- Majors on minors
- Turns a blind eye to legitimate injustice
- Bullies
- Commits acts of evil
- Exerts unfounded authority
- Ignorantly professes and judges
- Lies while rationalizing conscience
- Stubbornly progresses
- Assuages transgressions
- Idly awaits on another
Category Archives: Lifes Lessons
Heart Break At Manitoba U.S. Border
One wrong- headed move and your life could be over just like this family of four from India. The Canadian elements have lead to heart break at the Manitoba U.S. Border for one family not necessarily accustomed to how cold it can get. I’ve spent time in the far north in the winter time and I’ll tell you – even if well prepared….the Canadian winters are a brutal force.
It was the summer of 1983 (that’s right – a Canadian summer day) and I was working as a summer student at a gold mine as a millwright’s assistant in between first and second year of university. I was stationed out of Thompson Manitoba but was flown into a mining camp some 200km north of the Manitoba border into Nunavut (was still the N.W.T. back then) on a one week in and one week out rotation.
There is much camaraderie in the mining business and I was the mill superintendent’s son. There would have been an unspoken agreement among those working in the mill to ensure to look out for the kid. One day there was a blizzard and it was time to go for lunch. The mess hall was only 200 feet from the mill but in a “white out” you’re lucky to see your hand in front of your face never mind 200 feet into the distance. However; a vague outline of the destination building was visible. The mill exit door and the mess hall entrance were corner to corner and if you missed the corner and became disoriented, you’d be potentially left vulnerable to the freezing cold Canadian north.
As an eighteen year old, I had already experienced life in the far north having lived in a place called Cantung, N.W.T as a child in 1975/76. I had cross country skied and snowmobiled up there in very cold conditions. There was talk of dress and respect for the cold. Parents had lived life on the prairies of Canada rurally growing up. A culture of cold had been nurtured within.
In other words, I had been conditioned to formulate a plan just for going for lunch on that wintery summer day. I ventured back from the exit to find a mill operator who would monitor my trip with signals and sound. After lunch….conditions changed and the trip back was all clear. This one small measure was relatively hassle free.
It’s heart shattering to have learned that this family of four from India froze to death in their quest for a new life in the U.S. It’s maddening to learn that there’s not better coordination of law enforcement between countries.
Nurses Quebec Example
Did you know that Quebec reported 50,000 health care workers now on “leave” from work due to “burn out”? Just when your country needed them most….those nurses in Quebec are now collecting a disability cheque. That’s right – short term and long term disability claims are enormous right now. The actual number not on the job is actually 70,000 with the other 20,000 associated with those in current isolation. It’s staggering and you can look to see an increase in insurance costs for whichever policy for which you apply because you are not immune from the effect of claims paid in sectors unrelated to your policies. There is some correlation between sector related claims pertaining to generating premiums but that correlation is not 100 per cent. Insurance companies spread risk through a process called “reinsurance” thereby indirectly affecting you.
You know when Canadian soldiers lined the trenches while securing our freedom, there was no 1-800 number to call for applying for mental health leave. Of course, there are the “professional associations” and “unions” which provide complicating variables in restricting governments from casting a broader net for acquiring human resources necessary during this critical time. It should be no surprise that doctors are sparse and unavailable to assist due to our system of education and influence of the professional association in limiting access to the profession.
Here we are in a health care crisis whereby those associations so adamant at protecting their professions are now desperate. Nurses in Quebec and across Canada are needed now. Help them help us.
Intelligent Voices On Mute
Have you ever noticed that it’s the quiet ones oftentimes most cerebral and wise? Have the intelligent voices been put on mute? In this social media oriented environment, unfortunately society is not well served by having their voices “on mute”. The megaphones seem to be in the hands of the blasphemous and irrational.
My blog serves as a conduit to broadcast my occasional philosophical rants. I do so in the context of a politically correct theatre whereby professional organizations muzzle their members, stake holders are intimidated by the bureaucratic maze, government officials show up unimpassioned in the comfort of their home office.
Then there are the news organizations keen to report a traffic accident or a tawdry affair of a public figure or the banality of a Stevie Nicks decision not to tour in the face of COVID but absent in the context is the reporting of the Taliban regaining a foothold in populous Afghanistan cities with the departure of G7 troops. The editorial boards frustrate public debate with their protective bias with a justification that contrasting opinions are tainted with a compromise of their community guidelines. Cutting opinion coloured with sarcasm and eloquence is mistaken for personal attack. Editorialists are now too daft to know the difference.
The intelligent either puts up a blog like mine in appeasement of intellectual vigour or steps away with indifference in character of the disposition of prototypical Canadians. There’s always letters and emails I suppose if one possesses intense follow up protocol. If you are a borne and bread Western Canadian in the middle of your life having not attended French immersion as a child during a time when so little of it was available – you most likely won’t be seeking federal political office.
The megaphones are abundant but you shake your head at what comes out of them. It is so bizarre that you need to possess through training – acumen for idling the rational mind instead of joining the chorus of folks now trumpeting the “mental health” mantra.
Word For The Unvaccinated COVID Paranoid
Your governments have spent oodles of money to get you free vaccines. For those unvaccinated covid paranoid…many of you who think you apparently know so much about physiology and medical science who have decided not to vaccinate and not heed your governments’ recommendation, the consequences of your decision are illuminating. Doctors in Alberta now whine about policy in lifting the vast majority of restrictions. Albertans have all had the chance to set appointments and vaccines have been available for all except children. Children have the best tolerance to handle an infection. Albertans have been looked after by governments with subsidies, vaccines, and work from home allowances. You doctors making the big bucks from the public purse having spent a ridiculous amount of time in school have most likely never operated a small business or been faced with managing a payroll. Now you whine.
You see once we hit adulthood we get to deal directly with consequences of our conduct. If you choose not to vaccinate against a killer virus and you get infected and die…that is a consequence of your conduct. Society cannot go around protecting you from a decision which you take to risk your life in the face of arduous measures undertaken to protect you of which you reject.