Lifes Lessons

Government of Alberta Believes Men Lack

Social engineering is now where your tax dollars are headed. Some sick Hollywood producer assaults women and now the Alberta Government is compelled to fix “the man” in the work place with a “program” for you to attend with $50,000 of your tax money. Let’s be clear. This garbage is the precise kind of policy that puts men like Donald Trump in office!

For every man reading this piece, your government believes you are less than whole. They think you’ve been conditioned to treat women poorly. Whether it’s the single parent family, genetics, your psychological make-up, the influence of a program peddler (Benevity Inc.), the effects of gaming as a child, or shear misogynist rebuke to blame, your socialist government has now put itself in the business heading down the road of “fixing” half of its population. Well, it’s only $50,000 you ask and the half of Alberta could not possibly be served with such a sum. There’s no sugar coating the message and the principle.

Revelations of Harvey Weinstein of whom Hollywood women and men apparently failed to hold to account over the years during numerous episodes of apparent rape and sexual assault of which laws on the books would have saved tens of women from his wrath, have apparently inspired one woman in political power in Alberta to seize opportunity of media buzz around the travesty by patronizing the good men of Alberta.

The good women of Alberta…. you have naturalized power with your tongue to deal effectively with any “a@@hole” in supervision. No government can sanction legal conduct of a person with poor moral character. It is every employees’ right to leave any such man without his soldier’s energy to win at the capitalist pursuit. If you are assaulted, it is your solemn duty to report the crime so that this man can be dealt with in the justice system. If your justice system is ineffective and does not provide you with the timeliness and dignity of proceedings, it is then your duty to assemble as an advocacy for improvement.

The good men of Alberta….if you witness any man in supervision treating a woman or another man carelessly in the workplace or any other place, it is your duty to confront this man and take up his behaviour with him. If you witness a crime committed by this man, it is your duty to report the crime to authorities. This is not rocket science.

This Albertan is getting sick and tired of a government that wants to inject itself into places where it does not belong.

Politics

Calgary Mayoral Candidate Bill Smith Campaign Lesson

Things he could have done better:

1. Acknowledge issue of massive urban sprawl and management plan.
2. Profess exactly whether public funds should be used for the purpose of a new arena.
3. Strategy for getting taxes down.
4. Circulate ideas vibrantly in Nenshi strong North East Calgary.
5. Prohibit receipt of campaign financing from elite interests. Ie. maximize donor amounts.
6. Refrain from exclaiming “I love the Flames and Stampeders”. Calgarians expect impartiality.
7. Express with indignity the funding two ridiculous public art projects.
8. Clearly express position on proposed Green Line.
9. Clearly express position on prospect hosting Olympics with perceived implications.
10. Opine on at least one city expense item for reduction.

By speaking in broad strokes during the election campaign, Bill Smith in my opinion played the safety card of attempting not to offend anyone who may be leaning right. In so doing, his vagueness created the image of mistrust. The electorate has been down this path before and is growing resentful of politicians more interested in the office than in representing absolute ideas for change.

Politics, Sport

Herd Mentality Takes The NFL

Of course the U.S President of the United States, Donald Trump, should have ceased reactionary tweeting when he took office at the White House. Of course he should not have waded into this anthem kneeling chicanery enacted by NFL players through twitter. However; he is entitled to have an opinion with respect to protocols, conduct, and assembly of Americans in witness to the ceremony of the country’s national anthem.

Americans exercising their civil liberty are entitled to their opinion regarding each others’ conduct. If a citizen has a grudge to bear against their country, they have the freewill to express themselves within their law abiding rights. Each American has the autonomy to choose which way they wish to fight their civil battles within their rights. I suspect that many Americans lacking weekly television exposure while administering their own rights for justice would rather see NFL players take their grievance(s) to the appropriate forum for resolution rather than grandstanding in front of folks enthusiastic about watching some football.

I, personally, stopped watching football in 2014 upon learning of an NFL player beating his wife in a casino elevator. There was much ado about whether the player should be suspended by the league or not. The story line had morphed from the strategy of defensive alignment, pass protection, finger tip end zone catches, and fourth down late game conversions into a gong show about the conduct of privileged elite players having difficult managing themselves.

Economics, Free Enterprise

Retailers Losing To Amazon

Now Wholesale Sports is closing down. They needed to build nice pretty looking stores when blocks of strip mall space lay vacant. They needed to carry excessive inventory with an extravagant in store merchandising effort and little public promotion. I think retailers in Western Canada need to rethink the way they do business before Amazon sucks up the whole space and governments better get on board with business before urban centres become boarded up black holes.

As I write this, the Marlborough mall in North East Calgary has no less than six closed retailers in the one wing which used to host Sears. Part of the blame must go to the mall for failing to exercise flexibility in a newer retail environment. Given what merchants are paying for mall space, it seems obvious that the only companies that can make it work are the well financed large establishments which can cross fund from multiple geographic outlets.

Amazon is a success story. I use them and they’ve never let me down. In fact, cities across North America as we speak are clamouring for the opportunity to be chosen as Amazon’s “second headquarters”. What is to become of strip malls and shopping malls if a business friendly environment is not provided to bricks and mortar retail establishments across Canada? Perhaps, they should be shuttered? Perhaps, there’s a social kind of slant on “going to the mall” which we want to uphold? I don’t think I really know the answer for sure but it seems that the destruction of malls in favour of an alternate use may be net negative in terms of economic utility.