happy Birthday Ava and Avelyn

Think Before you do Anything

2005-10-07T08:11:00.000-07:00

I have been following the saga of the march of the whackos in The Eastern graphic as The Montague Town Council tries to top every succeeding weeks stupidity with yet another mind numbing act. It all started with an order to two of the Towns churches to tear apart a couple of minor building projects they had undertaken without the blessing of the Town fathers. One built a fire escape in case someone was trapped on the second floor of their hall and the second put up a wheel chair ramp to assist those with disabilities have an easier time getting into the church.

I believe they actually have to approve any construction in the town at their monthly council meeting. I can see some problems coming up here. Couldn't be like everyplace else in the world and have permits issued by their administration.

Now maybe they think people in Montague are a bunch of well organized little bees who think things through well in advance and keep everything in their hives in fine trim. This does not describe me and not not many of them either I believe. A building project will drift out of mind on and off for months before I actually start anything and when its time for action it ususally starts on an impulse at about 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning with a time table to complete sometime that afternoon. So if I lived in Montague unless the Town council happened to meet in my front yard at about 8:30 theres not much chance of me getting a permit in time for start time of 9 o'clock. And if I had to wait until the second Monday of the Month and bring my plans in triplicate to get a permit before I start, Schurmans is not going to have a good year.

How hard in a small Town is it to give Pastor John a call and say, nice looking fire escape you built there, could you send in something telling us what you did along with $5.00 and we'll make it nice and legal. Instead the special kind of stupidity shared by bureaucrats, politicians and committees kicked in and a proclomation was issued to remove the offending structures at both churches, then make an application for a permit, and then rebuild what you just tore down. My mother used to remind me to say please when I wanted something and she was pretty successful at getting the point across without any Draconian incidents. I'm lucky one of my parents wasn't a Town Councillor in Montague, I can see it now little Johnny spears another potato and scoffs it down, in Montague he would be forced to throw it up, ask for another potato and then swallow it again.

Not wishing to stop by offending the local Church community these guys turned on themselves. It appears one of them was going to build a shed, so in anticipation of starting a project some bright Saturday morning one of the councilors ordered some trusses and had them delivered to his back yard. Apparently this raised the ire of some of his fellow councillors who must have seen the opportunity for a bit of payback for some snide remark in council chambers and Beck was turned in. He defended himself vigouresly against the might of town council who argued with equal passion that having the material on site was the same as actually starting. I think I'll send them some applications forms to join the flat earth society, these guys are prime candidates for membership. It seems you don't have to actually start building to need a permit in Montague all you have to do is begin assembling the tools. whats the difference between having some lumber dropped off and sitting at your kitchen table sketching up some plans. Both part of the process, what's next, they take away our pencils. Let the wrangling begin, next up, there were renovations done in City hall, guess what, nobody issued a permit. And guess what else, they didn't issue a notice to themselves to tear down what they had done and then apply.

There's an old civil service joke about a guy hanging by his thumbs and a man with a whip looking at him. The caption underneath says " You didn't do anything wrong but you broke our rules." Way to go Richard, Naill, Henry, Hugh, Peter and Beck.

But wait these guys aren't done yet. The local kids and seniors club needed a new floor in the Generation XX clubhouse. They were lucky enough to have some businesses donate enough plywood and tile to put a new one down. Now this is an organization run by volunteers so they did what volunteers do, they put out the call and enough people showed up to tear the old floor out, put the new one down and lay the tile over a weekend so it would be ready for an event that was being planned for next week. Well guess who came to dinner, the grinch himself in the form of the offical by-law enforcer for the Town who immediately whipped out his whanker and pissed all over the parade. "Home you scoundrels"he declared "they're be no good deeds done on my watch." Way to go Montague Town Council.
Just when you think that that stupidity has reached about as low as it can get the councillors start digging again. It was reported in this mornings paper that the application for a permit for the kids club to put their new floor down was turned down at last nights council meeting. They have to leave the torn up floor as it is in an unusable state until the whole thing is appealed to the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission. The Mayor Richard Collins declared council can't issue a permit once a stop work order is issued, this is the fault of his arch enemy the former Mayor( Mrs McGowan who unseats him every second election) because she should have changed the by-law to say they specifically issue a permit. What a fucking bunch of tools.

Charlottetown Council Hates Business

2005-10-03T11:10:00.000-07:00

We moved our business about a year ago because we came to the conclusion that the City of Charlottetown hates having businesses downtown. How did I stumble across this,------ simple we got three parking tickets in one day.

Why did we get those tickets you ask-------simple, there is no frigging place to park downtown.

How did I reach this conclusion about the hate -----simple, City council runs the place and if they won't let you park without some bastard in a flourescent yellow vest coming along and screwing up your day, thats if you are unfortunate enough to actually find a spot to facilitate being held for ransom. I was talking with a mild mannered businessman on the street as I was doing my daily sneak into the Post office with feeding a metre and he actually started to stutter as he was telling me about his take on the parking he was so pissed off.

His office is on the lower half of Queen street where council felt it would be quaint to recreate Charlottetown of the 1800's. Great idea if we go back to horses but the recreation is going to require reducing available parking spaces by 27 in a block around his office. the poor bugger is dying now because nobody can find him now without leaving their car at the mall and taking a cab.

And what really pisses everyone off is that in order to do something about the situation they made it worse. New Federal building coming coming downtown and with it comes hundreds of people. Guess what, City council decides they will not require the Feds to follow the Cities Bylaws and supply parking for their employees in a garage on their building site. So they give them a permit with no provision for parking. Its already impossible to find a spot, I can just imagine it in a years time. So what the hell can you do about it, the only answer is start running the town in shifts. We already have some time slots camped on. The drink till you're blind set has Friday and Staurday night reserved and the Federal people invented something called flex hours to make sure their people grab every fuckin parking spot downtown while the rest of us are waiting for a civilized hour to start our days. The feds let their people work a 7 and one half hour day and start any time they want. And the biggest want is to get a parking spot, so they all come into work a 7am and leave at 3pm. Incidentally we really get our monies worth on this one because they get to put an hour and a half of drinking coffee in without anyone disturbing them.

The problem for the business set is that there is no point in bringing in staff at 7 to fight for parking turf because there is no one around to buy anything until about 9:30. But I don't care anymore I'm out on Walker Drive, lots of parking, no metres.

Come to Canada make Millions

2005-09-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

They're shaking the tree again and the fruitbars are falling fast. Paul Martin just hit the ground with a thud but recovered fast quickly broke into his lemur impersonation the moment he found a microphone.

It seems the President of Pakistan when asked about the Muktar Mai case walked into a feminist and lemur shitstorm as confirmed he had heard the rumour story circulating in Pakistan concerning her.

Now Muktar Mai is the Pakistani woman who was raped by a group in her village because it was judged to be a suitable reparation for a family whose daughter was spoken to by Muktars brother. It seems that in Rollyoureyeballs Province in Pakistan that when you are of a low social class family and you utter a few words to someone from a higher class this is seen as reason for retribution and that a penis has to involved, in fact in this instance many penii were directed towards her at the order of the village council. This poor girl was hauled off and the male members of the clan took revenge. It proves to me that fruitbar trees obviously grow in warm climates too and that politicians in Pakistan have the same shit for brains as they have here.

Mai rightfully won public sympathy and Government support after she demanded the men be charged and convicted.

So back to the President when asked about the case he said the environment in Pakistan has led to the rise to a bizarre urban myth and people see this as a way to make money. If you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or Citizenship and become a millionaire, get yourself raped.

Because of the media attention, common thought amongst the Rollyoureyeballites is that if you are notorious like Muktar, its not only your ticket out of this hellhole, but that people in Canada will give you money to listen to you talk about it.

Little do they know that the best they could hope for is a few minutes on Jerry Springer.

Anyway back to the lemur impression as a puffed up eyeball bulging Paul upbraided Musharraf for his comments. He informed a waiting public that he raised the issue with Musharraf at the UN general Assembly. Amnesty International jumped on board and condemned him for his callous and insulting statement and demanded a public apology to all the women of Pakistan and followed that with a call for him to apologize to all the women of the world.

The juggernaut rolled on and the poor shell shocked bastard next read about his attitude of blaming rape on women themselves puts him in the same category as ignorant mullahs and male chauvinists. I can hear him trying to explain it to his wife about how all he did was tell them about the story about the latest urban myth making the rounds in the Punjab.

I can see her looking at him like a deer caught in the headlights.

I recently learned something about myself

2005-04-04T15:58:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I started taking Karate lessons and was stunned to discover that I am unable to do something different with each arm at the same time. This was revealed to me when I tried doing an exercise where we would punch out with one arm turning the knuckles up and simultaneously pulling the other in to your side and turning the knuckles down. I couldn't do it unless I broke the motions into two distinct parts, punch out and turn knuckles up, hesitate for a moment then pull other arm to my side and turn knuckles down but if I tried them both at once my brain just fries. This revelation explains a lot of things in my life and I can't believe that it took me 59 years to figure this out.

The first indication came when I was trying to learn how to juggle. I simply couldn't do it, not even with just 2 balls. When threw one up I couldn't do anything else until it came down and I had caught it. If I tried throwing up another ball before I caught the first one it was a disaster. I didn't dwell on it that Glenn Pushman, the stupidest kid in class could do it and I couldn't. He was the only person I ever knew as a kid who would fart anytime, anywhere around anyone, and took no measures to conceal it, as a farting juggler he had no equal.

My disability with the 2 hand thing also crippled me as a guitar and piano player. I am unable to take in the information fast enough to produce anything that flows with either instrument. But I didn't have as much difficulty with the violin for some reason.

It Takes All Kinds to make a World

2005-04-01T09:16:00.000-08:00

There's an old island expression I came across a while ago that had me thinking for a bit, I believe I heard David Weale use it in his stage presentation " A Long Way From the Road". It goes like this " He's so mean he won't shit away from home". The meaning of it is that a person won't give anything to anyone.

It started me thinking about people I had known who might have fit the bill and it didn't take long to come up with candidates for this club. I know most people who will act in their own interest in a way that I think is a bit excessive, but I also know that is just human nature so I come to expect it. The people who I really hold in high regard are those people of character that are able to look above the pettiness of small time self interest. And it might come as a surprise to everyone, but the single group where I have seen this admirable characteristic exibited most often is in people who are in business. Not all of them of course because there are always those who can't get past the desire to have sleepless nights struggling with the guilt that has to come from the way they behave.

On the surface you would think that those who claim a strong christian belief would tower head and shoulders over others in resisting the temptation to be self serving but thats not the case. And I am not counting calculated generosity in filling the collection plate I am speaking about the gut felt reaction to look after their own interests first. Not a particularly good commentary on the christian walk.

My first nominee for shit of the week comes to us from British Columbia and is a man long deceased, but the tradition of shitting at home I am sure is being well carried on by his 2 witless sons. Now I have to clarify this a bit because the father behaved like this as a way of life, and he justified his actions to himself and to others by saying you have to drive a hard bargain, its just good business. His sons however were never so noble, but they couldn't help it because they also fit into the category of being stupid besides.

I kind of admired this guy when I first met him, Bill Stevenson was his name and he was successful, lots of money although I kind of wondered about him because he never seemed to do any work. Then he bought a boat, he took me down to see it one day and it completely blew me away. It was a 48' cruiser with twin diesel engines, 2 full size bedrooms, living room galley , upper bridge and all done in carpet and mahogany. It was just stupendous I had never seen anything like it.

One day I was in visiting a realtor friend who was selling duplexes for Bill and he told me the story of the boat. He had bought it in Vancouver and had struck a pretty hard deal to get it. Then he had the brokerage do a bunch of custom work on the yacht. Once it was done he took it and then told the owner of the business that the saleman had told him the work came with the deal. It got the salesman in real trouble. Ron told me that Bill would come in every day and use his phone to call the Company and would complain about something. He told Ron there was nothing wrong with the boat but that he was going to hound them every day until he got his way.
A bona fide shit.

A guy I knew down here was given a job with a community group I was connected with long enough for him to get his stamps to draw unemployment. One evening we had a load of sod arrive unexpectedly and it had to be unloaded right away. We grabbed everyone coming into Coopers and had them sent down to help unload the truck. This guy came in and when asked he was highly insulted. "I don't do anything for nothin" he said "if I help out I have to be paid." He wondered why we never hired him back next spring.

I helped a guy get a house one time and even hired him so he could get the down payment, felt sorry for him because he had such a hard life. We moved him and did extra work on the place at no charge. Then he refused to pay us the last two thousand dollars because he had painted an old truck I had, claiming the work was worth more than what he owed.

When I was building the house in Eldon I made arrangements with my Director to only work until 3:00 pm which gave me an extra hour to work on the house each day, keep up with work at the office each day and not get so run down I would wear out. A person who had also applied for the job I got called my Director after about six weeks of this too report that I was going home early. The Director called me to let me know who it was and that they obviously had it in for me.
I was especially nice to them after that, the idea was to heap coals of fire on their head.

But at the top of the list has to be this guy Schiavo from Florida who wanted to see his wife die. Fine, its hard to debate the ethics of what happened, maybe she did tell him she didn't want to be kept alive, maybe he had other motives, I don't care to comment on it. But when she was dying he refused to let her parents or any of her family be with her. Then to top it off he had her cremated and buried somewhere near Pennsylvania and now won't tell her grieving parents where he placed her ashes. Isn't he a sweetheart and fine example of someone who fits the saying " so mean he won't shit away from home."

Whats wrong with wearing a bullseye?

2005-03-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

On the news today there was an article about racial profiling and why it is wrong. Well let me tell you, if I find a half eaten chicken in my henhouse I am not going to question our budgie, I'm going looking for the dog. Now I don't see anything wrong by going looking for the dog because I know there's a higher level of probably he's the one doing the Colonel Saunders with an apron impersonation than the chickens first cousin budgie Bob.

And sorry, but if I'm getting on an airplane I'm going to check out anyone speaking Arabic and carrying a copy of the Koran clutched to his chest a little bit closer than the Granny settling in across the aisle. And you know what, I think thats reasonable. I don't think we should be applying comprehensive generalities to identifiable groups of people, but what the hell, lets use some common sense and discrimination in looking for suspects.

But I can appreciate it when someone feels they are being discriminated against because of their colour or nationality and I know it can do damage, but on the other hand some people revel in perceived slights and persecutions, they can use it as the "big excuse" for every failure in their fucked up lives. Its a great way to put the blame on society. I think the guy who just killed those 4 mounties fit right in there.

My dear old grandmother, who was an amazing woman, as an academic, musician and person once gave me some advice. I remember her saying to me "Jim you have to understand, the French are unable to govern themselves", now thats quite a statement and if I took it at face value I'd have quite a perception of the French. She told me as well, "never turn your back on a Russian, don't trust the Dutch, and the Germans like everything in order." It was said with the confident air of "everyone knows these things". She also passed words of wisdom on most other Europeans but I can't seem to recall them. But you know I have found that its a better policy to take people as you find them, the unfortunate is that some groups are found exactly as they are generally described.

But no less a person than James A. Michener once wrote "the Spanish are a strange people, they are the only race where a mans mistress is probably uglier than his wife". It must have been from an obscure essay as I don't recall any womens lib movement to string him up, and it was either accepted as fact in Spain or unreported because he visited the country many times and left with his testicles intact on each occaision. Maybe he's right maybe he's wrong.

But I think in the wave of political correctness the biggest discrimination I see is the reverse profiling done when someone makes what is a statement based on their observations, but have it twisted to become a racially derogative statement that was made and designed to hurt.

I grew up in Saskatchewan and in an area where there was a huge native population, now you can make a lot of general statements about Indians that would get you into hot water in the racial profiling arena. These would probably involve drink, work, promiscuity and even if you had observed behaviour over a long period of time you'de be setting of a bomb under your chair if you made these observations public.

One of the interesting passtimes we used do in the summer was go into Battleford about 10 o'clock on Saturday night to watch the Indians get arrested. And why were they getting arrested you ask, well because they get out of order when they drink. You could count on it, there'd be fights and fornication and guys pissing against your car, trust me the Indians wouldn't let you down. But I think it would be best nowadays for you to say "think I'll go into town and see if anythings happening"

Thats about as positive a statement as "the French can't govern themselves", now I don't know about the French, but I do know about Indians and know lots of them, they definitely get out of order when they get drunk, great people when they're sober but they go "Indian" when they're drunk, whoops there I go again. And if they want me to think differently it would be easy behave differently, but maybe thats to simple, but Michael was right when he said " if you want to be thin, stop fucking eating".

I also got some profiling from my Grandfathers, my grandfather MacKenzie once told me "Jimmy, never trust a Campbell and my grandfather Kinnee came out with "those MacKenzies, always looking around to see who they can do next."

I suppose that every statement I have made or retold was based on some personal experiences or observations, but in todays climate anything you say about the characteristics of any identified group of people is seen to be racist and once said you can't defend it. I'd say its the worst kind of discrimination and cuts right to the heart of freedom of speech. Even if its based on fact. So now we can't say the Japanese are short, that black people don't excel at swimming, that the Scotch are thrifty, the Irish have trouble with alcohol, that South Sea Islanders are laid back, that Jehovah Witnesses are intense, satanists evil, and lawyers - well if you make a general statement about them they'll take you to court. Which incidentally a lawyer in new York recently did to a man who was telling lawyer jokes outside the courtroom. So maybe its best to never say anything about anybody.

Theres a big difference about saying something for the expressed purpose to hurt somone and making a statement based on an interpretation of observations and facts. Now if you want to explore an example in detail look up the essay written by University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill in which he uses the phrase "little Eichmanns" when referring to some of those killed in the 9/11 attacks on The World Trade Centres. Don't get me wrong I am not going to endorse what he said, but after reading the essay I could understand why he reasoned his way to including that statement. But as a result he will probably be tarred and feathered, lose his tenure, have his reputation left in tatters for simply making a statement that could be backed up by his observations and reasoning. When really all he was guilty of was, (and my kids all know whats coming next) "poor judgement"

My wife has often said that I'm just like my family and when she says it you can bet its not reflecting on our good looks, honesty, wisdom or charity but I guess its how she sees me. I might not agree with it but theres no law I'm aware of that states we all have to think alike.

But then I have noticed sometimes when I am looking in the mirror its my father and grandfather looking back.

Heres what a golden egg looks like

2005-03-13T16:12:00.000-08:00

So I was pretty surprised when I determined what the allowable profit number for the ferry service was. But once I understood that, it made a few other things clear, principally why there had never seemed to be much of a marketing effort. Presumably money spent on marketing would have been outside of the allowable expenditures defined in the operating agreement and more passengers was of no concequence.

So how in heck did the make their money. I remember Tim Banks one time telling me how the system worked and that the way to make money from Government was not a big fat appointment to the Senate. Thats for small fry, and besides you might actually have to do some work for it. The way to make real money was to lease or rent something to government. I was let in on this little gem when the DVA building was being built in Charlottetown. I hope the facts are straight but here is how the story was told to me.

When DVA was going to move to Charlottetown there was no place for them to go so here was how the big payoff worked. About 20 Liberal supporters were rounded up, I believe they were all from Toronto and a deal was put together. It went something like this. The Bank of Montreal loaned each of them $50,000.00, that makes 1 million. Then on the strength of a long term lease a mortgage was put in place and the building was constructed. Now a 20 year lease to the Federal government is something pretty solid to take to the Bank as security for a loan and a mortgage. So for the sake of illustration lets say the mortgage amount was 9 million dollars. We now have the 10 million dollars to build the thing. But the money has to be paid back ( to simplify things lets forget about interest) So we need three things
1. A repayment plan for the $1,000.000.00 over 5 years.
2. A repayment plan for the 9 million over the 20 years
3. A lease agreement where governmnet pays the developer a yearly fee for the building.

So lets make sure that the lease terms include at least $200,000.00 per year to cover the short term loans, and that clears those in 5 years. Then we need $450.000.00 per year for 20 years to clear the mortgage. But isn't any investor entitled to a profit, well of course they are and here is where it gets sweet. How much profit. Well let me tell you at the end of the day some "friends are going to be well rewarded" and the beauty of it is that no one has to do anything for it. Management fees are built in to costs, you can't lose and when the 20 years are up and the building is paid for does anyone think the lease fees are going down, fat chance. Twenty guys spend their days on the golf course and the beach for life. Kind of makes a guy want to go out an take out a party membership doesn't it. We've seen the same thing in various forms here on the Island. Think about it, remember when Government paid millions for Elmer Lawtons warehouse, and thats all they got. Then we had Dundarave, and Tim got his in there to, although that went through a tendering process, and the big payoff came when Government put a halt to the condominium side of the project and Tim held them up for ransom and now receives, what is it 1.7 million per year for the Greenwich interprative centre, good for him. And to put the lease rental game in perspective I read a report from public works a few years ago where Government was paying for a million or so square feet of office space that was empty. Hmm starting to see how it works.

So anyway if you want to verify a few things there is lots of public documents that point you in the right direction concerning the ferry. Although ownership has changed hands now, at the time of the fixed link debate and you did some here are the answers you would have probably gotten.

A check of International shipping registries will show who owned the ferries that Northumberland used. When you find that only one of the boats was owned by the Federal Government, I bet a few light bulbs will start coming on in your head.

If you check with the Provincial Community Affairs Department you will discover that the same same Corporate name showing in shipping registries happens to be a PEI Company and no its not Northumberland Ferries but how much you want to bet the Board Directors of Northumberland Holdings both are the same.

So here is where the golden egg makes its appearance. Try this scenario on for size.

Northumberland Ferries is granted the first concession. In order to make it work they need a ferry so they found one called the Erie Isle. Now because we already know how the DVA deal worked is it a stretch of the imagination to think this could have been the same. Except it wasn't quite the same because of the concession so here it is, drum roll please.

Northumberland Holdings Ltd. buys the ferry and it costs say, $1000.00 per year to pay for it, so it is then leased it to the Department of Transport for say, $1500.00 per year, then the Feds lease it to Northumberland Ferries for $1.00 per year so they can run the concession. Northumberland ferries is the goose, but Northumberland Holdings is the golden egg. Isn't it sweet in its simplicity, and if you think that Mitch MacLean built that big house down on the waterfront because of his hard work, well think again.

Isn't Amarica wonderful. But I do have to give Mitch MacLean some credit, I don't know how "The Cat" works but from where I sit I am impressed that its there and its making money, I hear that he did put it together. But somone told me once that the old Island expression applies to him better than anyone " he's so mean he won't shit away from home."

There's more than one way to skin a cat

2005-03-10T15:08:00.000-08:00

Thers a lot of talk about the ferries these days, I see both Paul MacNeill from the Guardian and the Premier both hinted at the mistake of signing away the constitutional guarantee. I have wondered if there is appeal process.

Anyway, I want to talk about an even more interesting aspect of the ferry service, who makes the money and how much. Read on, because I think you are going to be in for a big surprise.

Have you ever watched the old shell game where the pea is put under a walnut shell and no matter how close you watch you can never figure out what happens, thats what this is all about. So after I looked at the constitutional part of the equation I continued trudging along to figure out, how much money is in this game. Well, the first thing I discovered was that the operator of the service was given what amounted to "the right to operate a concession" thats what they called the service "a concession". Then I found out that the concession came up for renewal on a regular basis. Funny I thought I've never seen a tender notice in the paper maybe they do it a different way.

Exactly, it turns out the different way is that the Department of Transport would sit down with Northumberland Ferries and they would negotiate the terms of the next concession period. This process would produce what was known as the operating agreement. Ah ha I thought I'll get a copy of that and see whats going on. You see that operating agreement is a public document and if a Company wins a Government tender you get to see what a good job those doing procurement for government do, how they look for the best price for the taxpayer blah blah blah.

And seeing as how this particular Government contract never went to tender I was equally interested in seeing what kind of negotiators these birds were. So off went a letter and some phone calls to the Federal Minister of Transportation requesting a copy of the last operating agreement. Well blow the man down sailor, it was no time at all until I got a phone call from the Ministers office. "What do you want the agreement for" the caller asked, well I said aside from the fact that I have a right to see it for curiousities sake I am interested in whats about to happen with the ferry service down here. "I don't think we can give it to you" he went on. Hmmm I thought "we'll see about that" so after a long session I must have done pretty good job of talking because eventually he got the point that I wasn't going away and he agreed to send it.

And sure enough one day a big package arrived and inside was a document that stared with something like "Agreement between the Government of Canada and Northumberland Ferry Corp, it appeared I had struck paydirt. But when I opened it, the first thing I noticed was that every where there was a place to mention a monetary amount it was blacked out. So I phoned the guy "sorry he said but we can't tell you the $ amounts" I didn't argue with him but made a mental note to figure out how to get it.

Well let me tell you it is quite a document and not at all like I thought it would be. I figured that a subsidy amount was agreed to and then the Company would try to operate the ferry in an efficient manner to make some money, you know, things like market the ferry experience, polish up the service on board, make sure the schedule matched the needs of the travelling public, truckers etc. Was I ever naive to try to apply some old fashioned business principles to it and what a lesson, I learned there is an old saying " I have a plan so cunning that if I put a tail on it you could call it a weasel" and I just stumbled upon it.

You see, the way the agreement reads it was impossible for the ferry service to lose money, all they had to do was run the boats back and forth. It didn't matter if the boats only carried one vehicle a trip or if they were full from spring to fall it didn't effect the bottom line. They made exactly the same amount of money. Basically the agreement goes like this, all expenses are added up, fuel, wages, repairs food etc, everything it takes to run a ferry and then from this is subtracted the amount of money they figure is going to taken in from tolls.

Now get this the amount left over is the profit, sounds OK so far, except that the AMOUNT OF THE YEARLY PROFIT is negotiated before any expenses or revenues are determined.

If the expenses go up the amount given to cover them goes up the exact amount to keep the profit the same. The same with revenues if its a good year the extra money goes to Government and again the profit stays the same.

Holy macaroni I thought I wouldn't mind some of this milk. It just seemed like to good a deal for Northumberland Ferries, no risk just show up every few and go through the sham of a negotiation and take the money home. But I still hadn't figured out how much that was so I set out to get the figures and was I in for a shock.

I can't disclose how I came upon a copy of the operating agreement that hadn't been inked out and when I saw the number for the profit it was stunning, not because it was so high but because it was so low. If I remember right, and this figure is close, the total corporate profit before taxes was $185,000.00. Now come on, this is a major Company and by the time you distributed that in a dividend to all the shareholders it just didn't make sense and because I never saw any of them lining up at the soup kitchen there had to be something else. You see so far all I had found was the goose and you can read tomorrow how it was able to lay a big fat golden egg each year.

What happens when a slinky replaces a backbone.

2005-03-07T13:15:00.000-08:00

I got a phone call from a friend last night cancelling a meeting of the Board at our Golf Course we were both to attend. He informed me that he had to go to another emergency meeting being held to discuss the subsidy problem of the Northumberland Ferry service between Wood Island and Caribou, Nova Scotia. Now if you want to hear a story about people with no spines when the chips are down read on.

The great debate on PEI about the fixed link took place in 1988, I may err on a few details, numbers etc but you'll get the general drift of how the Northumberland Ferry service fits in.

One of the problems with the fixed link was that if it was built there wouldn't be any one working at Marine Atlantic anymore so there was a lot of roaring going on in the media about what was going to happen to these people. And that's where the focus was, on the service between Borden and Cape Tormentine and that's what caught everyones attention. The bottom line was that there was some kind of a constitutional agreement between the Province and the Federal Government that there would be a Government supported Ferry service for all time. If the fixed link went ahead there wouldn't be a need for the ferry anymore so it was agreed that the guarantee would be replaced by the bridge and those effected would have some kind of formal severance, retraining, etc package negotiated. Sounds like the end of the story, not to likely.

You see there was another ferry service that was started up that ran between Wood Islands and Caribou at the Eastern end of the Island. Now the forming of this service had politics written all over it, in fact the location of the docking facilities was located at Wood islands where the channel is quite shallow rather than few miles east whwre the water is deep because of a political boundary.

Now in order to get equal treatment for this service it was decided that the original agreement with the Government of Canada would have the new service added to it in an effort to guarantee the annual subsidy. So it was added and described as an "adjunct service". Now when I came across this at the time of the debate I thought to myself. Mr. Stewart who was the prime mover and shaker that put this together did a real shrewed bit of maneuvering to secure the long term financial viability of the service (which incidentally he was a major shareholder of). Instead of negotiating an agreement outside of the existing agreement he had it attached to the "service for all time guarantee" as a separate agreement, A hell of a strategy I thought.

But by the time that the fixed link scenario came along Mr. Stewart was long in his grave and lesser fellows were at the controls. Northumberland Ferries had recently gone through a power struggle of sorts and the General Manager John Aspin had lost out in a bid to control the Company to Mitch MacLean by just a hairsbreadth. In fact John thought he had it but one of the shareholders who had promised to support him had a change of heart and he lost out. But don't feel sorry for him because he held a nice sized block of stock which was bought by the winners in the struggle and John went into retirement and the new gang took over.

When I was researching the issue I began to wonder about the constitutional agreement so I went and paid a visit to John to try and get his insight into the situation, and that was when I became aware that John had hired a lawyer and posed a very interesting question to him.

Now here comes some speculation mixed with fact I'll leave to your intuitions to come to your own conclusions. Now to say that John was kindly disposed towards Mitch Maclean was roughly on a par with the liklihood of Hilary Clinton having a chat over a cup of tea with Monica Lewinski.

But John was obviously thinking ahead and maybe he was sitting in his office one day and wondered to himself "now what if somebody built a bridge or a tunnel what would the position of the Northumberland Ferries subsidy be, and incidentally his share values. So he contacted a lawyer and asked him the question, "Joe" he said "if a fixed service came along down at Borden what would the impact of that be on Northumberland's subsidy." Hmm thought Joe good question. Now there was a reason why John went to this particular lawyer, you see this guy was quite brilliant and had written his Masters Thesis on Canadian constitutional law and since this was going to be a constitutional issue John thought " this is my boy".

Now by a quirk of fate Joe turned out to be Joe Ghiz who was practicing with Alan Scales at the time. So Joe set to work and it wasn't long before he cut to the heart of the matter. If a fixed link was built it was reasonable to assume that the federal Government would bring the argument forward that the link met and replaced the conditions of a permanent link to the mainland so the agreement should be declared null and void.

But Joe like any good lawyer said to himself "what about the fate of my client Northumberland Ferries, if the guaranteed subsidy agreement is thrown out." So he pondered the question What about the Northumberland amendment concerning the adjunct service, will it be scrapped or does it form a legal and binding agreement separate from the Borden - Cape Tormentine run.

In effect does the guarantee of a ferry service apply to the addendum to the original agreement, because, if it did then we have a guarantee of a link at Borden and a separate guarantee of a link in the east at Wood Islands. So a legal opinion was delivered that focused on that point. And John knew that if it could be argued and won in a constitutional court it was a separate agreement that it would probably be the only thing that could save Northumberland Ferries in the long term.

I think John was in a position something like this, he hated what had happened with Mitch Maclean, but felt a loyalty towards the Northumberland employees. When I presented him with what I thought could be the answer to the problem he agreed that I was on the right track and then he told me about Joe Ghiz and the work he had done. So I popped the question, did he have a copy of Ghiz's legal opinion and if so could I see it. Now thats when John got uncomfortable, you see if he had a copy would it be ethical to make it available to me, after all it was a confidential document.

"Yes" he said I have a copy, no he said he couldn't show it to me, but felt that if another lawyer were to reseach the question his/her findings would probably bring an interesting turn to the events that were going on.

So thats what it came down to and just to make it clear about the issue I'll spell it out again. If the fixed link went ahead at Borden and the bridge was judged to fill the conditions of the original guarantee then the word fixed link could replace the word ferry. But, what about the addendum concerning the adjunct service, did the fixed link also fulfill the guarantee of service in the East. Does that make it clear, because if it does, then crappola to the ferry service or death by a thousand cuts.

But if it didn't then the guarantee of continued service at Wood Island was guaranteed.

So there we sit, what John had been concerned about was about to take place. It was a high stakes game for the Island because the prospect of a fixed link was widely agreed upon as being an enormous economic boon to the Island. Traffic and tourism would increase, money would flow jobs would be created, wow the land of milk and honey was just around the corner.

And just what could be expected happened, the Minister of Transport decreed that as a condition of the Federal Government's approval the constitutional guarantee of perpetual ferry service would be thrown into the sea of forgetfullness because the link now met the conditions.

Now my own personal opinion is that, lawyers on the Federal side had looked deep into the agreement as it had been amended and were uncomfortable with what they found about the adjunct agreement. Incidentally this is a public document and anyone interested enough can get a copy and you can form your own opinion.

But I thought old Dave Stewart has outfoxed them, and by having the agreement apply to the eastern end of the Island as a separate guarantee there was nothing to worry about.

But as time passed it became clear to me that someone was dropping the ball, why wasn't Northumberland Ferries waving its agreement and why was there a crescendo of silence from the politicians from Kings County. Then it struck me, these fucking guys haven't caught on. So I thought Ill let them in on a little secret. I made a few phone calls and set up meetings with the Kings County Champions, the guys elected to take care of business for us.

Well was I in for a shock, it quickly became obvious that Lawrence MacAulay and his aids wanted no part of this. Now if you knew Lawrence back then you knew that he would no more get caught up in trying explain or defend a complex position than jump in front of a truck. Plus I don't think Lawrence could see past the end of the week. So no luck there.

But the Provincial representatives would surely see the light, so armed with my story I headed off to give them a way to save the day, was I in for a surprise. The reaction was approximately the same if I would have come bearing shit on a stick. The Liberal party was in a period of transition with Joe bolting to the safety of a position as Dean of Law at Dalhousie and every Liberal politician in the Province except Peter Doucette trying to keep in the good graces of Katherine the Klutz and Katie sure as hell wasn't going to put the golden goose at risk by putting up a fight for little old Eastern PEI and Mitch Macleans navy. And she would surely have looked with disfavour on anybody in the caucus trying to upset her little applecart.

So I got told to back off and not meddle with big boys business and the next thing you know the dirty deed was done. End of story, except its not the end quite yet, but its coming. The service got cut back, remember the thousand cuts, well here it is 2005 and the game is still going on, little by little. From 4 boats to 2, and stay tuned cause next theres just going to be one. just to 1 and with a shortened season. And wait until 2010 when the next agreement comes due, get ready for June to September with reduced sailings and by about 2015 the coffin will just about be ready to sent to the bottom of Davey Jones locker.

Now understanding that, doesn't it piss you off that it went down without so much as a peep. Imagine what would have happened if one or all of our Liberal members from Kings County had stood up and been counted, but all they could think about was there own skins. Its funny how your judgement can be blurred when all you can think about is your own interests. There used to be a saying on NBC Wonderful World of Sports " snatching defeat from the jaws of victory". After all these birds were toasted anyway and Pat Binns was warming up the griddle.

Now boys and girls its time to turn out the lights and go to sleep and I'll tell you another bedtime story tomorrow.

Road Kill Candy and a Fishy Story

2005-02-25T11:17:00.000-08:00

I came across two items in the paper a while ago that caught my attention. The first was about some local fishermen.

It seems they had gone out fishing and while they were killing some time had decided to fillet a few for supper. Now when I go fishing if I catch a few big enough to eat, my practice is to clean them on the spot. I gave up years ago of thinking that my wife would be impressed with my hunter gatherer prowess if I brought home a nice big uncleaned fish for supper. I know this to be true because on the few occaisions I did just that, there was no reward for me. I quickly learned that women want their fish in a package, all washed and ready for the oven. They won't clean them, and if you do it at your sink you end up with fishy smell on the counter and a nice pile of guts that you don't know what to do with.

Thats where cleaning them where you caught them comes in, catch them clean them, put them in a bag. No mess, no smell, no slimy kitchen top, no disposal problems and you are contributing to a healthy environment by returning a portion of what came from the sea to the bottom where crabs and scupins will make short work of your offering.

Doesn't sound like much of a story, well it isn't until you get DFO involved. Apparently these fishermen, commercial fishermen they were, decided to clean a few for supper. I guess the wives of these fellows had also gotten the message across about women not being been impressed with a nice fresh fish carcass in their sinks. Along pulls up a DFO fisheries boat alongside and they come aboard. This is just a guess, but I think that commercial fishermen know the rules of their trade so they were probably pretty surprised when a fisheries officer held up a few fillets and said to them, OK boys, the jigs up, its off to the hoosegow for you.

The crime, they filleted some fish on board the boat, and as a result the officer couldn't tell what kind they were or how big the original fish has been. Doesn't it make you proud that these boys are around to protect us from ourselves. When I see write ups about fishermens meetings and they are going on about DFO this, and DFO that and DFO being a bunch of fuckheads I think, these guys should calm down and reason with the fisheries department and I am sure a rational approach to management will evolve.

Well I just changed my mind, any enforcement agency that arrests and charges some fishermen who clean a few fish for supper while out at sea have been pegged right, they are a bunch of fuckheads.

Its not often that two candidates for nitwit of the month appear on the same page of the paper but there it was, the second nominee, some guy from the SPCA challenging for the Golden Nut Award.

There was an entrepreneur who made candy, and trying to increase sales he came up with a recipe like what gummy bears are made of. It tastes prety good those gummy things, in fact my grandchildren love them. Especially some that are in every store called worms. Thats right, worms. They mould the candy, which has a soft feel to it into the shape of a worm and the kids get a great kick out of dangling them above their mouths as if they were a little bird baby and someone was feeding them. Pretty icky when you think about it, but the kids love it. Actually these things have been around for twenty years or so, I know because I can remember my own kids eating them.

As near as I can tell none of them were scarred by the experience, none of them graduated from the fantasy world of kids eating candy shaped worms to an adulthood where dinner is produced by 10 minutes effort with a spade in the garden. I can only deduce my kids were smart enough to recognize the difference between a candy worm and the real thing.

Well the SPCA guy didn't think like that. It seems that this entrepreneur made a mould for his gummies and he even had a name for them "Road Kill Candy". The moulds were of the things we see on the roads all the time, squirrels and skunks and coons. Except these critters all had a set of tire tracks across their middles. This offended the SPCA mightly and this bird proclaimed that these eaters of Road Kill Candy would be turned into animal hating drivers, who when they grew up would certainly cruise around looking to relive the days of their youth by crushing every animal they could get in their sights. The worst that could be said would be, its in bad taste, but so were the worms, lighten up, kids like this stuff. Drum roll please.

The Golden Nut Award for today goes to them both, lets have a big cheer for those protectors of the seas and the nations roads DFO and the SPCA.

The pile is starting to reek

2005-02-18T06:28:00.000-08:00

In 1983 I had to make a very difficult choice about the future direction of my life and that of my family which at the time consisted of a wife and six children. Did I continue in private business or go to work for Government you see I had just been offered the job of Administrator of a Government facility in Montague.

Now for most Islanders it would be a no brainer, take the big Government job. On Prince Edward island that is seen as the goose that lays the golden eggs and I gues in lots of ways it is. But there were a lot of issues I had to work out in my head first.

With my background and coming from British Columbia you see people who worked for Government were seen as being the bottom feeders in the job market. Working for Government was widely seen as the option you took if you couldn't be successful at anything else. So here I was, faced with a dilemna. I weighed the pros and cons and tried to make an assessment of what would be the best thing for my family. here were the factors, I could make a lot more money outside of Government, but the downside was that it took a lot of time and effort. Government provided more stability and did gave you free time as it was only a 37.5 hour week, something I had never experienced. You see most of my life I worked an average of 60 hours per week and that was what seemed normal to me. But there was a downside to that it left me constantly under pressure to put in more time with my family. Work can be addictive and it can easily become the dominating factor in how you live your life. At the end of the day I decided to go to work for Government and the overwhelming reason was that it gave me time to call my own and have a life outside of work.

Now coming to Government in 1983 was actually a pleasant experience. My introduction and orientation lasted for about 30 minutes and consisted of signing some papers and setting up my payroll, but as far as what I was supposed to do, there was a job description, but that quickly proved to be virtually useless..I vividly recall my supervisor who made the trek out from Charlottetown telling me, there's been a lot of trouble here so all I can say is 'work on relationships. After 30 minutes he introduced me to my staff and then left. It was going to be a baptism by fire I could tell, one of the long term staff members told me how things operated around here, a section head informed me she didn't want anyone walking through her part of the building and another informed me he was entitled to a bigger office. Hell of a first day when my sum total time spent interacting with Government was getting my drivers license and registering a vehicle.

When I was 18 I woke up one morning and as it was raining, couldn't get any farm work done, so out of the blue I called the Government in Wilkie and said I wanted to get my drivers license, Ok they said come on in, so i trekked off to Wilkie located the office and got parking spot right in front of the door. I went in told them what I wanted and someone set me down at a desk gave me a paper with a bunch of driving questions on it and said "answer these and then give me the paper back". Seemed simple enough, I finished, turned it in she checked off the answers and said "good, that will be three dollars". I produced the money and she did her thing and gave me a slip of paper with my name on it.

Great I thought until I looked at it and it said - beginners permit, "wait a minute" I said "I wanted my drivers license". "Oh" she said, "well now that you have your beginners permit you can learn to drive" but I replied "I already know how to drive, I've been driving for a long time. I came in for the driving test. "How did you get here" she asked "I drove" I said, "but you can't drive without a lisence" she responded, "I know" I said, "thats why I came in, to get one. "Well how are you getting home" she asked, "drive" I said, "but you can't drive without someone who has a lisence with you" "really" I said "I just came in by myself, my parents were busy". We had hit an impasse.

She went and talked with a guy who came out to see me, "I want to take my driving test now " I told him, "OK lets go" he said. We settled into the car, I started it up and began to back out of the angle parking spot. "Thats enough " he said " pull back in". I guess he must have been in a hurry because we never went for the test drive. I have to admit I was kind of disappointed because before I had left to come into town I had had set up a barrel about 30 feet behind the tractor and practiced parallel parking, I wouldn't have minded showing off.

Anyway the girl asked me for another 3 dollars for my lisence and I tried arguing I had already paid once and didn't want the beginners permit anyway, I felt it was very unfair because I had only had it for 10 minutes, but she wouldn't budge. That was my first introduction to bureaucratic rules, but at least I got my license.

My second encounter with government occured about 10 years later and came close to ending badly. We had moved to Victoria BC from Saskatchewan and after being there a while I went down to the Motor Vehicle registry to get BC plates for our truck. I made the stupid mistake of heading down at about 11:30 and found myself at the back of a long line of people. At 12:00 o'clock the 2 wickets everyone was heading towards closed down and the staff went for lunch. I spent the next 1/2 hour doing the left foot - right foot shuffle in the heat until the wickets opened again at 12:30, now I wasn't as patient then as I am now so was not in the best frame of mind when my turn finally came.

I was asked to produce my registration and insurance which I did, the clerk looked them over asked me for the numbers on my license plate, "don't know" I said "can't I get them for you later". "No" he told me "I need them now", "OK I'll go get them" I said, "can you keep the papers and let me come to the front when i get back, the trucks just in the parking lot". "No " he said "you'll have to start at back, wouldn't be fair" I tried stating my case that I had been here for an hour but it wasn't going to work so I headed out the door in an unhappy state of mind because I had noticed there was about 50 people in the line.

So I went out, got the number and started at the end of the bloody line again. Now it wasn't lost on me as I plodded inch by inch towards the front again that there were 6 wickets, but only 2 were open. I could also see that there were about 10 people in the office at desks behind the counter and I couldn't help wondering if there was a good reason why some of them weren't at the front taking care of people. After another 45 minutes I finally got to the front of the line and as luck would have it the wicket that opened up when it was my turn brought me to the same guy. Once again I produced the necessary papers and gave him the number on the old license plate. "Where's the plate" he asked " on the truck " I said, "well I need it, you have to give it to me to get a new plate", "but you never told me that" I said "all you asked me for was the numbers". Now when I start to get really mad, which only happens about once every 10 years I start to have trouble breathing and I was in that state when a sentence came out of his mouth that I am sure about 10 seconds after he said he must of been thinking, now why the hell did I say that. From where I was standing it was npt only what he said but the snide little inflection he gave to " you were supposed to know".

The counter was elevated, one of those ones that you rest your elbows on, and was sitting on a stool so when I reached across and grabbed him by the tie, I was able to pull him off the stool towards me get two of my fingers behind his collar and when I gave it a bit of a twist it pretty well cut off his air. To this day I can hardly believe I did it, but the stars must have been lined up right is about the only excuse I can come up with. Anyway he was putting on quite a performance as I held him there both of us unable to speak and him with his eyes starting to bulge. His supervisor came running over and slowly I let my grip go. As I started getting my breath back I tried explaining in a slow calm voice to the supervisor what was going on. He took me to the side and we sat down at his desk and he did the transaction hinself, I have to thank him for that because I probably could have been in a lot of trouble. And the irony of the thing, I never had to turn in the plate. So those were my experiences with Government and armed with that I went to work.

I quickly discovered that once the problems that had existed in that office was neutralized working for Government could be lots of fun. You don't have to work very hard physically, there is very little pressure because the work thats there is not very demanding, and you can get some personal gratification from helping people. Added to that was the fact that in 1983 a regional office could operate without much interaction with Charlottetown, they weren't interested in you so long as you didn't ask for money and the local politicians were happy. All in all we were a pretty happy crew.

I can't exactly say when Government started to come apart, but I would guess it was about 90/91 and each successive year got a bit worse. I have tried to put my finger on what caused it and over the years as conditions deteriorated by degrees came to a few conclusions which would probably be agreed to by the rank and file of gov't workers but strenuously opposed by management.

You see the problem is always with management, because they are the ones that set the tone, they don't do the work but they have control of the work environment. I guess I first noticed it in Health & Soxial Services because it was most evident there, a proliferation of managers armed with Masters Degrees who came into Gov't with an attitude that did not demonstrate respect to those who had been working in government and essentially running it for years. When you mix that with little practical experience you create what amounts to a poisoned workplace.

Health seems to be the most fucked up Department and the impression the general public gets is that each year it demands more money but produces less. I happen to know quite a few people who work in the Health field so I have asked on different occaissions what they feel is the problem and it always comes back the same, to many managers not enough workers. Now I'm not into a hospital very often but when I am I have noticed something, a whole crew of nurses behind a counter but not many out where the patients are - hmmm starts you wondering. I had an opportunity to see the system in action one time. I was visiting in Victoria and my son in law hurt himself at his Karate school and had to be taken to the emergency room at the Royal Jubilee Hospital. I was recruited to go over and find out what his state was. I arrived and inquired at the front counter. I got nothing from the girl sitting there and was told to take a seat. Now what I noticed was that she didn't call anyone to get the information I was looking for. I also noticed that they were having a slow night because I was the only person there. After about 15 minutes I worked my way down a hall and found where they store the bodies that come into emergency. It didn't take to long until I located Rob who was flat on his back on a bed with wheels on it. He had been there for a while and was going to be taken somewhere for an x-ray. After we talked a bit a little nurse came rushing in and started doing something, and explained to us what was going on, she had been trying to set up the x-ray and had been upstairs looking for a technician. She wasn't very big so I helped her push the gurney up the hall to the elevator and we took a ride to the floor housing the necessary equipment. Down the hall we rolled and when we parked the bed she disappeared into a room and when she came out told me they would get him taken care of soon. I believe thats what she understood from her discussions with the tech. But after about 10 minutes when no one arrived I again sloothed my way around and took up a position where I could see into the staff room on the floor. There were three people sitting around a table having a great old gossippy time, so I waited and started thinking about what I had seen thus far and it wasn't much action.

Eventually the coffee klatch broke up and an x-ray was taken, a little later a photo was produced and attached to the gurney in a big envelope. At some point I realized that we could be in for a long wait as we appeared to have been abandoned so I rolled the bed over to the elevator and back to the curtained off area on the first floor we had started from. This was when I started my investigation. By this time I had determined I had a free run of the place so I went about blending in and counting activity. First I determined there was 23 people somehow associated with emergency, there were now 2 additional patients in the area. I spent an interesting 15 minutes listening to three doctors discussing the merits of burning Arbutus wood in the their fireplaces and how hard it could be on a chainsaw. Interesting but, why isn't anyone looking at the bodies.

Leaning against a wall I eavesdropped and shared the excitement of a recent wedding with a middle aged woman and her sister who was on the other end of a phone. Armed with my new found mobility and I seeing I was one of the gang now I headed unchallenged back to the reception and thought what the hell, I'll inquire about Rob. I didn't get anymore information than I had the first time but did take note that there was another case had arrived and discussion ws taking place in the waiting area about it wouldn't be long now until they would be seen. I didn't have the heart to let them know about the social club in the back.

As the evening progressed I got the distinct impression that this crew didn't give a collective damn about respecting the time of the poor saps in the emergency waiting room. Maybe medicine does that to you. I had a Doctor friend tell me once that 90% of the people he saw had no business coming in to see him. He was concerned that so much of his practice was built around , smoking, obesity, lack of exercise and poor eating habits that he was always afraid he would be lulled into such a state of apathy he would miss the real thing when it came along.
The point of the emergency room experience is that everyone there was managing the operation and except for the one little nurse no one was doing any work associated with comforting or treating the sick. And that is where the management style that Government has adopted kicks in.

Generally Government middle management which is where the growth has taken place over the past 15 years has become a place where the most important skill is being able to attend and play the meeting game. The purpose of work has gone from doing something to being a part of a big fucking, mindless, leaderless team. I would try to avoid meetings at all cost during the time I was with Government and to keep from falling asleep I used to play a little game in my head. Add up the number of people in the room, then try to figure out what the salary of each participant was, then do the Math and try to break that down to what it cost on a per minute basis for each one. Add these together and I would arrive at a cost for the meeting on a per minute basis.

Then I would try to slot each person into a category and everyone would fit. One , the bored out of their mind group. Two, the try to impress everyone with how smart you are group, Three, the avoid being pinned into saying anything bunch, Four, the agree with the majority crowd, Five, the agree with anything your supoervisor says, Six, usually there are 2 people in most meetings who actually would like to get something concrete done.

Another game I would play was to try to determine if there was anyone there who actually understood what the meeting was about and had enough knowledge of the situation to solve the problem. I came to understand there was few of these around and when you did find them they were good people to have around but they are a vanishing species. And they are vanishing because they are seen as a threat to the system. This group doesn't see the whole thing as a game where the only objective is self preservation, but as an exercise where they can contribute something meaningful that gives them self satisfaction.

You see modern Government has nothing to do with solving problems, its about managing situations and the participants position in the organization. There is no future in fixing anything. If it gets fixed, it works and you don't have to tinker with it anymore and if you can't tinker what the hell is there for a psycho nazi manager. And it becomes that simple. The administrative assistants and the clerks who do the work of Government fully understand this. When they arrive to work each morning they know what their purpose is and if they are left alone will keep everything running smoothly. Its the management who continually fuck the whole thing up by tinkering with the system in the name of progress.

If you are with government long enough you will come to understand that ideas are pegged onto a big wheel that is constantly revolving. There are no new ideas only recycled ones and with each recycling the people who have to do the work are the ones who have to figure it out again how to make it work.

Much as I hated Pierre Trudeau I have to give him credit for the clarity of some of his thinking. he was on occaission able to cut through all of the crap and zero in on the core of what was happening. About Government he made this observation; I observed quite early in my career that many organizations that were operating smoothly would have someone come along and reorganized them. I came to understand that this was a wonderful tool of management because it created the illusion of progress, but I also realized that in reality all it did was create confusion.

Every new manager in Government understands the same thing, that what they have inherited is all fucked up and they have to manage it by laying their unique brand of thinking on the staff. It doesn't matter how well something is running, there is a lemming like impulse to shake things up, and it has nothing to do with making things better. If things got better, all the managers in Government would be out of a job.

The awfull ugly truth is that you could send everyone in Government home except the accounting people, the clerks and the administration assistants and no one would even notice they weren't around for about six months.

You see there is no future in solving problems, there is only a future in managing problems, if a problem is solved there is nothing left to do that the admin people can't handle.

There are another group that are even worse than the stir the pot and get everyone riled up group and these are the create a crisis bunch. Yes believe it or not there is a whole sub-culture in Government, particularly in the health sector that owe their survival to creating crisis. Now these crisis are always hard to measure because they involve people.

This group convinces their superiors that they are run off their feet because their case load is so high that dire things are going to happen if the department doesn't take immediate action to increase staff. Its exactly what happened with McCarthyism, there was a bogeyman behind every bush and woe to the person who observes "there is no bogeyman there its just your imagination". And its real difficult to deal with the crisis bunch because its practioners are nearly always zealots and it takes more energy and there is risk involved to not agree.

Another of the unfortunate aspects of a bloated management structure is that because there isn't enough work for people to do, they spend time thinking of issues that the ordinary citizen need to be saved from. In the corporate marketing world its called creating a demand for a product you have invented but for which there is no demend for. These are similar to the crisis bunch but sometimes these guys are motivated, not just by self preservation, but by a heartfelt belief they can solve everything that ails you, your friends, society in general and maybe even the world.

The misguided approach has a fundamental flaw because it forces government into issues that we don't need saving from, it has at its roots, an elitism that believes they know more than the people they serve. Government can't and shouldn't try to solve every problem. I'll give you a poor example.

Prince Edward Island has a vehicle inspection policy. Once a year each vehicle is supposed to undergo an examination by an expert to determine its in safe working condition. Now the very best I can say about this nonsense is maybe, just maybe it can be determined that for one day each year a vehicle is in a safe condition. I think most other Provinces scrapped the inspection of passenger cars years ago when they realized how foolish this regulation was. Now I say maybe for a whole lot of reasons the first I guarantee you I can get virtually any vehicle no matter what its condition inspected and passed, why, because the world and the people in it aren't perfect and friends will do you a favour from time to time it's how PEI works.

No one sets about to drive an unsafe vehicle, I guarantee you that the overwhelming majority of PEI vehicle owners don't want their wife and kids driving around in a car where the brakes are about to blow and the front end is ready to fly apart. Believe it or not people do maintain their cars so for the 80% of Islanders who fall into this category its just a way of making a donation to a local garage. But in real life there is a powerful reality thing called time and chance and it happens to everyone. A stone can fly up and damage a brake line where you can never see it, a tire picks up a nail and blows, these things aren't prevented by vehicle inspections.

One of the things that bothers me the most is that if you don't understand cars its awfully easy to be taken to the cleaners. If you want to make a fortune in the automobile repair business learn to say "ball joints", better yet string it into a sentence ", them ball joints are in pretty bad shape". Vehicle inspections have turned PEI into the ball joint replacement capital of the world. I swear its true. Whenever I have had my car up on a hoist and being looked at by someone I don't know, I can tell you I am going to hear about my ball joints no matter what the car is in for.

Because I'm a man the comment will be low key, "should probably start to think about replacing those ball joints, probably be OK for a bit but I wouldn't leave them for to long. The bastards they are setting me up for the next guy, I think they all work together.

If you're a woman on PEI with a car, they drive the old "ball joint stake" right into your heart. "It's not really safe to drive that car much farther without changing those ball joints' they'll tell you, the more they are sure there is no man in the picture the more forceful it becomes.

One of my daughters and her children moved home a few years ago and lived with us for about 10 months. One day she called me from town in a panic, she had been in a garage getting her oil changed when they pulled the old "ball joint stake in the heart' on her.

By the panic in her voice I could tell that her perception of the situation was that if she took the car on the road the steering was going to fail, she would veer head on into a transport truck and she, her children, dog friends etc would all be instantly killed and it would happen on her way home from the garage. "Get a written quote" I said "and then come on home, nothing is going to happen to your car the ball joints are fine". How could I be so confident so ask, well its because we had put new ball joints on the car 2 months previous because they legitimately needed it.

Armed with the quotation I took the car back to the garage the next day, "lets put it up on the hoist" I said, the drool was starting to form in the mechanics mouth, but then I added "and I'll take a look at it with you." The effect on the drool was similar to covering a baby with talcum powder, there's an old expression my grandfather used to use "dryer than a popcorn fart" well, that was the new condition of his mouth. A miracle had occurred and the ball joints seemed to have healed themselves, I'm going to report you to the people who run the Vehicle Inspection Program I said, and like the little red hen, thats just what I did.

Boys and Guns

2005-02-17T05:22:00.000-08:00

I came across a definition for a term that I heard from my father the other day. he used "mexican standoff" to describe a showdown where no one could be a winner. The definition I found was similar and was " a situation where nothing can be expected" which puts a more derogatory slant on it. I like the first one best. I guess it was on my mind because of the NHL labour dispute which seems to fit nicely with the term.

When I was about 17 years old and living on a farm in Saskatchewan having a gun was a part of life. Everyone had at least one and most 3 or 4. I had a little single shot .22 and a bolt action with target shooting sights on it. A Cooey single shot shotgun that actually had a hammer on it that you had to pull back to cock. It was quite a gun and was quite possibly the first one that ever came off its assembly line. I got it from my grandfather and used to say it was as ancient as he was.

Now this gun had a particular quirk to it. It had been fired so many times the parts had worn out. When you broke it to put a shell in and closed it back up, the brass of the shell was visible where the barrel and hammer assembly met. Every time you fired, it came apart and ended up in three pieces. The butt which you kept in your hand, a piece of wood that served for a cradle the barrel rested in which stayed in your left had and the barrel which broke off and fell to the ground. Quite an operation, it was like loading up a musket to get the second shot off. But it seemed normal to me at the time.

I spent a lot of time hunting, just wandering around the countryside putting miles on shoes, all by myself and enjoying being outside. One fall afternoon I decided I would take a walk over to Carletons slough, about 3/4 of a mile away to see what was around, ducks, geese, muskrats, everything was in peril on these forays.

The slough covered about 75 acres and wasn't more than about 3 feet deep anywhere. It was weed infested and had about 3 feet of duckshit accumulated from millions of mallards over 10,000 years. I had learned early that if you stepped off the bank you would sink right up to your waste in this soup. So when you were shooting you had to make sure that the duck was over land because if it landed even ten feet into the water you couldn't get it.

I was having not to bad a day and after an hour or so of walking I had shot a few ducks. As I came out of a cluster of willow bushes on the far side of the slough I suddenly came face to face with another hunter. And not just any hunter, but my arch enemy of the world, I find it hard to believe that I am not certain of his name but I think his last name was "Rorke" . There was a real history between us and had been involved in several knock down drag out fist fights including one about two weeks previously on the school bus where I had emerged victorius after driving his face into the floorboards and bloodying his nose pretty good.

He was one of those kids who was just a "bad cat", he lived in town and had a reputation as being in trouble a lot. He had an uncle who had a shack about 1/2 mile from the slough and his parents would sometimes send him out for a few days to stay with him. The last time I heard about him he was in Montreal and had been arrested for some type of criminal activity which didn't surprise me.

So here we were, both of us surprised as hell and face to face, me with my trusty single shot Cooey and him with a .22. Somehow we got past our recent squabble and decided to continue the hunt together. The prime candidate for slaughter was duck and the weapon of choice on a duck hunt, the shotgun. As we moved along I added some more ducks to my tally and he was being skunked, its damn hard to hit a duck on the wing with a .22 so at some point he made the suggestion we trade guns, so he could get a few.

"Well OK" I must have said because the switch was made and I gave him 5 off my precious Canuck Brand bright red # 6 shot shells and he gave me the .22 and some ammo. Now how did I know it was 5 shells, because I didn't have much money and one of the ways I counted how wealthy I was came down to how many shotgun shells did I have. Over the next hour as we continued on our hunt he fired 2 shots and got one duck. We finally ended up in Stan Careltons yard whose homestead bordered the slough and was the closest point to where I lived. It was time to split up and each go our separate ways, we exchanged guns and ammo, but something was wrong, he only gave me two shotgun shells back. "Where's my other shell" I said, "You only gave me four" he replied. "Let me search you" I said, he came back with, "Don't you fucking touch me". Our relationship was quickly returning to what we were used to.

So there we were. I can't remember who moved first, but it wasn't long before somebody pointed a gun to emphasize his position. A challenge that was quickily met, and soon the situation evolved to a state where the barrel of his .22 was resting on the bone that runs between my nose and my left eye and he was facing my Cooey with the hammer back, jammed in the soft flesh of his neck resting on the Y of his wishbone.

No one was saying anything and we were eye ball to eyeball, each of us trying not to blink. And at least one of us was thinking "how in the fuck am I going to get out of this".

I wouldn't have a clue how long we stood like that, but it seemed like a long, long time until we heard the sound of a spring door shutting. Across the yard came Helen Carleton who had started yelling at us as soon as she came out the door. She must have sized up the situation from her window and I could tell from her voice that she was feeling a lot of stress.

Helen was a large woman, not fat but about 5' 10" and maybe 20 pounds overweight. She was quite attractive in an old fashioned calico dress sort of way, and today she was about the most beautiful sight I had ever seen. I used to wonder how she ever ended up with Stan who was as homely as a hedge fence and had a perpetual smell of old chewing tobacco about him.

She kept getting closer, yelling all the time for us to stop, and put those things down. When she got about 10 feet await she tried reasoning with us, her voice sometimes breaking up under the strain. I wondered if was thinking she would have to tell my mother I was dead if we ended up gunning each other down. Its strange what goes through your head when you are in a situation like that. I clearly remember what had been going thorugh mine after I got past the "what the hell am I going to do". I evaluated my options.

What if he fired first, would I have time get my shot off. Thats a poor train of thought when you are holding a weapon with a hair trigger and it didn't take much of a jiggle to set off the old Cooey. What if I fired first and jerked my head to the right, would I have cleared myself before he could squeeze. I even thought about various forms of a 1-2-3 countdown where we moved our guns to the side simultaneously, but concluded I couldn't trust him, he would probably shoot me as soon as I moved my gun off him.

Pray to God you never find yourself in this kind of a situation because it will haunt you from time to time throughout your life.

I don't even know what ended it, maybe it was when Helen started to cry, but somehow the guns were dropped and we each headed home, my parting shot " I still want my shell back you fucking prick". Everything between Jim and Rorke was back to normal.

Its hard to think long term

2005-02-16T06:36:00.000-08:00

It is a strong instinct for every person to direct their thought towards what is happening to them today. After all it is what is in front of us, what we can see and feel that influences us most. If we have a hot stove in our home we don't put our hand on it and if we have small children we try to teach them about hot, thats the immediate reaction, but how many of would go further and take action that still allows for the heat, but develop a solution that ensures no-one can be burned. In most instances the thought of the long term solution wouldn't even occur. I have been following the NHL talks because it is such a contrast in short and long term planning. Forget the side issues, concentrate on the big picture.

Whether you agree with it or not the NHL expanded into a bunch of cities in the south that were certainly non traditional markets and it is no secret that many of these teams are hanging on by the skin of their teeth financially. There simply aren't enough bums in the seats in these arenas, so we get an abnormal business situation developing, the teams in the hockey hotbed markets are doing well but the further south you go the smell of hockey popularity could be compared to that of an aging and unwashed jockstrap.

Now from the players perspective, there are lots of jobs and lots of money, and on the surface they are right but its like the song "All the gold in California, is in the middle of a Bank in Beverly Hills, in somebody elses name. But what they don't realize is that they are in a surreal situation. Collectively there is lots of money but its in the names of the New York Rangers, Toronto Maple Leafs, Detroit Red Wings, Boston Bruins, New Jersey Devils etc. These guys could give a shit if their payroll is $30 million or $60 million. But Phoenix, Atlanta, Nashville, Florida, Tampa Bay etc simply can't make it on the revenue structure they have where they are located. So lets look past the big pot of money, acknowledge that some people have it and others don't, which means we recognize that its not community property, lets look down the road a bit.

Here are the facts, we have 30 NHL teams and if Gary Bettmans vision of a chicken in every pot or an NHL franchise in every city had not been undertaken the 18 teams in traditional markets would probably be doing very well, the players on these teams would be making a lot more than they are now and 300 players currently making $750.000.00 per year would be flipping burgers at $7.00 per hour. The players association is ignoring the fact that these Southern cities are not hockey meccas and that without out them the league would be radically different and this strike/lockout would never be taking place.

The owners are in a screwed up position as well, expansion was a product of greed. You see each time a new team was added a big fat entrance fee was paid to the NHL (who is the NHL, why its the existing owners) Who gets these expansion fees ( why the owners do, its free money, like selling air). Short term gain, but long term pain because now the league has to look out for the interests of these fucked up frankensteins they parented.

And the union has to look out for all these guys who are one step from the MacDonalds griddle, but nobody is taking a look down that long dark road. Excuse me I'm wrong somebody is and much that I hate to admit it, its that little weasel Gary Bettman and the owners. The ugly harsh reality of the whole mess is that if the cost of operating a team can not be rationalized for the bottom feeders then the only solution is to, euthanize them, or let them starve to death, but the bottom line is they will cease to exist.

So if the union wants to keep its 700 members and the league wants to continue with 30 teams they had better agree to a solution that ensures the future of their weaker members.

For the fans, probably the best thing that could happen to the game would be for the number of teams to shrink by 50%. Wow, just think of the rosters and the quality of the game, no more need of the trap to even things out for the lesser quality players, a concentration of talent that makes the real hockey fan drool and with the de-americanizing of the game it will return to its roots, and the instigator rule which efectively killed the game will be sent to that big penalty box in the sky from which there is no return.

And the real hockey people all shouted out hallelujah and amen!!

NOTE: Do you think more people in the south would have come to the games if they thought they might see John Ferguson and Terry O'Reilly face off, you're damn right they would have. I think the NHL and their drive for political correctness ended up shooting themselves in the foot, instead of pushing hockey they ended up hawking mumblypeg.

A Visit to the Post Office

2005-02-15T04:20:00.000-08:00

I am so sick and tired of phoning Government agencies or Departments and not being able to get past an answering macine that more than likely will give me message choices that don't have anything to do with what I want. The other day we had to ship a document to Ottawa that needed a next morning delivery. Because it was a government tender we needed to use Canada Post instead of Fedex or one of the other parcel Companies. Now we don't use them often so I thought the reasonable thing to do was to call them and find out the procedure, pickup, delivery policy etc.

If you want to use Fedex or Purolator when you call them they will ask for your phone number or Postal Code which links to your account number, if you don't have an account they set one up for you, only takes a minute. So I pick up in the phone book, the first thing you find out is that the Post Office doen't identify themselves as Canada Post, now in the PEI phone book there are twenty courier services listed. So if you don't know that the Canada Post service is called Priority Courier you better get your dialing finger warmed up, but before you start take a Valium you are going to need it.

So I dial Priority Post and get a message something like, do you want English or French and I press the # 1 for English, and then get a message that greets me and says that my call may be monitored to ensure quality, Ok I have no trouble with that because I really think that the Post Office should offer quality service, after a pause we move on to the message, "most of our services are closed for the day" a pause, but I can press # 1 if I am a business, now we are getting somewhere.

So I do the # 1 thing and am then asked to enter my Account number. This is about what I expected, now as we haven't used Canada Post as our Courier service we don't have an account number so the logical thing in my mind is that I will next set one up over the phone or be told how I do it.

A voice activates and tells me to press # 1 to return to the previous menu or the "star" to correct an entry, I am just a tad confused but comply. Here is what I am thinking, probably I didn't listen to all the options at the previous menu, and instead of pressing # 1 because I am a business I should have stayed on the line longer. Sure enough, the same voice tells me I can Press # 2 if you are a residence, I wait, nothing else except a repeat of the 2 options. I stupidly try #1 again and get onto the merry go round. There is no way you can actually speak to a human being or find an option that will explain this account thing, what the f??? are they doing, trying to move my blood pressure to a level where I won't survive to bother them again.
OK, we have to use Canada Post in this instance so I trot off down to the Post Office to find out about an account.

"Hello"I say "how do I open an account so I can ship some documents to Ottawa", the guy at the counter says "$22.50", no explanation just "$22.50". I freeze for a second as I process the answer to my question, I come to the conclusion it is going to cost me $22.50 and the other counter person says to me, "How often do you ship things?"

Now this is a bit more like it, conversation, it doesn't answer my question about the account but I determine this is a bit more promising source of information than Mr. dollars and cents. I turn and reply "about 3 -4 times a year". "He doesn't need an account" the first guy says, "but maybe he wants one" the other person says.

The first guy looks at me, produces a big envelope and ignoring the other counter person tells me "that'll be $22.50. I am starting to understand why Postal workers turn on themselves and gun each other down, there is definitely tension in the air and I quickly decide I don't want to be around these two when the pistols come out.

Suddenly they are both speaking at once and over the course of the next few minutes I get a lot of information as they compete for my ear. End of story, I pay my $22.50, get the envelope and leave understanding that if I return it to the Post office before 3:30 pm that day it will be delivered before 10am in Ottawa tomorrow.

Now what if I wasn't in Charlottetown but maybe was 20 miles in the country. I would have had to drive into town to discover I didn't need an account to ship something, but could have an account if I wanted one, but I would have to go to a main postal outlet, fill out an application and after a period of time would either be approved or declined I guess.

Couldn't they have had an option that said "if you don't have an acount or can't remember your account number press # 3. Don't get me going because this is only minor compared to what you get at Veterans Affairs or Canada Pensions.

Attention Drugs Help Discipline or ADHD

2005-02-14T05:29:00.000-08:00

We once had a dog that barked to much, this bloody thing would spend its days running back and forth along the fence that surrounded our yard yapping at everything that moved. It was annoying if you let it get to you so I got into the habit of tuning it out and after a while it was just another minor annoyance in life. But one that was manageable, I used to wonder if the dog could be broken of its constant running along the fence.

When the Ed Sullivan show was on television there was some kind of an animal act came out sometime during every show. Ed would grasp his elbow in one of his palms, place his free hand on his chin and in his distinctive showmanship drawl announce " and now----for all you kids out there---the amazing Parazelli Puppies". and out would scamper a guy in silk pants, his assisstant in a rockettes uniform and a bunch of prancing bright eyed doglettes. They performed amazing tricks, walked on their hands, did backflips, bark on command, walked on a tightrope or drove a mini-motorcycle. I would think, man those dogs must be smart to learn all that stuff, and the discipline, they kept in rows eveyone of them taking their turn at the right time and doing their special trick.

I was very impressed. What I didn't realize was that these dogs weren't all that smart, they were a product of a very patient owner who took the time to work with them and train them to behave in a certain manner.

Now my training of dogs record isn't good, when I was growing up on the farm there was really only one trick we would try to teach our dogs and we failed miserably. The trick - don't chase cars, the evidence of failure, Duke ain't coming home to dinner tonite and a new puppy is on the way. I think the lesson is, it takes work to manage the behaviour of a dog. My wife told me that and I think she is right. I did some research on the Internet and after reading the information on a number of sites feel I can summarize it with this statement, "Dog training is for every dog, regardless of breed or size and let me be so bold as to say, I think that applies to kids as well"

Now back to the barking dog, I think we could have lived with it but we had a neighbour who wanted to sleep in the afternoon and our dog was disturbing him. Now we had a number of options and each was considered.

1. Have the dog put down because of its behaviour.
2. Give the dog to the SPCA
3. Give it to someone who was deaf.
4. Train the dog
5. Seek advice from a vet.

Options one and two were quickly dismissed, option three, we didn't know anyone who was deaf, four, we didn't have the time or discipline to train the dog so five became the preferred solution. The dog was dutifully dragged off to the Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown for a clinical analysis and recommendations to solve the barking problem. TaDa--- a solution, there is a little white pill about 1/4 the size of an Aspirin tablet called "phenabarbitol" Use: Phenobarbital is used to control seizures in animals with epilepsy. Because it also causes drowsiness, it has sometimes been used as a tranquilizer/sedative in animals.

So armed with a bottle of these pills we began to dutifully administer about 1/2 a pill every morning and a miracle took place. This dog that would spend her days running around her yard suddenly became a slug, spending her days sleeping and going through the motions of being a dog. The days we would forget to give her a fix she would return to her usual exuberant and happy dog self. Eventually we thought this is wrong, lets find a more suitable home with less stimulation at hand. (Like a car going by every few minutes) a placement was done and last we heard dog and owner were doing fine.

Some time later I had a terrible toothache start on the weekend. I tried everything, aspirin, aspergum, tooth drops, but nothing seemed to work. Then I remembered the bottle of "phenabarbitol" I was desperate so I popped one of those little white pills in my mouth, nothing seemed to be happening so I took another one, after a bit I felt that maybe the pain was dulling a bit so I went to the well one more time. Hallelujah it was working and life was becoming liveable again. The next thing I remember it was 5 o.clock in the morning and I was laying flat out in the kitchen floor with my face pressed against the floor. I don't have much experience with drugs but that was a definite lesson for me, drugs can have a dramatic influence on how your mind and body operates that separates you from reality. It was a real eye opener and I remember the drift towards unreality as the pain and my mind numbed. S

o what is this all about anyway.

Well its about the behaviour buzzword of the the last ten years. ADHD or in the clinical jargon of the day "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Syndrome" and in my jargon ATTENTION DRUGS HELP DISCIPLINE.

It takes a lot of work and dedication to successfully manage a childs development and if they bother you because of their wild behaviour your options don't include having them put down, or giving them to the SPCA, its fairly difficult to give a child away privately and there are not that many deaf people around so that leaves, spend the time to train them about what is appropriate behaviour, or drug them. Modern parenting is tough because of the time demands on most working parents, not that parents of 40 years ago didn't work, of course they did. Believe it or not before TV, families did things together and when you do things together its like a giant training sesion. I watch a lot of travel television and have seen many programs about jungle tribes and you know what strikes me the most. No crying whining little princes and princesses, just kids participating with adults in learning how to successfully live and survive with the tribe. If you don't belive me watch a documentary about a tribe, the contrast with our modern children and the super stimulated lives they live is incredible.

I don't blame the modern parent, its just the environment we are in and everyone is trying to do the best they can. But seeing as how people have a tendency to be like water, and problem solving flows to the easiest solution, so because time and lifestyle are under such pressure off the child is trucked to the doctor ADHD raises its ugly head and the child is put into a drug induced state. If you don't forget the medicine your parenting life enters a blissfull state as glassy eyed little Johnny or Jill wanders around in a perpetual state of numbness and ceases causing you any grief.

Trouble is, its no different than getting a pass in school when nothing is being learned, at some point the rubber hits the road and when they leave your control and the pill popping stops life can get brutally tough. Way to go Squibb

I see Prince Charles is getting Married again

2005-02-11T04:19:00.000-08:00

I remember the first time I saw a picture of Diana Spencer with those big fluttering eyelashes, the head slightly turned down, neck coyly arched, the simpering smile and when I looked deep enough I could see a crazy little man dancing in her head. Second time around I'd say he has learned his lesson. I think he and Camilla Parker Bowles are very deeply in love and for the right reasons, they like and respect one another and look at what they have put up with. Intense criticism, scrutiny, public ridicule and hatred by Diana fans, infact Camilla was even spit on at an event, but she smiled and kept her dignity, now thats a woman. And now that they have announced they are being married and when Charles ascends the throne could rightfully inhereit the title queen, she said no, I think I'll just stay in the background and be a support.

Prince Charles I thought when I first saw Diana, you poor stupid bugger you are marrying a 100% certifiable whacko trophy wife. Now a trophy wife whacko can be managed, all he had to do was keep your distance but spend learn to spend time with her in the presence of other people, particularly strangers. whackiness goes underground in the presence of strangers. And I know exactly what did them in, Now if I could see that from 5000 miles away and tell from just a glance at a picture, whats wrong with the antennae of the people in England. Poor Charles, he must have been stunned when his dick dried off and he looked around and saw what he had.

The whole thing fell apart because she had no respect for the tradition of the British Monarchy. She could have been, and in a way was the unofficial perfect spokesperson for the "me" generation. I know there is lots of opposition to the continuation of the Queen etc as the figurehead of the British gov't but I think any great nation needs symbols, they remind us where we have been. In todays society everyone wants to think that the world began the day they were born and Diana was leading the parade. She never caught on that being a royal meant representing a thousand years of the history of the British people, and that can be a damn demanding, self sacrificing tough job. You see she never caught on that the position of privilege came with a trade off. For every hour that you spent at Royal Ascot or at a Royal performance, having a wonderful time at a ball wearing the latest Christian Dior gown, a million dollar necklace and overhearing people gasping about how gorgeous she was you were expected to spend an hour in the pits with the unclean.

Much of what the royal family does has no glamour attached to it and she passively bucked against that. During the first decade they were together you could tell that her heart just was'nt into that kind of servitude. "Come on Charles" lets stay home and let the courtiers hang around" "Now Diana you know we have to go and visit the sick miners hospital and give a little encouragement to the ones dying form black lung, and then we have to attend a meeting to hand out some awards to a class of fromer druggies who completed their GED's, you know build them up, and all that stuff." " But Charles, I don't waaaaannnnaaaa go, you know they're gonna cough some of that black stuff and it might get on my dress. Think back to photos etc through this period and the passive aggressive, whiney bitch shit is all there.

But the world sopped up and remembers her from the crap dished out after she got herself a publicist etc and set about marketing Diana. Not that she had any brains herself, but she surrounded herself with some who were able to image her in a damaging way to the monarchy and presenting her as the little lost princess. Hell of a marketing con, the boys at Procter and Gamble were impressed, I am sure. This crew could have convinced lung cancer patients that smoking was not all that bad. That set up photo at the Taj Mahal with her on the bench alone ( big fluttering eyelashes, the head slightly turned down, neck coyly arched, the sad smile) made me want to retch.

The thing that got me was that when she started identifying herself with charities and causes after Charles had given up on her, it was only as part of her public relations image building campaign. She was human so I am sure she did have empathy, but it somehow it doesn't carry the same weight with me when its just means to an end, I guess you can argue that charitable work is always good no matter what the motive is and I won't put up any resistance, but I still think what she did had a gut felt, basic immorality about it.

In the end she got what she wanted, she had fucked her way to fame twice. Prestige, wealth, notoriety, sympathy and for the last years of her life big time, good time, party person

She pulled the big bamboozala off and grabbed the crown, but I don't think she conned old Prince Phillip, I think he was onto her right from day one. I'm not a royal watcher but it was well known there was a cool relationship between them right from the start.

I always liked Prince Phillip because his public face showed me a man who was so confident in himself that he could walk 3 paces behind and it didn't intimidate him a bit. I've always admired people who do their duty and don't cause a flap. And its hard to fool a man who has made and survived these statements; When touring China he was overheard by a reporter saying to one of his aids, "be careful you don't eat to much rice while we are here or you will get slitty eyes" and when commenting on a water shortage in Great Britain made the following observation, "no wonder we have no water, we spend a pint and flush away a gallon.". You have to like a guy like that.

Rest in peace Diana, I feel sorry for you because you missed out on so much.

Somebody help this poor goober

2005-02-10T03:46:00.000-08:00

Some news makes me happy, some helps me understand a complex subject and occaisionally I hear an item that puts me into a silent rage. Last night there was an item on that made me feel like going to the Ottawa Department of National Defence with a big ugly stick and straighten some bureaucrats, senior advisors etc up with a damn good pounding, thats how pissed off it made me.

Barbara Bud was interviewing an MP (Cheryl?) about a constituent of hers who was a member of JTF2 (Joint Task Force 2) a military unit which replaced The Airborne Division. Remember the disgraced Airborne Division, They had been in Somalia on a peacekeeping stint when a thief coming into their camp had been captured and killed. That incident kind of annoyed me, not with the guys who caught the thief, but with the nutcase commander who decided to send an elite combat unit into the middle of the desert to babysit a pile of relief supplies, about the most inappropriate deployment you could ever dream up.

I met a guy who had spent 6 months in Somailia and when he told me his experiences, it resulted in my having thoughts about taking that stick to Ottawa. He told me that after being there for a while you couldn't help but start to hate the men, and that all the Canadian troops felt the same. The reason, because of the way they treated women and children. I guess that in that culture men don't work, they expect women to do everything for them, grow food, gather wood, look after children and service the men. If there is food available the men take it, if they want something, they send a women or child to get it for them. He told me the men actually only did three things, laying around in the shade with their friends, looking to take or steal something and keeping every woman in the village pregnant.

Now please somebody tell me that the brass in Ottawa must have known these were the conditions, because if they didn't know there is something dreadfully wrong with the military's communication system.

So into this environment somebody decides, let us send in our shock troops to guard a pile of wheat. As I recall it "The Airborne Regiment" was kind of Canada's equivalent of the US Navy Seals or Britains SAS. Most countries with a sophisticated military have a unit like this. I think its the result of military commanders playing one to many games of "roguespear" and they get to feel game scenarios actually happen. I can see the grim faced men sitting around the big army board discussing "what do we do when terrorists come in and take over the headquarters of CCRA in an attempt to steal the content from their training manuals". The answer, we need a group of highly trained motherfucker killers to send in guns blazing so get them ready.

So The Airborne Division was developed, now even a fool like me can figure out that when a bunch of guys hear that a fighting unit is going to put together thats based on an army video game the volunteers jumping up are going to bring a new element to the definition of "macho man".

If there is a need for brute force and commando style tactics these are the guys you are going to send. Remember the TV images of the unit, shaved heads, bulging muscles from all the iron they pumped, tatoos, sloping forheads, raw meat on the mess table and a porn video playing in the background, get the picture.

So here are these guys sitting around for months in the sweltering heat being eating alive by sand fleas and building up a hate for these useless lumps of crap they see sitting around abusing their women and children, what the hell did headquarters think was going to happen if one of these guys breaks into their camp in the middle of the night and tries to steal their stuff. I can tell you he won't be threatened that if he doesn't shape up they'll write a letter home to his mother. What happened was wrong, but this unit should never have been placed in that situation. Wouldn't it have made more sense to have sent in some bean counter, yes sir, no sir regimented followers. Surely there is plenty of them in the military and they would have fit in fine.

But back to JTF2, Canada decided aftre the airborne was disbanded they needed an elite fighting unit so this was it. Now it seems that this group and what it does falls under the umbrella of National Security (whatever that is) after all this is Canada. The story as reported was about a JTF2 member who was injured while on an assignment (Afghanistan probably) and suffered an injury serious enough to affect his ability to work at things he was trained for so he left the service. Being disabled and a Veteran he applied for a military disability pension.

Here is where a cloud of steam begins to rise.

In order to receive a military disability pension the request goes to the Department of Veterans Affairs who review the circumstances and determine eligibility. To review the circumstances they get a copy of the incident reports in a persons file from National Defence, sounds pretty straightforward doesn't it, well here is where the gooney birds attempt flight.

Because the activities of JTF2 is considered to be a National Security issue they don't keep records or reports on their activities, it seems everything they do is considered clandestine. So we arrive at this situation, Veterans Affairs can't proceed because there is nothing to base a claim on because JTF2 officially doesn't do anything. The soldiers he served have been told that if they comment on the case to verify what happened they will be prosecuted for spilling the beans on a National Security issue. I say unless he fell out of heliocopter on some hairbrained scheme that failed like storming the KFC headquarters to get the list of secret ingredients, fess up. If it was Afghanistan and Osama Bin Ladens cronies,what the hell they probably already know we sent some guys over to shoot them.

Its getting pretty easy to see why this guy probably is feeling like visiting Ottawa himself with the big ugly stick I was talking about, that is if he is physically able to still swing it.
Now there is nothing I hate more than mindless bureaucracy and the inability of people in charge to make decisions. When you combine those elements within government you create incredible frustration for people and establish a case for completely eliminating the job of the bureacrat who can't get past not doing anything.

This guy doesn't stand a chance unless somebody goes to bat for him so might I suggest a solution. The Minister of National Defence calls the Minister of Veterans Affairs and says it looks one of our good guys is experiencing a problem the system can't handle so why don't we fix it up for him this morning and put his first cheque in the mail this afternoon. All it takes is a pea brain and some balls, Case closed

I Don't think I care for hockey anymore

2005-02-09T03:00:00.000-08:00

I remember quite clearly when I realized that I was losing my appetite for NHL hockey. It suddenly dawned on me that the game wasn't exciting anymore. I was watching my usual Saturday night game. Now around my house this had become a ritual for me. You see we were a family where I had 5 daughters and I think one of the main reasons I never missed the Saturday night game was that it was the one time of the week that I put my foot down and would say, the TV is mine for the next three hours, you can whine, cry, plead, shout beg it doesn't matter Saturday Night is Hockey Night in Eldon.

Anyway in this particular game someone was slashed and went down clutching his arm. The whistle was blown, the trainer jumped over the bench, the players milled around, the player was helped from the ice, the fans gave him a big cheer as he neared the bench, he left the ice and disappeared down a hallway leading to a dressing room. The lines were changed, the puck was dropped and the game was back on. Sounds like a typical hockey game, right, suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks, I was watching rec hockey it was like watching flag football instead of tackle, my mind drifted back to a happier day, let me tell you how the scene should have unfolded.

Robinson gobbles up the puck behind the net and feeds it up the left side to Steve Shutt, he dances across the blue line and fires a pass to Lemaire breaking down the middle. Look out, its a tremendous hit by Terry O'Reilly. He caught Lemaire looking back for the puck and nailed him just before as crossed the red line. Lemaire is laying on the ice, here comes the trainer. Oh oh -- Ferguson is cruising around looking for O'Reilly, he says something and there go the gloves. They circle each other and start to throw them, Ferguson gets an arm loose and lands one, two, three rights, O'Reilly connects with one of his own and they go down, here come the linesmen. There they go the box now and O'Reilly gestures to Ferguson who is making gestures of his own.Here comes the announcement.

Montreal penalty Ferguson 5 minutes for fighting, Boston penalty Terry O'Reilly 5 minutes for fighting ---- the time 8:45.

Meanwhile in the broadcast booth,Danny Gallivan says to Dick Irvin, "that was a good one Dick You don't see Lemaire get caught like that with his head down, but the pass from Shutt was a bit behind him".

"Well Danny" says Dick "you could see that one coming Ferguson and O'Reilly were eyeing each other up earlier on and you knew there was going to fireworks".

The puck was dropped and the game was back on, a tough game, best played by tough men that allowed players like Guy LeFleur, Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr bring you to your feet every game. Touch them and you're dead meat and everyone knew it.

And then along came Gary Bettman with his plans for an expansion to the South and the Americanization of the game began by bringing in political correctness to the jungle. There were two problems, the first is that he didn't understand that hockey has a heart and a soul and they are spelled "intimidation", when you take that out of the game you create something that just isn't hockey. I think it started with Howie Meeker and his "golly gee look at those Europeans handle that puck", you see thats how 165 pounders think the game should be played.

Bettman and expansion came along at a time when political correctness was beginning to take root. And because he saw the game through the eyes of an intellectual 140 pound man who was never King Kong in the schoolyard he naturally put his stamp on the game as he could envision himself playing it. And his vision was similar to that of Howie Meeker, the problem is it left a bunch guys pumped up with testosterone with no way to let it out.

You see with the coming of The Instigator Rule, if you fought, your team was now penalized and it is a very strong emotion when you are playing a team sport that you don't let the team down, the result was each game builds up a lot of frustration which is evidenced by all the clutching and grabbing by a bunch of guys who are trying so hard to play by the "new rules". It was a sign of the times and followed the new thinking that men should become "sensitive communicators". Sounds like utopia, but there is going to be strange consequences that are unforseen when guys who naturally drag their knuckles on the ground and eat raw meat are forced to walk erect and become vegetarions.

What is so offensive about a hockey scrap anyway, clears the air and eliminates the guys who are kind of chicken at heart from acting out their agressions with some stick work because there is always the fear in the back of their head that if they whack someone, that the "enforcer" is going to hold them to account.

Once you remove fear, hockey becomes a different game, is that really to complicated to understand, it can't be and I see the pain in Don Cherrys eyes as he tries to get his points across each week. But Gary decided he wanted to take the raw edge off by eliminating fighting and we are now left with a bunch of sharks having to act like fantails doing their piroquettes when really they want to chew the arse out of everything that moves.

Gretzky was great because if you touched him Semenko or McSorley made you pay the price. Orr was magnificent and Wayne Cashman made sure he could do his stuff. These guardians of the stars brought the excitement of intimidation as they skated around and looked any potential aggressor in the eye and let them know that if they tried anything Mr. Knuckles would come a calling. What wonderful hockey, please bring back rules that create hockey teams where you need guys like John Ferguson, Tiger Williams, Orland Kurtenbach, John Wensink, Dave Schultz, Lou Fontanato, Chris Nilan and a hundred more like them, then you will have a game worth watching again.

Until then I am afraid I find NHL hockey to boring to waste my time with, the only thing I have watched Hockey Night in Canada forover the last 5 years is to catch Coach's Corner. If the NHL it ever starts up again I think my hockey watching will be limited to my Grand-sons, the Belfast Sabres Junior C's or I'll go into Charlottetown to see the PEI Rocket of the QMJHL, now thats more like hockey.

The corrupting mud

2005-02-08T04:51:00.000-08:00

I see in yesterdays paper an article where a female US soldier was demoted for mud wrestling and 5 soldier spectators received counselling. Interesting chain of events that brought back some memories. During the vietnam war a folk singer by the name of Arlo Guthrie had a very popular song called "Alice's Restaurant". As we all know the Vietnam war was a very bloody event where about 70,000 young American soldiers lost their lives and God only knows how many hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese were killed by both the Viet cong and the US military. Young Americans were drafted, put through basic training, taught to be killers of human beings and deployed to practice their craft.

Now the song talks about being called to report for the draft. During the interview process it was revealed that the potential inductee had been ticketed for littering and as a result was deemed unfit to serve in the US military. It seems the logic is that if you litter you are not fit to kill people. The irony was not lost on an entire generation.

So here we have serving in Iraq a group of young Americans as part of the 160th Military Police Battalion Reserve Unit who having spent a year being shot at, seeing their friends blown up and suffering from the stresses that come from that type of existence being sent home. They have served their country well, done their patriotic duty, survived what must have been a hellhole and are about to return to their loved ones. can you imagine that they might have had reason to celebrate and have a party.

At some point during the evening it was decided to have a mud wrestling event and some of the young women participated, the young men encouraged this and watched the proceedings. Now that sound like pretty normal behaviour to me for a group of 19 - 25 year olds in those circumstances. But I guess that the oppressing presence of "political correctness" once again raises its wacko head.

These are soldiers, trained to kill, young people exuberantly celebrating the completion of their duty. These are reservists who have just experienced the worst horrors they will ever see in their lives. If they are psychologically damaged it will be from these experiences, not from seeing someone roll in the mud in their underwear. This is America, the porn and sleaze capital of the world where corporate cheating, playing hardball with lives, living in a country run by lawyers, where the President sets the example of "its OK to get a blow job from a young girl" just because he was in a position of power. This is the America that produced Jeffery Dahmer, Heidi Fleiss, Hugh Heffner, Jimmy Jones and Hannibal the Cannibal, peep shows, Michael Jackson, Rowe vs Wade, Al Capone, Strom Thurmond, the KKK and Ted Kennedy yet someone thinks these kids will corrupt or be corrupted by mud wrestling.

So the Army decides that this girl should be punished as an example and the soldiers who watched are put in counselling.

Once again I guess its just to complicated for me to understand.

Ralph Klein sometimes makes perfect sense

2005-02-07T05:22:00.000-08:00

I heard an item on the radio the other day from Alberta. Ralph Klein the often maligned defender of common sense Premier commented that he was considering removing any Provincial Tax associated with health clubs. His rationale was that if people exercise regularly they will be healthy and as such would cost the Province less for their health care.

Doesn't that make perfect sense, rewarding people for being active and particpating in exercise that every one of us knows contibutes to us leading a healthier and more productive and longer life. The personal rewards are huge, practioners feel better and have a higher level of self esteem There is a great feeling of accomplishment by being able to stick to something and proving to onesself that we have self discipline. The societal benefits are that the person leading an active healthy lifestyle relieves pressure the resources of our health care system by spending less time at the doctors office. way to go Ralph

Then we have the other end of the spectre. I believe here on Prince Edward Island we come in near the bottom of the pile when it comes to taking care of ourselves. One of the varieties of potatoes we have become adept at producing seems to be of the couch variety. I doubt if anyone on PEI would put up an argument there is personal and societal benefit to packing on the pounds. The person who contributes to their unhealthy condition because of their choice of lifestyle pay a personal penalty and society a financial one by having to maintain a health infrastructure that is more than it has to be.

In a bold move to reward a group of Islanders who have chosen to be active by walking regularly and spending time in the great outdoors by hitting a little white ball around, our Government has decided to penalize this group. Incidentally by participating in this exercise a whole industry is supported and people have jobs at the 26 Golf courses which seems to me like a good thing.

The reward for leading a healthier life here on PEI is that we now have to pay an additional 10% tax as our reward for costing the public purse less for our health care. I know that each year over the course of the golf season I lose 15 pounds from the walking I do and certainly feel better because of the regular exercise.

I resent this tax more than any other monies I contribute to government, it doesn't bother me to contribute my share towards keeping our public infrastructures in place but there is something basically wrong with this. And what is the rationalization for being so activity selective. I believe the same mean spirited arguement could be made for applying the tax to a whole range of good healthy activities, what about curling, bowling, canoeing, tennis, softball or soccer are all candidates for what is nothing less than tax grab, it gives the same benefits to those who participate.

Hooray Gov't of Alberta for applying some logic and far sightedness in rewarding a healthy lifestyle, for shame Gov't of Prince Edward Island for what you have done in penalizing Islanders who are finding enjoyment in a healthy activity they love.

The old double standard

2005-02-04T03:41:00.000-08:00

As I was driving home today and listening to the radio, 2 news items came on back to back that caught my interest. I have to wonder if someone at the radio station put the stories one after another like that to see if anyone would catch on, I like to think they did.

The first was about a local government issue. The year end for Government is always March 31 each year. Within a few months of that the defecit for last year was established at $11 million. However over the year that figure became cloudy and yesterday (10 months after the fact) the Auditors office had determined it was actually $125 millon.

With the Auditors report came information of why this had occurred. The reasons included failure to follow procedure, lack of accountability, inadaquate internal controls, and breaking rules. There is also suspicion that some individuals connected with a deal Government had put together had somehow ended up with $24 million dollars in their pockets that they were not entitled to. This was followed by a Ministerial interview in which the blame for all of these woes were pointed towards everyone but those in charge.

After the interview we moved on to the next story. It seems that an investment firm that manages $800,000.000.00 has been suspended from opening new investment accounts in this area. The firm is being investigated and the Directors could face some criminal charges because they were the guys in charge. What was this all about----- it seems they failed to follow procedure, had not filed accountability documentation, had not demonstrated adequate internal controls and were suspected of breaking SEC rules.

Money is contributed to both from the public, in one case in the form of taxes and in the other voluntarily, but the bottom line is that responsible management of assets is expected in both instances. But my guess is that the politicians will get off the hook without investigation and the money managers will have every rock they ever pissed on turned over and examined carefully.

Struck me as kind of funny, in a sad way.

I am starting to really like wine

2005-02-03T05:18:00.000-08:00

My introduction to the drinking of wine got off to a really bad start. You can probably guess what happens when you are 19 years old and in an attempt to show the world that you can drink with the best mixed beer, hard liquor and wine at one party.

The only good thing about that night was one of my friends picked up my false teeth out of the pool of puke I was staring at. Now thats real friendship.

You would think I would learn my lesson but as the clock rolls forward about 8 years to New Years eve 1972 I once again found myself confronting a mixture of liquids that do not belong together. My wife and I were visiting with some friends and the husband was in the Canadian Navy. A pleasant evening as we sat around visiting and drinking some beer, but at about 10pm when the beer was gone he produced a bottle of Black overproof Rum he had brought back with him from the Caribbean which we proceeded to dispatch with. As could be predicted by anyone things began getting a bit unstable and if even a small amount of capacity for rational thought remained I would have run for cover when the next offering was brought forward.

He produced a gallon jug of a dark red very thick wine that he had traded for from a Portuguese sailor. I have never seen wine that was almost like a thin syrup in consistency before and after a few glasses of this I was once again on my knees trying to keep my head above the water line in our toilet. It made me so sick that for 25 years I couldn't even smell red wine without my stomach starting to reel.

But after 30 years I am coming to appreciate wine in a different capacity than as a means to get me drunk. I started making wine about 6 months ago and find that a glass or two of red wine in the evening or with a meal has benefit, it takes the edge off life and improves the taste of your food. I read now that it is considered to be good for your health. I guess the bible knows what it is talking about when in the book of Timothy it says "take a little wine for your stomach" and who am I to disagree with the bible.

Its a pleasant way to start winding the day down and if you don't have a drinking problem I recommend it to anyone. The biggest problem I have is keeping it away from my 4 oldest daughters. In order to keep them in wine I would have to convert an entire room in my house into a winery, I may have to put a lock on the door.

I must be thick

2005-02-02T08:19:00.000-08:00

I have been following the news from Iraq, both on Arab websites and the Western media. I find it very depressing to think of all the savagery that is taking place on a daily basis and of how peoples lives are in such turmoil.

What drives terrorists to use such barbaric tactics on an innocent civilian population. It is hard for me to rationalize the motivation. Put a bomb in a car and explode it beside people who happen to have chosen the wrong place to stand. What is achieved? I can understand targetting a military presence but why the innocents, what can possibly be achieved.

Even if I don't agree with a goal I realize that people will take actions to reach what they desire.

If militants want the US to leave shouldn't their war be directed towards the American soldier.
If destruction is directed towards a military target and unfortunately a civilian is hurt or killed at least you can see an element of chance and bad luck has occurred, but to deliberately set out to kill or maim these civilians is an act of undefensible evil.

If Islamic militants want the support of the ordinary Iraqui wouldn't it be wiser to befriend and support them rather than wreak death and destruction on a daily basis towards people who are only trying to get from one day to the next. Bob Dylan puts it in the best perspective with his line "It might be the Devil or it might be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody. I guess it takes a poet to put it words that explains things. Whether Christian or Muslim there is going to have a lot of explaining to do when nature runs its course and I don't think who has the biggest gun is going to count for much.

Barbara Tuchman said it in her Pulitzer prize winning book "The March of Folly" it makes a case that people will bring about their own downfall by participating in acts that are clearly against their best interests and if analysed by any reasonable person can easily be understood as contributing to their ultimate downfall. When Saddam Hussein invaded Iraq I wonder if these thoughts went through his head. It was widely understood and proclaimed by no less a person Henry Kissinger that the most entrenched cornerstone of United States foreign since the 1950's was "do not let anything threaten the oil supply". What did he think was going to happen if he invaded Kuwait and took over its oil and as a by product of that threatened the stability of Saudi oil. As Dr. Phil would say "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING". Every person worldwide has the same inner feelings about freedom. Freedom is on the march in Muslim countries and in twenty years Al Quaeda and its cronies will be widely recognized as being just another flavour of the month and the insurgents of today will look back and say "what the hell were we thinking".
When Osama Bin Laden undertook to plot and execute an attack like 9/11 did he not pause for a moment and think about what the American response would be. Talk about being the author of your own destruction.

I am not proposing that I agree with all American Foreign policy but I do understand what some of it is, but have a very difficult time with the fallout from the execution of that policy.

I support the ideals of freedom as entrenched in the constitutions of our Western democracies, but have to wonder why the Americans don't have a better grasp on respecting those same freedoms when they intervene. The American psyche maintains that they are doing Iraq a favour by freeing them and starting them down a path to democracy. Democracy is good, the methodology used is bad. Happens every time when you don't place a high value on the lives of people who are not your own. I think the worst phrase that has been coined in the last 50 years has to be "collatteral damage", tried in Vietnam but has really come into its own in the last 10 years. Its the ultimate ugliness in the politically correct world. I hate what it stands for, and hate it even more because it's a phrase deliberately invented to mask the horror of what it really is, the taking of innocent life because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I guess its cathartic to not have to have to say "we murdered innocent bystanders".