Uncategorized

The Depraved Trump

Yet another tidbit of evidence of the depraved Trump.

Yet another tidbit of evidence showcasing Trump as depraved. “Former President Donald Trump said Saturday that he wouldn’t protect a NATO nation that didn’t contribute enough defense funds and, instead, he’d ‘encourage’ Russia ‘to do whatever the hell they want.'”

Apparently even this statement is now being rationalized by the Republican spineless. In fact, Marco Rubio (remember the guy with the small hands) has come to Trump’s defence.

The statement certainly serves up juicy table scraps. Oh ya….corroborated the quote from video given that it came from “mainstream media” – for those keeping score.

Should we be surprised that a man of this character given his trouble with the law would espouse such drivel?

Will we see Mrs. Haley take off the gloves and go to work purposefully in educating the populous about the perils of poor character in high office? Will she speak to the disillusionment and hopelessness of Americans who find solace in a depraved voice?

Will the fearful stand up for virtue, honor, the war dead, and truth by denouncing the ugly man Donald Trump for all that he is and his unworthiness in leading Americans. Since the constitution of the U.S. has been ambiguous in preventing this man from seeking the Presidency given his track record, it may come down to the conscience of citizens bestowed a responsibility. Are citizens up to the task?           

Lifestyle, Music

Sled Island Viability In Calgary

The Calgary Sled Island summer festival is having challenges with cash flow and it may need changes in order to survive. Its sustainability has benefitted from COVID relief funding which has now dried up. It will need to look hard at costs within an environment where disposable income has been reduced because of inflation and consumer debt levels are high. Folks still need to deploy entertainment dollars but they need certainty that they are getting value for money. Should the event decide to continue to recruit acts from outside the city, costs will remain high. If the event refuses to turn down the volume, people will be annoyed and won’t come. Hard decisions are required during tough economic times. Unfortunately, management teams which heed the needs of vendors / artists over the interests of consumer group will fail. 

When attending a strong performance last summer at the United Church downtown, there was a hiccup in the setup and it was lucky they had a seasoned veteran sound man on board in order to facilitate the setup change given a band which showed up in numbers beyond which was expected.

The management team should also be acute to genres out of favour and communicate better with respect to the style and track record of artists anticipated to take the stage. 

Private sponsors may be will to show up and participate with cash but sponsorship must be honoured in such a way that shows benefit other than a company logo on a website.   

Philosophy

People Unsettled

Never has there been a time when people have been so unsettled psychologically. It’s obvious. All that you really need as a metric are the number of references to “mental health” within media and social circles. Many have problems….but why?

Our organization as a society may not be serving citizens as effectively today as it did in generations past.  Merit played more of a role toward ascribing contributions by employees in the past compared to today. While the eight figure CEO flaunts financials with a direct correlation toward his / her leadership, the inputs transpired far beyond the four walls of a window office in Class A office space downtown.  A tax systems looks to redistribute his /her wealth with a progressive system whereby fair beneficiaries aren’t necessarily accessing resources due to broken governmental systems. Poor stewards of tax dollars behave indifferently toward the disadvantaged and culturally we suffer with subconscious minds afflicted.

A despondent state arises because of advocacy fatigue. We think we should be doing more to help but bureaucracy blunts initiative. We turn a blind eye and look inward with attention on what we know we can control.

Certainly, there is a physiological attribution toward some mental health afflictions but I suggest that daily observations of how we are treating each other factor into the manifesting of feeling what we feel. In powerlessness comes despair. If one feels that every outreach will fall on deaf ears, one withdraws. Any psychologist will likely attest that a withdrawn soul infects the spirit. I suggest that withdrawn souls must be mended so that tears in the social fabric can be mended.

We must be more intuitive and less self interested in order to have impact on those less fortunate. We must re-evaluate our reason for being in order to generate activities which deploy contributions of our full potential and eventual legacy. Our stock performance… although worthy of our attention need not be a preoccupation. Neither do we need to upgrade to the latest Mercedes model.  However; we do need to advocate for those less fortunate if we are blessed with such skills which they do not possess.  As such, we are more comfortable in our well deserving material world spreading words of hope and forgiveness. In complement we must help authorities adhere to their responsibility of accountability for members of society who break our laws.

With greater participation sociologically by people positioned to serve unofficially, we will heal our culture. We will foster private participation in cultural development initiatives and even undertake a renewal of “multicultural” expression.  All this can be done without a cell phone app.               

Lifestyle, Philosophy

Are We Becoming A Different Species?

Are we becoming a different species? This is the question pondered by relationship expert Esther Perel. She does so in the context of the impact of technology on interpersonal relations. The question seems ridiculous but when we delve deeper into the changing behavioural habits of mankind, perhaps there is food for thought.

Let’s look to the brain and its wiring. What do we know? Physicians / scholars have identified compartments of the brain associated with functions such as reasoning, emotion, sensory stimulation, and motor control. Yet, the intricacies of neural pathways and the manifestation of behaviours arising from neural impulses are less understood. You can bet that scholars in the field are disappointed that more of a behavioural baseline was not established prior the proliferation of personal computing devices. Such a baseline would have obviously aided new studies in examining change.

Particular behavioural characteristic which interests me in the context of the headline are “empathy”, and “awareness”. That is, any change in a person’s acuity. I postulate that technological utility as it reduces interpersonal time may produce reductions in such traits but could any such reduction make us less human? In other words, can the influence of technology change brain chemistry to the point that we can ultimately label ourselves differently? Notice that I haven’t yet referenced the relatively new acronym, AI, and you all know what this is by now. 

Is brain chemistry interconnected with spirit and soul? If so, could our spiritual selves now be encumbered of expression through neural blocks produced by technology?

When postulating the question, Perel had the human experience in mind related to our physicality through touch and sex. She claimed that we can live without sex but we cannot live without touch. Who here has been tasked with selling off a grandmother’s dining room table but there are few buyers because families are now not large enough to need one? Unquestionably, we have grown apart and the divorce rate exemplifies such. We are less tolerant of foibles and less committed to relationships. In carving out our personal freedom through intolerance, we’ve become isolated and judgmental. A crassness has been infused within our psyche perhaps due to a powerlessness we now feel through the degradation of community supports.

With a few paragraphs of reflection to temper the ridiculousness, I suppose a study could incite yet more curiosity. 

Lifes Lessons

Survey Suggesting Canadians Are Strapped Financially

A survey from the National Payroll Institute published today reports that 37 per cent of Canadians are “financially stressed”. I like the term “strapped” which has a another kind of connotation. Even more startling is that the figure is up from 17 per cent last year.  Given some behavioural patterns that I’ve witnessed lately whether it being the traffic in overpriced bars, taverns and restaurants or reciprocation patterns with my clients (I’m a tax accountant)…something is up and it’s not good.

The thing that I find most bizarre is what people are willing to pay for the “wants” in life while neglecting fundamentals like tax. It could be the Trump effect that people start to believe that if “he can do it, maybe I can do it too”. Have you seen what Mountain Equipment COOP is charging for bicycles? This isn’t even the elite bike shop. Then there is the temptation for the winter vacation escape which is not within the budget of pre-tax dollars of business people with variable income and debt.

It’s really hard to have empathy when people fail to adhere to a written household budget. Now the big spenders enticed by lifestyle clad in $128 Lululemon tights may need to join their brethren at food banks due to rising housing costs and interest rates. Calgary’s rate of attendance at food banks is astonishing – also reported today by “Calgary Foundation”. Apparently 1 in 4 Calgarians now cannot meet their basic needs.    

Somewhere along the line…somebody wasn’t listening when grandparents were sharing stories of hard ship and lessons learned.