ACHOO! May you walk in darkness.

I think a lot early in the morning. Especially when I don't have the luxury of being able to slowly and naturally ease my way out of the sack. Like every day I work. I bolt out of bed still half asleep like most of God's children SHOULD be at or before 5 AM, and have some really furious action in my head. It could be residual dream state so I'm not sure about the quality of the thoughts until I have a coffee and a shower and am able to evaluate them without the cobwebs of sleep skewing my perception. You know how you can have a dream in which you have this earth-shaking idea or invent a fantastic new device or hear a joke that while you are asleep seems like it's the most hilarious thing you've ever heard, then you awake, possibly laughing, jot it down and return to the land of slumber from whence it came. The next day you read that hastily jotted joke or that idea with all of your faculties fully functioning and it's an absolute dud! Ever happen to you? That happens to me a lot.

During my commute to work I am usually showered and my caffeine thirst is sufficiently slaked but I'm not convinced I fully wake up until I do my first patrol or hand out my first parking pass of the day and am forced to slam myself into responsibility mode. Then I just think about work usually. It is for this reason that this blog is often filled with contemplations originating on a bus or the C-train. Today's post will be one of those.

I was riding the C-train and 4 guys dressed in orange coveralls and work boots splattered with dried mud from previous days on the job got on. They were chatting away. I am almost certain that none of them knew the person sitting beside me. Then the person sitting beside me sneezed. Immediately one of the coverallers leans down, (because they were standing and the guy beside me was sitting), and says, "Bless you!" Boy that got the old wheels a-turning and the gears a-grinding in my head! What is this compulsion for people to bless other people after a sneeze? I remember the first thing I thought of was my grade school teacher, Mr. Ottawell, explaining that in the olden days people thought a sneeze was an evil spirit escaping or that after a sneeze you were vulnerable to evil spirits getting IN. Either way it required a kindly blessing. It was just common courtesy to gird up one's loins with truth, slap on the breastplate of righteousness, arm oneself with the Word and slay that evil sneeze demon as a solid Christian soldier. Even for a total stranger. That's what got me thinking. I thought, "What if this guy who just sneezed was a Satanist? Or agnostic, atheist, some non-Christian religion, or what have you?" Mr. Coverall was forcing his faith on someone who just might not want it! Why, in Canada he may well have been cited on the spot for cultural or religious imposition and forced to attend publically funded sensitivity training for a few months. I then began picturing this coveraller as the skinny priest from the Exorcist flinging holy water on the guy beside me and hollering, "THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELLS YOU! THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELLS YOU!" And the guy beside me smokily melting like the Wicked Witch of the West screaming, "OOOOOHH NOOOOOO!" I actually chuckled at myself a bit, trying my best to hide it from my fellow commuters. I chuckle both at the spectacle I had conjured up in my head and at the fact that so much of what goes on in there is directly linked to some movie or another. The power of entertainment!

The guy beside me didn't thank the blesser. This, I have found, can upset a sneezer. Have you ever had someone around you sneeze and then get all snotty, pardon that intentionally placed pun, and say, "Well? Isn't anyone going to say 'Bless you?'" I have. For all we know Mr. Coverall may be rewarded in Heaven for his act of punicharity. But he got no gratitude from the guy beside me! And this is flu season! For all we know he could have filled our car with millions of H1N1 germs and the magnanimity of the person who actually BLESSED him for doing so went unacknowledged. The nerve!

Then I started thinking of other bodily expulsions we don't get blessed for. When we burp or fart we may not be blasting out anything as dangerous as flu germs but the gas can be quite unpleasant. So we excuse ourselves as if to say, "Sorry for polluting the air we share." Why don't we say that after we sneeze? I guess we sometimes do, but not nearly as often and it occurred to me that sneeze germs warrant more apology than a few moments of burp or fart vapour. And I wonder why people in the olden days didn't believe a burp gave just as much opportunity for an evil spirit to invade the belcher's body. I guess I can understand the fart on this point because if I were a spirit, evil or not, I think I too would choose my aperture of entry carefully.

Then I thought of cultures all over the world. The sneeze blessing is not as uncommon as one might think. In my youth when I lived next door to our Russian Babooshka and Dyedooshka I learned that after a sneeze they said something. It was, "Bud zdorov." This means, "Be healthy." The Romans said, "Salve," which means, "Good health to you." This could be taken as a kind of blessing or it could be, in my mind, a more appropriate order for the person to take better care of him/herself and stop polluting everyone's air with germs. I guess that might depend on the delivery. Pretty much the same in German, "gesundheit" means "health." Loads of people with no German heritage at all say that. Evidently, from my internet research, this has been going on for thousands of years! Romans used to say, "Jupiter preserve you." Jupiter is Zeus to the Greeks. I wonder if the Greeks said, "Zeus preserve you." I don't know but reportedly the Greeks DID say, "Long life," after a sneeze. That's similar to the Chinese who say, "Bai sui," when children sneeze. That means, "May you live 100 years."

If you ask me when a person burps or farts we should be saying this stuff about health and living long lives. I know holding in burps and farts is unhealthy. We've all been in public places, at the office, at a hockey game, in elevators, at church, holding our gases. How many dates have we been on having just eaten a meal that is turning into gas, desperately needing to get rid of some of that gas but politely, maybe even painfully, holding it in to avoid the embarrassment of blasting a fart in front of that special someone who you earnestly want to believe you don't do such hideous things? You also want her/him to believe other totally false things about you too like you are always pulling out chairs, opening doors, paying the check, wearing your good underwear, smelling of lavender, and just being extra polite. But that's dating. And job interviewing. Which really, let's face it, are the same thing. I think if I were interviewing a job candidate and he or she stood up, lifted a leg like Bruce Lee and cracked a loud, noxious fart, I would say two things to her/him: "Good health," because that IS good for the person's health and I want employees who are health conscious because they won't be calling in sick as much and they will work for me for much longer, and, "You're HIRED!" We are taking years off our lives holding in farts and burps, folks! If we could learn to just let these natural body functions fly, maybe our culture would be just a little bit more honest. We'd certainly be more healthy!

But back to the sneeze. I have heard it said that holding one in is also unhealthy. In fact some people believe if you do so, your heart stops. I don't think that's true but it really is a tough thing to do! So let it out. Good health. Live 100 years. That makes a bit more sense when your think of it that way.

What may not make so much sense, (and this was all stuff I thought about on about 10 or 15 minutes of my morning C-train ride, mind you), is the idea of the evil spirits. I doubt there are many people left today who actually believe that, though the institution lives on, but I started thinking about myself and my sneezing habits. I have eyes that are not very good at what they are supposed to be doing and are very sensitive to light. Though I am an organ donor, I doubt there's gonna be a line-up of people who want my eyes when I'm freshly deceased. Almost every time I leave a building and walk into bright sunlight I will sneeze. So I got to thinking. Light. We have heard Jesus called the light of the world. In fact I'm pretty sure he said that himself along with, "Whoever follows me shall not walk in darkness." Jews light candles during their Feast of Tabernacles. The epiphany that brings one to ultimate understanding and a state of oneness with everything in Buddhist and Taoist philosophy is often called, "Enlightenment." Light is just associated with God and good and darkness is associated with evil. So why is it that light makes me sneeze so often and opens me up to the ravages of evil spirits? That doesn't make sense, does it? When it's dark I rarely sneeze. So why don't people say, "May you walk in darkness," after a sneeze. It would be healthier, good for longevity and it would limit the openings for evil spirits to pass in and out of the transoms of our open mouths.

So there you have it. It would make so much more sense, for ALL reasons, if after a sneeze we wished the sneezer a healthy, lengthy, germ-free journey in darkness. I'm going to start saying that. You don't have to, but I think I will. Somebody sneeze around me, please! I want to try this out!

The Great Wal of Mart

I saw an old Chinese guy on the bus yesterday wearing a poppy. I wasn't all that clear on the role of China in WWII or how they might have had some impact on making Canada what she is today. What I found out, and this is a very general summation of some of the events of WWII, the war helped the Chinese Communist party. You see, at the time of the war Chinese Communists lead by Mao, were battling with Chiang Kai Shek and the Kuomintang, the Chinese Nationalist Party, who were in favour of something called a "New Life Movement" for China. This was a sort of combination of Confucian ideals, Christianity, Nationalism and Authoritarianism. Nobody really knows if this could have made China into a better place than it is today but it is tough to imagine any ruling party that could have made them any worse. However, judging from the period in Taiwan known as "White Terror" when Chiang Kai Shek's Kuomintang ruled Taiwan with and iron fist persecuting and executing people who were believed to be threats to its power, it just might have done the unthinkable and created something worse in China than what we have today. It lasted from 1949 to 1987 and was the longest period of martial law ever until the Syrian situation recently broke the inauspicious record. Inside Taiwan members of intellectual organizations for "re-emancipation" were roundly imprisoned, tortured or put to death for the threats they posed to the ruling Kuomintang. Much like Tibetan Buddhism and Falun Gong in Communist China. It should be noted that in the 1920's the Kuomintang persecuted Buddhists too so, as per my opinion of most opposition parties in most countries of the world, it's possible that the two factions were not fighting over who could make China better, rather who would win the spoils that come with the privilege of making it worse.

At any rate, Japan invaded China in 1937 and the two warring factions within China agreed to a sort of co-operative war against the invading Japanese. What ended up happening is the Kuomintang took the bulk of the burden, wearing themselves down in number and supplies while the Chinese Communist forces largely sat waiting in the wings, strengthening their forces with an eye toward winning the civil war. It worked. In 1946 the civil war resumed and the CCP defeated the Chinese Nationalists by 1949. This is part of why the world has had Communist China ruled by the mighty bastion of evil known as the Chinese Communist Party ever since.

So, the old Chinese guy wearing the poppy: Was it appropriate? I guess like is the case with so many of life's most important questions, the answer is probably, "It depends." Maybe the guy had relatives who were persecuted by Kuomintang forces and was happy that WWII was a factor in their eventual demise. I don't know. I don't even know if I should care. As long as he donated a decent amount to purchase the poppy, a salut. The observance of Remembrance Day is in honour of the sacrifices made by the soldiers to make Canada a better place. And he lives here now so his life was directly affected by those who fought. So it's right for him to wear the poppy. I guess...

But in the grand scheme of things, his native country, (and I'm not making the silly mistake of assuming because he's Chinese, he supports the actions of his government and his country), figures very largely in the deterioration of Canada into a country not very much like that for which our soldiers were fighting. So maybe he is wearing the poppy to show solidarity with his adopted country and as a statement AGAINST China. It depends... a powerful statement.

What the heck am I talking about? Aren't we supposed to show appreciation for the actions of the soldiers and the freedoms we enjoy because of them at this time of year? Au contraire, mes amis. I think we are supposed to honour our fighting forces and the great sacrifices everybody at the time were making for our country and maybe try our best to do what we can to make it into what they wanted, and let's face it, what almost all of US living today want as well. That is NOT what we have in Canada today. Oh we are closer than lots of countries and I am thankful for that, but it is my belief that we are moving farther and farther away and it all ties into the perversion of democracy and capitalism, corporate mentality, banks, the U.S. and inevitably, China. So if you wear a poppy it is your responsibility, in my mind, to do whatever you can about getting Canada back on the right path.

First let's explore the wrong path we are on. In past posts, even from years ago, I have been warning the oh-so-gullible politicians in Canada against making deals with China, promising trade with the expectations that there will be social and trade reform in the country because history has shown, China lies. It also has shown that they think anyone engaging in business deals based on such pie-in-the-sky promises are fools. In fact NOT lying in business is the most foolish concept of all! Has China improved conditions for workers in their country? Have they obeyed international manufacturing practices? Have they lived up to safety regulations that other nations expected them to? If you watch the documentary called, "Death By China," the answers to all these questions is no. In fact they have gone backwards!

Canada being on China's list of preferred trading partners, I think everybody in this country should see that documentary and do what we can to make things better. For some reason blogger won't let me post links any more. But the movie is on Netflix if you want to watch the whole thing. I'd recommend it. Here are some interesting things the documentary shows. And I'm just cherry picking here, there are all kinds of facts and figures that I am not including here.

"People's Republic of China." Stop saying that! It's not the people's and it's not a republic. It's still treating workers as slaves. If you try to unionize for wages that might get you out of abject poverty, you are thrown in jail. If you don't make your quota in your 16-hour day, you could be thrown in jail or maybe you just don't eat. The laws of China governing safety in the workplace and manufacturing codes and workers' rights are not obeyed. All of these things are what ATTRACT businesses to China. Along with illegal subsidies paid to manufacturers who build companies there and currency manipulation, it makes for a virtual Mecca for manufacturing and corporate greed. And, hey, that's just business! That's the explanation we get from companies like Wal-Mart and Apple. It's not up to THEM to change those things, it's up to them to make their stakeholders more money.

It is stated in the documentary that 91% of Wal-Mart's products originate in China. 2 years before the doc. was made Wal-Mart spent 50 billion in China. If they were a country that would rank The Great Wal of Mart as China's 4th largest trading partner.

And when we hear corporations explaining the mass exodus to China saying things like, "I can't compete," don't feel sorry for them. What that means is NOT what we think. It's corporate-speak. Like when they made 40 billion two years ago and only 35 billion this year, they "LOST" 5 billion. Corporate-speak. "I can't compete," does not mean that things produced in China will cost less in the countries where they are eventually sold. The prices will be similar, or maybe even MORE expensive! All it means is the CEO will have a smaller paycheck, the owner will make less profit or the shareholders will receive fewer dividends. Take Apple for example. It is a microcosm of the cause of financial inequities in countries like Canada and the U.S. Everything Apple is made in China. Does that make it cheaper to produce? Hell yeah! Does that drive the price down? Hell no! Apple has always been, and continues to be more expensive! All that means that the big wigs and shareholders make obscene profits to which they inexplicably believe they are ENTITLED!

Here is the problem! Aye, there's the rub! How do we convince people to be satisfied with reasonable profits for their businesses? Well that's as easy as convincing China to have reasonable working conditions in their factories! It won't happen with a bunch of suits sucking back sushi and sake and shaking hands on the promises of fair play. It requires some strictly enforced international trade rules and reform in the countries who do not abide by them. Who does that fall to? Me? You? Nope, it's supposed to be the job of the government officials that represent our respective countries. You know the ones who regularly accept lobbying funds and campaign contributions and the like from private corporations. Or if their corporations don't make them, the CEO's will make them privately. Or their wives. Or their lawyers. They have been finding loopholes in the laws for years.

We could all agree to boycott products from Wal-Mart or Apple or any of the MANY companies who take advantage of the horrible conditions in China, but things are SO out of hand that we would find this to be a much harder thing to do than expected. One lady in the movie tried to find a microwave that was not made in China and just couldn't. And I'm sorry but I don't believe the people who are suffering most should be the people who have to do without, or pay higher prices for products in the attempt to right this global wrong. I believe the people who have been making these obscene profits should be forced by competent labour law and business law enforcement to right these wrongs that have bolstered their offshore banks books lo these many years. The enforcement should be done by government and this should be what we DEMAND from our government.

I can't stand the way Canadian politicians prattle on about human rights and proper business practices with the same tongues they have up the asses of the Chinese businessmen who are the worst offenders! And I know it's exactly the same in the States where they are, what 17 trillion dollars in debt to them? And I hate the cavalier irresponsibility of the corporations that has become an accepted excuse for the atrocities they make profit from! "It's just business." That's just not good enough! They too need to be held accountable and they have shown no ability to rehabilitate at our polite requests for them to do so. So it's time to get tough.

The best example in Canada I can think of is all these oil pipelines. You've seen the publically funded commercials all over the TV here about how we will protect the fish and nature Canadians love so dearly. What a crock of shit! While telling us this the government of Canada has been cutting back on oil spill experts and companies. More oil to spill and less people to clean it up. The bottom line is there should be no pipelines at all! We are only doing the exact same thing as the American manufacturers in "Death By China." We are outsourcing jobs and refineries to the country where it can be done the cheapest while endangering our own country with oil spills that WILL inevitably happen! Refine it here in Canada. Transport the safer and more expensive oil to China. THAT'S the sort of thing the rest of the world, and most particularly Canada is too "nice" to do. The Chinese see it a different way. We are all too STUPID to do this. And they're laughing their way to world domination. This is not conspiracy theory, this is happening and it's gotta stop.

Leastaways, that's what I reckon.

I don't have the right word...

I remember one time I was playing Euchre, a card game, with family. The best hand you can possibly get is called a "lay-down lone hand." It's a hand that you can just lay down and nobody can possibly beat any of your cards. The perfect hand is when you can do this after going alone, without your partner. It's worth 4 points. It doesn't have to be both jacks with the ace, king and queen of trump but if it is, it is the ultimate hand. I HAD this hand. Everybody passed and trump was turned down. All I had to do when the call got to me was call trump and alone and lay it down. BOOM! 4 points! In a game that goes up to 10 this is the sweetest feeling you can have! So the call GOT to me, I was ready to add some cocky flourish to my lay down and maybe some trash talk when all of a sudden the phone rings. My Mom got up to answer it. She was on the phone, as is her way, for quite a while before returning to the game. It knocked the fun right out of the experience! Oh it was still pretty sweet, but nowhere near the blast it would have been without the wait.

I have needed a word for this feeling a few times in life. One time in Korea I had a girlfriend nicknamed Jeannie. I think her name was Jin Hee. I can't remember exactly because our relationship didn't last for a long time and this story I'm about to tell may have been a harbinger of the doom it was to suffer. She told me she wasn't a fan of flowers. Unless they were hand picked and given to her. I can't remember what day it was or even what season but it was her birthday and it was either spring or fall. It was probably spring because I remember the days being fairly warm. Warm enough to go out, buy some flowers and climb to the top of a little mountain in Yong In where I lived and plant them on the side of the path. In a secret spot that no passer by would notice. I then convinced Jeannie to come visit me in Yong In. She lived in Seoul. The day I planted the flowers and bought her a nice gift and planned an evening with wine, Jeannie and song, (at a local singing room), was quite warm. Warm enough to plant the flowers and know they wouldn't freeze. Jeannie agreed to spend her birthday with me in Yong In. The plan was coming together! The NEXT day, her birthday, was not so warm. In fact it was unseasonably cold. I wondered if my flowers had frozen overnight. But Jeannie was coming some time around noon so I thought they'd be okay.

I met her at the bus depot and as soon as I saw her I lost a bit of the excitement you get when you are about to do something nice for someone. She was wearing nowhere NEAR enough clothing for the weather. I remember the first thing I said was something like, "Is the weather different in Seoul?" Seoul being a 40-minute trip from Yong In, of course it wouldn't be. She just said she was freezing and wanted to get to someplace warm. So I had to do all I could to convince her to go on a hike up Mt. Nogobong, (it's no more than a 20-minute hike). I told her there was a birthday surprise up there for her. I practically had to drag her. But she was not wearing the clothes, or the footwear for a hike. In the end she agreed to wait for me at the bottom while I sprinted up, grabbed the flowers out of the ground, which were frosty and wilted but still not UNbeautiful, ran down and handed them to her with the announcement, "I hand-picked these for you at the top of the mountain." I think she said something like, "Thanks, let's get inside." Not the response I was planning to get out of her. And not the feeling of having done something nice, and if I do say so myself, quite romantic, for a gal I liked a lot. Heightened expectations completely shot down by circumstances.

Is there a word for this? I know the Germans are pretty good at words that describe specific feelings like this. They have a word, "schadenfreude," that means the feeling of joy or pleasure when one sees another fail. The natives of Tierra del Fuego have a very specific word, "mamihlapinatapai," which means to look at each other, each hoping the other will offer to do something which both parties much desire done but which neither is willing to do. Maybe the natives of Tierra del Fuego often bring their cheap friends out to dinner and have this feeling when the check comes. I dunno.

Thursday my brother, Rob had some tickets to the Kiss concert Friday night that he couldn't use. I love Kiss and I knew my brother Jeff liked them too so I offered to take them off Rob's hands. He came to my work and I bought them from him. I texted Jeff and told him he should make me supper that night because I had a surprise for him. I suggested he cook up some cabbage rolls I had in the freezer along with some perogies. He found the cabbage rolls, rotten, in our freezer that is not quite cold enough. So he said he'd make some Hamburger Helper. Meh. It's not cabbage rolls and perogies but at least I'd have supper waiting for me when I got home. Something I haven't had since I can't remember.

7:30 rolls around. I worked from 7:30 AM to 7:30 PM that day and was pretty hungry at the end of my shift. However, my relief was nowhere to be seen. We tried and tried to call him but to no avail. Then every person who has ever worked my site was called and either could not be contacted or could not do the shift. By 9:00 it was decided that the mobile guard would sit in for me and I could go home. Jeff had texted me at around 7 telling me supper was ready. It was re-heated Hamburger Helper when I got home. I guess it's better than re-heated cabbage rolls and perogies but geez... And the thrill of handing over a ticket to Kiss just wasn't what I had been looking forward to all day.

Well the concert was spectacular! Kiss put on a show that I don't think many other bands could match. Paul Stanley's voice was cracking a lot and he couldn't sing the songs that well but it was okay. They had just finished their Monster tour and his voice was tired. Calgary was tacked onto the end of the tour because on July 13th, the original Calgary date for Kiss, half the Saddledome was under water with the great floods of '13. So crackly voice or no, Kiss was much appreciated! The plan was to go to the pub just around the corner from my place after the concert. They have a Kiss greatest hits album on their jukebox and I was going to plug the whole thing and have a few beers. I only had one at the concert. So we get to Bonasara's and I show the waitress my Kiss tour T shirt and say, "Guess where WE just came from!" "Oh the Kiss concert. Nice." The place was too busy for her to ask how it was or what songs they played or have the conversation with me I'd hoped for. Also when I got up to put some money in the juke box, I noticed a guy playing the guitar in the bar. He was good but he was no Kiss. It was local musician open mike night. The next few acts were nowhere near as good as the guitar guy and the music was not what I wanted to hear. Then the guy who was sitting next to Jeff at the bar tries to pick a fight with him. "You think you're better than me?" "You're not better than me!" Then he looks at ME. I hadn't said a word to him! He goes, "You too! Have some respect!" He was told to go home. Obviously had too much to drink. So we had a burger and a beer and left. I don't know what was in those burgers but I just came home and hit the hay. I was tired! Hardly "rocking and rolling all night and partying ev-er-ry day!"

Today I wake up at some hour and go to check my phone to see exactly what hour it is, and it's gone. I have looked everywhere but can't find it. I was so busy trying to make sure my very expensive Kiss concert shirts got home safely, I guess I forgot about my phone. On the bright side, I had wanted to take pictures and vids during the concert by my cam phone was no good. Every pic was blurry and in the darkened stadium it was useless for pics or vids. So at least I got THAT goin' for me. Wonder what the word for that feeling is...

So, I think I'm going to make up a few words here. When you try to do something nice for someone and are subverted by circumstances I'm going to call that "punicharity." No good deed goes unpunished. And when you try to find something good from a disaster like, "I lost my legs in Nam but just look at the musculature in my arms!" "At least re-heated Hamburger Helper is better than re-heated cabbage rolls and perogies!" "The flowers weren't UNpretty!" "Well at least I didn't lose too many great pics of the concert along with that crappy cam phone!" I'll call that, "negapositivity." And for those of you who will read this, laugh at my misfortune, (and that's okay. I don't mind.), and take my negapositivity with a grain of salt when I say that the Kiss concert was a total blast even though I can't post any of the pics I took of it here, I'll call you punicharitynegapositivityschadenfreuders.

But anyhoo, the Kiss concert was a total blast! I just wish I could post some of the pics I took on my phone cam here! Who knows, maybe it'll turn up. <---- What about that right there? What's the word? Thinking wishfully in the face of great odds against, hmmmm... "Canuckfanity?"

Wakey Wakey Fakey!

http://www.youtube.com/v/lv4FOnjQZ5I?version=3&autohide=1&showinfo=1&autohide=1&autoplay=1&feature=share&attribution_tag=E4HpbT6txrIIDjxeqTlZ2w

This is a little story I would love to show to all the security companies that I've worked for during training day or "orientation" or whatever fake name they want to give it. When they tell all the prospective guards the seriousness of their positions and the importance of maintaining a serious military deportment I just wanna call bullshit. Or say something like, "Say friend... Why, I oughta give you a knuckle sandwich, bub! Stop talkin' and actin' like it's 1950, Pally. That would be swell!"

On a recent document that all guards were issued at my latest security company, and that we all had to promise to obey and affix our signatures to forthwith, were some real gems! They spent, I thought, an inordinate amount of time talking about uniforms. How uniforms must be clean and the guard must be clean cut, clean shaven and showered in Mr. Clean. Boots polished to a blinding shine, slacks creased, and I think the word "immaculate" was used twice! First of all boots? I asked why, knowing it was just to make us look like SWAT team members or soldiers. The answer was ankle support. What are we figure skating out there? I walk. That's the biggest part of my job. I need arch support more than ankle support. I don't need the sweaty, trench foot and extra poundage that come with the oh so cool and "professional" looking boots. Creased "trousers", no hands in pockets or gum chewing, slash-proof vest and gloves, utility belt with keys, cuffs, and radio with professional sounding code being spoken like it is in the movies. Or at least in the 1950 "pictures." And some of that code was outlined. I kid you not! "Always end a transmission with the word 'over.'" And, "When ending a conversation, use the word, 'out.'" So that would be "over and out" when you finish. Roger dodger, good buddy!

I get the idea that the uniform is supposed to command respect. And in 1950 it probably DID. But, at what point does appearance overcome utility and turn your uniform into a costume? Are we trying to make the uniform do the work the person inside should be doing? As this video would suggest about the CHIP uniform, it immediately, (nowadays), commands something different from respect. And I would suggest the uniform of the security guard instantly commands a helluva a lot LESS respect than that of any police officer. For that reason it is even MORE important for us to overcome the initial, "Oh geez, here comes the Fuzz, 5 Oh, The wannabe cops, A bacon bit, Paul Blart, a rent-a-cop," or any of the somewhat less than respectful nicknames people have for my profession. And the worst way to try to overcome the instant disadvantage your uniform provides you is to act like officer Farva from Super Troopers or THIShttp://www.youtube.com/v/eDJrQBwJpqk?autohide=1&version=3&attribution_tag=-IAUQpGPveYiem8t8LJAMw&feature=share&autoplay=1&autohide=1&showinfo=1
power tripping turd.

Why do you suppose there ARE videos about how to assert your legal rights when confronted by cops? Because there are way too many "cowboys" out there. That's a term a fellow guard used while he was training me that I thought was pretty good. His name was Allen. He was good! He worked in an area and at a time when he was CONSTANTLY confronting people who were under the influence of mind-altering substances and STILL night after night didn't have any conflict. He was never given the guard of the month bonus for forcefully wrestling any perpetrator to the ground and cuffing him/her until the police arrived because he used his head, not his handcuffs. He was very much like the CHIP in the first video. You will notice it took 20 years for anyone to notice him. That's what happens to the truly good guards too. We aren't noticed because our style is pre-emptive. It allows us to avoid almost all confrontation that might require "guard of the month" type response.

Report writing. There's another area where security companies need to lighten the hell up. In our recent promise to uphold the standards of the company there was instruction, again what I thought was an inordinate amount thereof, to never ever ever write in any other colour but black. We record everything that happens in our notebooks, then certain incidents in incident reports and sometimes even in triplicate with the advent of the electronic log. So security companies ARE trying to update a bit! But not very much. Black ink. Is there a law? Nope. Is there a preference by any of the many wings of the legal profession? Yes. But it's not black. I got my brother to get me a criminal record check through the Calgary Police, the ones that every Calgary based security company aspires to be like, and I was told to write my official request form for him to do that for me in blue ink. The reason is very simple: that way it's easy to tell from a photocopy. Probably a policy practiced since photocopying became widespread in the 1950's. I'm just guessing at that but this is just an example of how particular security companies are about reports. And it's a good example of the total lack of reason for it. Other than, of course, because that's just the way we do things.

When working for the hospital security and writing a report on their computer program for that called "Perspective," there are all kinds of things done by guards for the purposes of form that detract from content. In fact every hospital guard I worked with had about a dozen report templates for the most common incidents and they would just insert the details into them and submit them. They aren't so concerned with getting the message of what happened to the various organizations that will have access to their report once it is submitted, they are concerned mostly with writing it in a "professional" looking and sounding form that will not be sent back by their shift lead with instructions to write it again. And incident reports for all the companies are similar. Just one of the countless and ridiculous rules I've been told: Don't ever use "I" in the report. Use "the writer." It sounds more legal. Well my contention is that since we print our name twice and give our signature once on every incident report, if the reader isn't bright enough to discern to whom "I" might refer, maybe that reader shouldn't be reading the writer. And what about this: "On the above specified date and location of duty, the writer did, during the performance of his requisite patrols, witness a male perpetrator of Caucasian race, approximately 5'10, 175 lbs. wearing black pants and a light grey hoodie, writing the obscenity, "FUCK," on the northeast wall of the office building at which the writer is posted. The writer didst become aware of the surreptitiously approaching writer. The writer did forthwith commence speedy pursuit of the writer. Pepper spray was produced by the writer and dispatched with aplomb on the writer. The writer did henceforth continue his pursuit of the writer with somewhat diminished capacity..." and so on. This is the way my various supervisors would probably LOVE for me to write my reports, and let's be honest, there is no style I am unable to write, but I just won't do it. I could write every report in iambic pentameter if I were told to. But it would limit the content just as this ridiculously formal style limits the content. I write my reports as if I were talking with a regular person. I guaran-damn-tee if one of them is ever needed for a courtroom proceeding the legal representatives will appreciate my clear and concise description of the details considerably more than my professional sounding diction.

And isn't this the exact same thing that Elton Simmons does? He doesn't even KNOW what he's doing! Because he's not doing anything! He's not ACTing in any way. He's just being himself. I have taught for 15 years and have taught teachers how to teach and I have preached this exact same thing. If you are an asshole, you can NOT act nice all the time when you're teaching, being a cop or a security guard. Therefore, you just shouldn't be doing it. There will come a time and a situation when your actual personality will come out. I can't tell you how many assholes/cowboys I have met who are security guards. Some of them make their way up to management! One of the worst was the gal at Paladin in Victoria who trained me and 4 other guards in non-violent crisis intervention. This very course is a fantastic example of what I am talking about. Is a violent person faced with a possibly violent perpetrator going to think back to his non-violent crisis training? I've seen people who have had years and years of martial arts training completely abandon it all in a fight and scratch, claw, bite, swing wildly like an angry monkey. The course is useless because nobody thinks about it in time of crisis. If you have natural or well-nurtured skills of de-escalation, you will use them. The cowboy will just jump the person.

Now my trainer, whose name I have amazingly forgotten, was a girl. I don't care what anyone says about political correctness and all that crap, girls can get away with being a lot more aggressive than men. In Canada at least. I worked for the cops in Smithers and when there is a dust-up at the Twin on a Saturday night, send in the female cop. Not even the most hardened, drunk, yippin' on crack pugilist will attack a female. Usually. The ones who will? I asked one of the female cops in Smithers and she said the same thing as one of the other guards training in non violent crisis intervention with me who was a bouncer at a Victoria bar, "I hate breaking up the girl fights!" Girls are the aggressive sex in Canada. Don't kid yourself. And my teacher actually taught in our course something I had learned in training with the R.C.M.P. to be dead wrong. Something every other student in training knew to be the exact opposite of what she was supposed to be teaching us. She said, "If someone gets in your face, never, ever, EVER take a step back." That is exactly word for word what she said! Now being a Canadian male I had to try as nicely as I could to politely and sensitively voice my disagreement with her so as not to piss her off. I first had to stop her from talking. She didn't respond to my hand raising or my normal tone of voice so I had to shout her name, "HEY!" Then she shut up. For a very short time. I said, "Are you saying that we ALL should do this or is this just what has worked for you?" No every guard is supposed to do this. "Well it seems to me, and I'm not trying to be difficult, but wouldn't that just escalate the situation?" No it makes it so that everybody around doesn't think you'll take any crap from them. Well then the whole class started disagreeing with her and before long, to win the argument, she got louder and angrier and the entire class was practicing non-violent crisis intervention trying to de-escalate our teacher so that she could continue teaching the course. We finally let her away with, "Well what I meant was if you are in a position where there is a wall behind you and you can't step backwards, THEN you shouldn't step back."

Of course she was an absolute STAR in the Paladin organization! And she took every opportunity during the class to read us her resume. Youngest woman to ever do this, first woman to hold this position, etc. And I'll tell you another thing, and I can't say this goes for all women or all Canadian women because that would be a downright unCanadian male thing to say, but she never forgot this incident and took every opportunity to make my career at the company as tough as she could. Promised that I could get a ride home with mobile after a shift I took that ended at a time when there was no transit service. Purposely "forgot" to tell mobile I needed the ride home. It was winter and would have had a long walk home. I radioed one of the mobile guys and he drove me home because even though he didn't have to, he knew me and considered me to be a nice guy. People do shit for you when that is the case. And they DON'T complain about you!

There was a computer program at Victoria Paladin that allowed the workers to complain about things they didn't like about the company. This girl got so many complaints it was unbelievable! Every guard I talked to! Some complained about the way she was treating ME! So that was when she got PROMOTED!

THIS is the point I'm making here! Security companies seem to have no clue what effective guarding looks like and they seem to hire an awful lot of cowboys, (or cowgirls), when they really should be looking for people like Elton and me who, without acting, can deal with the public in difficult situations and not allow the situation to get out of hand. In fact deal with it in a positive way. Have a laugh with the person you are banning from the property! There is every possibility they won't return if they think it will make your job harder. Be polite and smile when you are telling someone not to skateboard on the property. It works! My site in Victoria was very popular for skateboarders and I never had a single problem with them. They knew I was a nice guy but they knew I was going to catch them if they were skateboarding there and wouldn't allow them to stay.

If everybody thought of law officers and security guards like this, there wouldn't be so many nasty nicknames for them and there wouldn't be so much disrespect to overcome during a confrontation. It would make for infinitely fewer problems for every police force and security company. Why security companies are so slow in figuring this out is beyond me.

Pugilists and Professional Payers

I am actually going to share a milestone with my blog readers that I am pretty darn proud of: my post about Syria being a proxy war got 107 views! My first post over 100! Woohoo! People read me!

Okay now on to this week's post. I was on the C-train Saturday at the 39th street station and I saw 2 guys who were fighting. I mean these guys were punching each other. IN THE FACE! Another guy on the C-train told me what they were fighting about. Seven bucks! Sunday I ordered lunch from Boston Pizza. There's a $5 delivery charge. It's just a little ways down the street. I bet I could take a pizza from there, (if I ever ordered their pizza with all the toppings that fall off), go to the top of SLP2, a 5-story building where I work, Frisbee that pie off the roof and with the right wind conditions it would fly all the way back to Boston Pizza. "I ordered NO anchovies and double cheese!" I would yell. And they would hear me! It's that close! Yet they charge my a 5 dollar delivery fee. Plus tax, the bastards! So it works out to almost 6 bucks for a drive of a few hundred yards. Almost the purse for this C-train scrap. And I PAY it! And THEN I tip the driver!

I will rarely start a sentence like this but, one of the things I loved about Korea was you could order a 5-dollar bowl of soup from half way across the very spread out city of Seoul and they would deliver it for NUTHIN'! FREE!

Floyd Mayweather made well over 41.5 million bucks for his last fight vs. Saul "Canelo" Alvarez. Manny Pacquiao is a 2-term congressman in the Philippines with a net worth of over 85 million dollars. And Vitali Klitshko is running for president of his native Ukraine. I would bet my hockey card collection that they ALL fought for 7 bucks or even less on their way up to the financial stratospheres in which they now reside. Manny was probably punching for pesos in the late 80's in the Philippines. Vitali probably scrapped with brother Vlad for borscht money during college. And maybe Mayweather fought a few fights in the early 80's to help finance his parents' coke habits.

Now when you see Floyd Mayweather he'll be toting a Nike duffel bag with a million bucks in 100's. He wears his gotch and his shoes once then throws them out. I'm not talking Fruit of the Loom and Payless either. I mean silk boxers and Prada. And if you have enough money to run for government, you HAVE to be totally out of touch with the modest roots from whence you came!

The point I am waywardly trying to make here is that the difference between caring a lot about money, maybe TOO MUCH, and frivolously blowing it just may be the difference between amateur and professional status. I'm not going to suggest that me paying a ludicrous delivery charge for a two-minute, sweatless delivery, and then tipping is the same in degree as going to a strip club and making it rain 100 dollar bills. Just in principal.

So what, (please, GOD get to the point!), am I saying? I'm a professional tipper? I'm a pro at paying bogus, tacked-on nickel and dime fees? Why, yes, that IS what I'm saying. Sort of. It's in my blood let's say. By inference, am I saying South Korea, where free delivery is ubiquitous and tipping is unheard of, is an amateur country at paying good money for nothing? Why, yes! I am saying that too! And what am I leading up to with all of this? If you know me, or if you have read every fifth post here, you could take a pretty decent guess at what this blog post will ultimately be about. There was one other mind blowingly superior thing about Korea whilst I resided in what I am not ashamed to say became my surrogate country: taxes! The BEST thing about Korea was always the taxes. To me anyway. Oh sure the food was awesome and the girls looked their best at all times but I was blown away at tax time every year when it was taken out of my regular paycheck BY OTHER PEOPLE, and it never hurt a little bit! I didn't have to meet the tax deadline, go to H&R Block, save receipts, T4's or any of that totally unnecessary crap! It was all done for me and it worked out to about 50 bucks at the height of my earning power in the Land of the Morning Calm. Can you imagine that? Of course you can't if you're Canadian! Canadians are tax paying professionals!

I recently stumbled upon some Canada Revenue Data in the Canadian newspaper, The Financial Post, (which I love), released in 2011 for the taxes collected in 2009. It is the most recent year for which we have such detailed statistics. And, yes, before I got any further I realize I have slagged statistics as some pretty easy ways to turn the truth into plastecine and mould it into the Gumby of your choice but I am just floating this out there for the Dudes who read to say, "That's interesting. That's fucking interesting...."

Where to begin....? http://youtu.be/QPKKQnijnsM Check that out! I know it's a bit long but you don't have to watch to the end to get the gist. It's about what the American people would like the division of capital and assets in their country to be, what they think it is, and what it ACTUALLY is. It's mind-blowing eh? After watching this I started thinking about what the same graph would be like for the world. THEN I wondered what it's like for Canada! I admit, I tend to think things aren't quite so bad in Canada as they are in the States. In a lot of ways. But then I got ahold of these stats!

Oh damn! Where to begin! Okay, in 2008, (couldn't find the 2009 population but we aren't prodigious breeders here so this should be close), the population of Canada was 33,506,000. That's men, women, children, everyone! 75% of Canadians, (who registered their taxes with Canada Revenue), (and that might actually skew these stats beyond usefulness but, we'll go on), earned less than 50,000 bucks a year. Now of course retired Canadians and Canadian babies, teens, newly patriated, aren't raking in too much cash. This is just the gainfully employed. And I am going to tell you right now I wish I were in the 25% who earned more! Can't imagine 50 grand. That's over 4 thou a month! That's pay the bills! 3 of 4 make less. And I don't know many, if any, who make more myself. But I hang out with the dregs of my home and native land. The average income in Canada for that year was $68,410! That's like almost 7 grand a month! And I apologize, I don't know if this is gross or net but to me it seems pretty gross and disgusting that 3 of 4 people in Canada make 18 thou less than what is supposed to be the average! I think I have had more years making less than the difference than more working full time. I'm saying 18 thou, is an amount of money that myself and a whole lot of Canadians work their asses off for every year. That's only the difference between what is supposed to be average and what is way beyond what most of us will ever earn. Are you following this? Are you hip to what these stats are relating? What this means is the top 25% has a good chunk that STILL aren't average! That is not MY, (or any sane person's), definition of average! It's the capitalist, corporate definition. Like when you don't make as much profit as last year you are losing money. Same sort of deal. These stats show that even if you are in the top quarter of Canada, you can still be below average! What the frig?

I know. So I wanted to find out approximately how many people in Canada are laughing their ways to the bank. Economics. All this means is there are a VERY few Canadians who are skewing the stats so that the average is far beyond what any TRULY average person has a right to hope for. The Stats Canada stats told me. I was gobsmacked when I read that only about 174,000 of us make $250,000 a year or more. As a percentage that's 0.7%. And these are only people who are doing their taxes! I have it on good authority from my reading of the Globe and Mail that a former economist who is now teaching at St. Mary's or some university in Halifax said, and I quote, (and on one of my previous posts gave his name and everything more accurately), "Anyone in Canada who makes half a million a year doesn't have to pay taxes. A million or more, they are NOT paying taxes."

So you can imagine how the graph would look for Canada. It would probably be WORSE than that of the States. And I admit to being one of the patriotic fools who always think things here in Canada just can't be as bad as things in the States. I think it just might be worse! The 0.7% of Canadians who are declaring their taxes may ALL be on the level for all we know! If that's the case there is a miniscule number of SUPER rich in our country who are paying no taxes and making the more average citizens, who are trying to be honest and do their part for the country pay THROUGH THE ASS at tax time to support our country!

Well there were stats to back that up too! There are two kinds of tax rates that these stats were based on. One is called the "average tax rate." This is the tax you pay divided by your total income. So if you pay 3000 in tax and your income is 30,000 a year you pay 10%. That's what we all can understand. Then there's this thing they call the "marginal tax rate." The definition is the amount of tax you pay on an additional dollar of income above a certain amount." Whatever the hell THAT means! It's one of those clever phrases that populate our 1500 page tax code.

But in Alberta, where I live the average tax rate is about 20%. I'd say that's pie in the sky but let's use that. The marginal rate is 32%. So if 20% of 250,000 is 83,000, which it is, and all the 174,000 people who made 250 thou or more all just made exactly 250 thou, the total tax collected by Revenue Canada would be 8.7 billion bucks. If you figure the mysterious "marginal" tax rate, the total would be 14.44 billion. That's a LOT of money! SO these super rich must be really doing their share of the tax payment in Canada, right? Now I know there are lots who made more than the 250 but as our economist tells us, they aren't paying taxes so they can be discounted.

Well in 2009 the personal income tax collected was 189.2 billion. This does not include sales tax, lottery, parking tickets, girl guide cookies, excise taxes, beer, parking tickets, insurance, estate tax, gift tax, and any number of other taxes we pay upon our other taxes. Just income tax. If you declare it. So the rest of us poor shmucks are paying 180 billion of the 189 bil. collected when the super rich are paying just less than 9 bil. Not including the myriad of not-so-in-your-face taxes.

Wait! It gets worse! The employment aged people, which I have on my own accord decided to be those between ages 15 and 64 in Canada, (and unfortunately I had to use stats from 2012, which will be favourable to the assholes I'm trying to point out here), only total 24,028,000. And just hold on a sec! It gets worse! The employment rate is between 61 and 62% as reported by our overly exaggerating stats team in Canada. That boils it down to 14,897,360 people. Now do the math with THOSE numbers!

Canadians are absolute PROFESSIONAL tax payers. That is payers of bullshit costs for ethereal, and abstractly outlined taxes by the mafia who run our country. And let's not forget, now that it's nearing November 11th, that there are people who fought hard and died and were wounded physically and mentally to ensure that their descendants had something like that bogus average of 68 grand a year so they can have a good home, a good job, a nice car and good life for them and their families. What we have here is the polar opposite of what those heroes had envisioned if you ask me.

Now consider, if you will, the stories of those who we so easily call crackpots and crazies like the "freemen" who will occupy your house and declare it an embassy for an autonomous person or whatever. Yeah it's a scant argument. However, they are against paying taxes and if you consider all I've told you statistically and couple that with the fact that we've been paying "income tax" for an awful long time when it was implemented as a war support effort, it gets to the point of a(n) hilarious comedy! I think we've fully covered our war expenses for the Great War and WWII quite nicely, how bout we just stop paying now?

But, (at long last), my point is, sometimes we spend money that we know we are totally wasting and for some unknown reason don't give a shit. It might be inherent to our privileged places in the planet where we have considerably more than average, or it might be just osmosisly sucked into our brains through television and internet. But Canadians believe ourselves to be in good positions to grab that golden carousel ring and get that comfortable life we all desire, yet we, (most of us), spend our entire lives going round and round and round and round and round paying the carnie for every revolution and never reaching that ring. I have gone this long without waxing Eastern on your asses but this seems to me to be the Maya to the Dharma we are all seeking Buddhist or not. Look it up. I will, in true Buddhist fashion, not elabourate.

Human Domestication

I saw this on a friend's facebook page. So I put the comment, "Right. Same goes for the trillions of pieces of paper it was violated for." Soon afterwards, one of my friend's friends posted a comment talking about "Oh please! This is ridiculous! No president would ever get away with it. Obama regularly violates the constitution. Then he starts talking about "meme-makers" and cautioned my friend against taking a "meme" as a viable source. I don't hate the comment poster, but I had to post again. Something that I thought might piss him off. You see, what I hate is the word "meme." I have a grudging respect for the word's originator for his command of the English language and his ability to hornswaggle so many people into believing he actually proves things with his slick sophistry, (and for getting them to buy his books and go to his appearances). I dislike him though. (Dawkins) I also hate the word "meme" for its usage for the purposes of impressing people. "Hey I'm going to use this word, then pretend I'm not just aching for you to allow me to prove my superiority by asking me what it means." It's a pretentious word like "whom" or "duvet" or "feces." "Rubric" is another one I hate. There are huge lists of these "power words" that people use to impress. People whose job is basically just that: impressing people with their words, not their actions. This guy used the word "meme" TWICE. "He must be punished," I thought.

So I posted the following as a follow-up comment: "This quote found after a legal search of Bush's private documents and recordings with the Intention of Obstructing Terrorism."

You see, PATRIOT in "Patriot Act" is an acronym for Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. That's why I capitalized the last three words in my second comment. It is my personal opinion that there should be another act drawn up to make it abundantly clear to the American public that the Patriot Act is part of a multi-trillion dollar fear campaign designed to use American taxes to bolster the already expensive defence against terrorists and sell the very expensive equipment needed to do so. The appropriate tools are people like two dicks, Cheney and Perle mentioned on this blog before who get into positions of power in government advisory councils and convince the stupid president to buy hundreds of mid air refueling planes from Boeing, their business partners, or develop biometric identification like eyeball scanning and buy it from Autonomy Corporation, which they have lots of stock in. The new act revealing the corruption of the Patriot Act would have an acronym too: It Doesn't Intercept or Obstruct Terrorism and would be called the IDIOT Act.

I do think the Patriot Act is a violation of privacy and the U.S. Constitution that COULD be used for good but probably won't be. It'll be abused. But in case you haven't figured it out, the joke was that the search of Bush's stuff was conducted legally BECAUSE of the Patriot Act that he instituted into law. His own shenanigans bit him in the ass. It would be sweetly ironic if it were so! So anyway, the guy then posts a rebuttal, apparently having taken me seriously, talkin' bout, "If this is a recording, a link would be appreciated." "I won't believe it until a reputable news source like CNN reports it." "It's all just trying to deflect criticism from Obama anyway."

I just left it at that. But it got me thinking. I wonder what the limits are with this act in the States. And what about Canada? Could somebody read my mail and listen in on my phone calls in Canada provided he/she could prove that his/her intention was to obstruct terrorism? Then about a million courtroom dramas flashed through my mind. Other Lawyer: So was it the perpetrator's intention to...?" Perry Mason: (slams fist on desk and rises to his feet) Objection, your honour! Conjecture! Judge: Sustained. Counsel, are you really asking the witness to testify as to another person's intentions? Other Lawyer: Sorry, your honour. I withdraw the question.

Where the hell was Perry Mason when they drew up this act? All you have to do to get away with invading someone's privacy under this act, from my understanding, is prove your intention was to obstruct terrorism. Well we can't prove intention can we? Law 101.

I'm not very concerned about invasion of my privacy because I don't have much of anything to hide. And I don't have a large enough ego to think anyone in government cares about my relatively meaningless day-to-day web surfing and phone calling. But I am concerned with the erosion of rights and liberties. It has already had some effect on my personal life. Just the other day I was trying to make trades in my Yahoo hockey pool and could not get onto the site without my password. I could not retrieve my password because I had also forgotten my Yahoo username. The only way I access the site is by logging in thru facebook. If THAT ever gets its security bolstered with extra passwords and such I won't be able to make trades and I will probably LOSE that hockey pool. THIS I am concerned about.

Pretty soon we will need eyeball scans, odour analyses, microchips surgically implanted in our wrists, tattoos, voice recognition and such to water our lawns with Brawndo The Thirst Mutilator. Brawndo's got electrolytes. It's what plants crave! That's from the movie Idiocracy. Love that flick! I already have enough trouble with all the usernames and passwords I am forced to remember. I just don't want any more security!

My previous post about the incredibly irresponsible health systems who are promoting flu shots without a list of ingredients is another example of what I'm talking about. I don't think we should be so afraid of the flu either. And from all the research I did, and the small amount of solid facts I was able to find on flu shots, Brawndo might as well be selling them as "The Flu Mutilator."

We still have the right to educate ourselves on most things and make informed decisions. This is a right worth protecting. Seems to me we are going backwards and letting other people make all kinds of decisions for us. More and more all the time.

I am trying to get an explanation about a shift I worked on Labour Day last year. I don't think I got paid the right amount, but because I can't get my username and password to work on the company website where we can access paystubs and schedules, I am not 100% sure. So I had to look up the laws. Well it gets complicated. If you work 30 days of the year preceding the stat. holiday you are entitled to stat. pay. I definitely qualified having worked full time for the same company for well over a year previous to that Labour Day. However, I was working in a hospital at the time doing irregular shifts. In THAT case you have to have worked 5 of the 9 previous Mondays if the stat. holiday falls on a Monday. I don't think I DID work 5/9. So I get nothing? That makes no kind of sense to me. Who are the people who came up with this decision? Every other person who worked that shift got double time and a half and I am supposed to accept my normal wage even though I was working full time and did just as much work as anyone else that shift. Why? Because that's the way it is.

I hate that phrase! "That's the way it is." And it occurs to me that nowadays we have to accept it as an explanation for something unfair more than we used to. I think this represents a violation of my reasonable rights and freedoms. Why do I have to pay the Boston Pizza guy a 5 buck delivery fee when I order food at work, a two-minute walk and 30-second drive from BP? And THEN I have to tip him too! Why do I have to pay service fees galore to my bank that is using my money to make more money? Shouldn't they pay me? Used to be called "interest." What ever happened to that? Who decided that we need a bank account to get a place to live and we need an address to get a passport, driver's licence, or a job? Why do we have to do personal taxes every year when the government already knows exactly what we will be claiming? Most of us. Why does anyone want to remove all junk food from schools? And while they're at it let's take away all those dangerous balls too! Turn the kids into cattle! What's next? Removing coffee from the workplace?

Well now I'm just babbling. But I see more crap, (not feces), like this all the time and to me it represents a kind of domestication of our species. I dunno, maybe in 50 or 100 years we'll all be Soma-eating, Brawndo-drinking, domesticated consumers who sit around batin' in front of our TVs. It might be better for all I know.

Halloween and flu shot season are the same season. Coincidence?

First things first: I'm not going to get deep into any flu shot links to Alzheimer's, Cancer, Autism, or things like those, (no matter how tenuous those may be), because I haven't done the research. What spooks me a bit is how difficult it IS to do the research right now. Seriously! I wanted to find out how many flu strains there are so I Googled it. All I got was, "Get your flu shots now!" "Flu myths dispelled!" "You can't get the flu from flu shots!" "The new 4 strain flu shots are here!" "If you are skeptical, get a flu shot anyway!" And try as I might I couldn't get many details that I want to know before I get one. I'm not even against flu shots I just want to know how effective they are so I will know if it's worth it. I Googled "How effective are flu shots?" and came up with the same 40 pages of propaganda about flu shots and how we should all go out and get them. The closest I got was from a Canadian Medical Association page, also pushing flu shots heavily, that mentioned they are 50-60% efficient. On the same page they mentioned what that meant. Lemme tell you, THAT was hard to find. Now I have been called a skeptic, and even accused of championing a conspiracy theory or two, but when I can't get detailed, factual information on something so important, alarm bells start ringing. I got a bit on this one page. I also know that there are three kinds of lies: white lies, damned lies and statistics. This statistic I saw on a lot of the propaganda pages without explanation. It seems to me that the people who are already sold on flu shots might want to believe that this means if I get a flu shot I am 50-60% less likely to get the flu. That would STILL not completely sell the shots to me, but that's not what it meant. At least on this one site. It might be considered positive thinking but a person could assume it meant that 50-60% of the flu strains this flu season are covered by the flu shot and if the matching has been done correctly by this year's flu shot scientists, you won't have to worry unless you get one of the other ones. Well THAT'S not what it meant either on this site. This site cited studies that showed that when the strains in the flu shot match the strain you are exposed to, then you are 50-60% less likely to catch those 3 or 4 strains! Only IF they match and IF you catch one of them.

So for example if I got the "trivalent" shot that covers 3 strains of flu - 50-60% - IF I get them. This year's front runners are H1N1 that we all know as Swine Flu, H3N2, and one B strain. The first two are A strains. The new "quadravalent" shots cover H1N1, H3N2 and TWO B strains. I could not get info on how many other strains there are out there but I know I have read recent reports of other strains in Cambodia and other places around the world coming into their own right now. H5N1 is Bird Flu, H2N2 is Asian Flu, H7N9, B Massachusetts, B Yamagata, I wish I knew how many other strains could be the main strain this year. Hopefully it won't happen like in 2003/04 when the scientists guessed wrong, the main flus weren't combatted by the flu shots and those flu shots were about 0% effective. It happens. But it's really REALLY hard to find out right now just how long the odds are of that happening. Nothing but "Go get 'em while their hot!" It spooked me.

So I Googled H1N1. It's the one that most are worried about I think. And I read about a study done in the States somewhere in which people, (and don't ask me where they found these troopers who suffered for science), VOLUNTARILY contracted, under laboratory conditions, the H1N1 influenza virus. I mean these people did their BEST to get it. They may have injected the virus intravenously for all I know. And STILL only 69% of the subjects actually got the Swine Flu! 31 out of every 100 people couldn't get it even in the best possible conditions to contract it! That I found enlightening! I think what I would have done if I were a scientist in that study is send the 69 home and study these 31 people to research a really great flu shot made from their antibodies or whatever it was that kept them from getting the flu. THAT flu shot I'd feel more comfortable about.

Now, we don't live in laboratory perfect conditions for contracting the flu. Most of us try our best to wash our hands, keep sanitary, stay at home if we get flu-like symptoms, eat our garlic and ginger and just avoid sneezing on other people and such. Those conditions would substantially drop everyone's chances of getting the flu. So if we use our good sense we should be able to fight a pretty good fight against the flu without the shots. And the shots are only good if you manage to catch the flu virus and it's one that the immunization matches. So I really don't know how much our chances of avoiding the flu are actually increased by the shots.

I found stats that mentioned that about 200,000 people a year are hospitalized with flu symptoms in the U.S. I don't know how many actually had the flu or how many of those people actually had their flu shots. It would have been interesting to learn. But these sort of things are so UNavailable right now that it got me wondering.

I Googled "Influenza," "The Flu," "Flu," all kinds of things like that. If you Google just about anything there'll be a Wikipedia explanation usually on the first page. No Wiki to be found!

The thing that got me on this vane was a post on Yahoo about how we should run out and get flu shots right away and every single comment was negative. Comments like, "I got the flu every year I got flu shots and then stopped getting them and stopped getting the flu." Lots similar to that. There was one person who posted a list of chemicals and nastiness that are in flu shots. Now I'm not going to repost that for a couple reasons: One because it would be irresponsible of me to use a comment on Yahoo as scientific fact, and Two because when I went back to the page every other comment was still there EXCEPT that one. It had been mysteriously removed! See what I mean? It's scarier than Halloween ghosts!

So I finally found a site, again Canadian medical site, again proponents of the flu shot, that mentioned some of the ingredients. Now, these days there are all kinds of movements to get foods properly labeled. Mcdonalds even has to provide ingredient lists even though we all know it's not health food. And lots of people are trying to get genetically engineered foods labeled as well. We just EAT food. Flu shots are injected intramuscularly, (usually), yet they don't really come with a list of ingredients. Why not? Again, very sketchy!

Some of the things mentioned on the site were things like Thimerosal, a mercury preservative. Now I didn't find this too upsetting because the levels are comparable to the levels of mercury found in a can of tuna. But a lot of people are worried that there could be links to health issues including Autism in kids. I found no solid research. Ethylene Glycol, something found in antifreeze. Phenol, also known as carbolic acid. Again in miniscule amounts but it was used in larger doses as a rapid execution method in Nazi Germany. Formaldehyde. I remember getting formaldehyde in my eye while dissecting an eyeball in science class and the teacher panicked, grabbed the eyewash and doused me good. Aluminum, which has links to Alzheimer's. And one I remember from the disappearing Yahoo post was MSG. I know there are a lot of people allergic to MSG. I don't know for sure if it's in there but if it is we certainly should know about it, no?

It seems to me that there are a lot of reasons NOT to get a flu shot, the largest of which is the shot doesn't seem to come with a very good chance of helping me or anyone else. But I can't say that with great certainty because the information available is vague, or abstract at best. Forgive me for saying so but it seems a trifle too purposely so. What could the purpose be? Well I'm glad I asked that question.

There are few entities that have earned my MIStrust more thoroughly over the years than Big Pharma. And it seems to me like a culture of flu shots being acquired without knowing what we are getting is what is being widely encouraged here. We do all kinds of things that aren't good for us, and are probably bad for us. Things we do without thinking about them just because it's what our cultures do and have done for years. I am wondering if flu shots might be one of these things that is being developed now. For now they are ostensibly free, although we all know our taxes pay for them, but in future I could easily see Pfizer coming out with an "F7" flu shot. "Why just protect yourself against 3 or 4 strains of flu when Pfizer can immunize you against 7 strains for the low, low, one-time-only price of $150 per dose?" Imagine the money to be made!

Now I'm not saying that this is what I believe is happening. As I said, I just can't get any access to good, solid literature on this right now. I would welcome any links to help me out. Please! I DO remember being encouraged LAST flu season to be immunized since I sort of work for Alberta Health and at the time I was considering it since I worked in hospitals. But it couldn't have been more than a year ago, and at that time I WAS able to find reputable sites. Unfortunately there were medical doctors supporting flu shots and just as many medical doctors talking about how they are not worth getting and possibly dangerous!

I am not against immunization at all! I had some before travelling overseas and got so sick a few times that I wished I had gotten MORE! I think I had Malaria once in the Philippines. But the flu shot doesn't seem to me to have the scientific backing yet. And the fact that it is almost like drug pushers endorsing them without giving solid reasons why, I think for now I'm going to give the flu shot a miss. I am not encouraging anyone to do the same. I really AM encouraging anyone who reads this to give me some solid web sites to check out. It would make me feel better.

But at this time, the flu shot is as spooky as Halloween. Leastaways that's what I reckon.

I'm Rich!

So I'm on the C-train the other day. I see an ad that says something like "Offer your seat to someone who needs it more than you. We want everyone to enjoy their ride." The C-train is Calgary's sort of subway system and I don't know that I have ENJOYED a ride on it ever. It's not like I'm at home with time on my hands thinking, "Maybe I'll go for a ride on the C-train to get some enjoyment!" Then I hear the announcement, "Thank you for choosing Calgary Transit." I look around me and see a lady talking loudly on her cell phone, "PLEASE don't allow him access to my child! I don't EVER want him to see my child again!" I see a group of natives passing around a bottle of Listerine. One of them stands up, takes off his t-shirt and manages to put on another one without staggering too much or falling over. Then one of his buddies starts wrestling with him. They don't run into me or any of the other passengers fake ignoring them but get close enough a few times so that we can smell their mediciny-fresh breath. At my stop the Transit Peace Officers board the train and kick the whole group off as the combatants shout accusations of racism against their proud culture. Believe me, if there were other options I probably wouldn't have "chosen" Calgary Transit.

Then I read a post on facebook about a psychologist in a classroom who shows the class a glass of water that is roughly half full/empty. The class is expecting the half empty or half full question but instead she asks how heavy the glass of water is. She gets a few answers then explains that it depends how long I hold it. Then she says if I held it for an hour my arm would get sore. If I held it for the whole day my arms would get numb and paralyzed. Same with stress. If you hold on to your stress all day you will feel paralyzed and unable to do anything about it. We must remember to put the glass down.

I sent a comment back to the facebook poster something like, "Yeah but the glass isn't going away. It'll still be there later. It ain't putting itself into the dishwasher. Also if you hold it for a really long time and don't let it get you down, the water will eventually evaporate."

My point, although it wasn't understood by the facebook poster, was ignoring stress and acting as if it's not there seems to be a pretty common behaviour. Our culture of psychology experts who got their degrees from Oprah and Dr. Phil will even TELL you it works. Does it? It doesn't work for me.

"Life IS pain! Anyone who tells you different is selling something." A quote from the imminently quotable movie, The Princess Bride. It's very Zen. Really! The Buddhists have a more realistic view of things. I have expressed it here before but it bears repeating. Life is suffering. Our goal should be to take joy in the suffering of life. It's about the hardest thing in the world to do. I guess that's where reincarnation comes in. Lots of people believe it can take 100 lifetimes to reach enlightenment or Nirvana. The state of being in which one has an imperturbable stillness of mind free from the suffering that comes from desire, aversion and delusion. So back to that glass of water, we should actually try to ENJOY carrying it around! Try to find some positives in it like for example, "Well I'm not thirsty now but if I get thirsty in a few hours, hey, I'll have this partial glass of water to drink! Life is good!" Yeah, like I said, probably the hardest thing in the world to do. But to me it's more genuine than trying to convince yourself and others that that glass over there, it's not there!

Now there are those who will make the point that if we own our suffering we won't be very much fun to be around. Talking about our problems all the time brings others down. Nobody is more guilty of this than I! I'm a complainer. I find it helps me in the process of trying to ease the suffering of life. Still haven't mastered turning the suffering into joy but I'm working on it, I'm working on it! If you think about it the pessimistic attitude has its advantages. There are no bad surprises, only good ones! If something bad happens, you expected it and if something good happens it's a nice unexpected surprise! Life is good! cough cough

Really, our culture has an awful lot to be joyful about. Recently I heard someone say that a billion people on this planet have nothing. They can't go to a tap an just turn it on and get cold, drinkable water. Or hot water to wash with. They can't eat whatever they want, drive anywhere they want, turn on the heat when they're cold or the air when they're hot. Our society should be the happiest on the Earth! Are we? I just don't see it.

The other day a lady came to the front desk at work where I was posted and ordered me to turn on the air conditioning where she was working. She was livid! And even though it wasn't me who turned off her air, she was gonna rattle someone's cage by golly! She took my name and called the head office of the company I work for presumably to get me fired. I don't know her at all but I bet she is one of these people who "act as if." Smile and it will release endorphins in your brain that fool you into believing you are actually smiling for some reason. Well this may be scientific and all but when I am really stressed, like when I was trying to de-escalate things with this lady, I sometimes grit my teeth and widen my lips into a face that looks a lot like a smile. Where are the endorphins THEN? Huh?

I am finding this a lot since returning to Canada. Folks here can become morally outraged at the drop of a hat! There are a lot of people at my workplace who find Canadians hilarious when they get all worked up over some small tragedy. The cleaning staff are almost all Filipino and Raffi, one of them, said to me one time that he misses the Philippines. He said that people in Canada say hello and ask how you are all the time but they don't seem to really care. Sometimes they don't even hang around and wait for an answer to "how are you?" Frankie, a co-worker from Cameroon told me a couple days ago that he knows almost everything about everyone within a kilometer radius of where he lived in Cameroon. How old they are, what the kids are studying, their hopes, their fears, their brand of toothpaste... He told me it's actually rude to meet a stranger and NOT ask how they are doing and talk to them! Here in Calgary he doesn't even know his next door neighbour. I told him that it's different in the country. Calgary USED to be like that when I lived here 15-20 years ago but it's more like a big city now. Everybody is here for one reason: to make money. But in the country people are more community-minded. They work together. The guy three doors down cuts my hay. I get eggs from the neighbour to the left and the neighbour on the right smokes my fish for me. I sell my hay to the family across the road who have horses. I said to Frankie that I figured it was like that in every country I've been to. That's why on my vacations I never stuck to the resort towns, (which are often like the cities), or the cities. I hated Manila, Bangkok, Seoul, and major cities like that, but go to the country and people are really friendly. THOSE, I reckon, are the REAL people of the countries.

Now scroll up to the definition I wrote of Nirvana. Desire, aversion and delusion. People come to the city to make their fortunes. They DESIRE money and possessions. Working life and the stressful rat race become AVERSIONS. Nobody really likes going to work as anyone can see on the early morning C-train if you look around. There are all kinds of people wearing work boots, uniforms, and suits, sipping from half empty/full cups of Tim Horton's coffee that are very much like the aforementioned glass. And the DELUSION is that they will someday GET all the possessions they want and be satisfied and happy with them. Trying to delude ones self further into believing all those stressors aren't there, do you suppose that might be why we have all this fake politeness all over the place, but somebody takes a little bit too long at a traffic light costing you a few seconds in your daily commute to work and holy jumpin' jackrabbits Canadians can go bat shit crazy!

The other day I was doing a patrol. I was in a stairwell going into one of the floors on my patrol and saw a lady about half a flight of stairs away. I was doing my patrol. My work. And she might not be going on to this floor anyway. So I didn't stop, wait for her and hold the door open. As the door was swinging shut I heard, "Thanks a LOT, jerk!" I probably should have stopped and asked her if she was going to the same floor as I was. And she probably shouldn't have been so upset that I didn't. This situation is absolutely hilarious to people from poorer countries where folks still act like their country is a group of people, not a business. I read on my friend Heather's facebook post that there are enough vacant houses in the U.S. for every homeless person to have SIX. Doesn't sound to me like people caring for their fellow Americans. Sounds like if you don't have rent, sleep on the street for all I care.

I guess it comes down to something I have been trying really hard to do since returning to Canada: appreciating what I have. We should all do that a lot more often than we do! With Thanksgiving coming up in Canada, a holiday FOR doing this that unfortunately becomes a festival of stress about travel, making sure the turkey dinner is just right, who is that relative who showed up unannounced, why won't someone get up from sitting on their ass watching football and help me with this mountain of dishes, turkey is HOW much a pound, and so on... we should all really try to be thankful shouldn't we? I got a brand new computer! To a billion people on the earth, that's just a fantasy! It's raining outside and I'm warm and dry. I am going to eat some bacon and eggs soon, something I couldn't do easily even in a rich country like South Korea. I am going to watch the beginning of hockey season later on cable TV. I will have a few of the fantastic beer we have in Canada whilst I watch. I am in a dozen hockey pools with friends from all over the world and that makes watching hockey even MORE fun. I don't have to work today. I'll take a warm shower, go get some cash from my bank account for rent and still have money left in it, pay my reasonable rent, and probably buy some groceries from Safeway where they have massive selections of everything at 10% off on the first Tuesday of every month. The list of blessings goes on and on for me. Life IS good!

But because of another phenomenon I have blogged about in the past, something called "hedonic adaptation", Frankie, who is making LOADS of cash here in Canada, is STILL not happy with what he has and says he wants more. "Someday I'll be rich," he said to me. I bet there are many people in that one kilometer radius he mentioned who would think he already IS. And I can't seem to keep in mind that I am rich too. I have my problems but most of them are created by the job and the lifestyle that I have chosen to keep me as wealthy as I am. So I really have no reason to NOT take joy in my suffering. Most of us don't.

Leastaways, that's what I reckon.

I'm Deadly Syria, And Don't Call Me Shia

Don't feel bad if you were not sure whether to support the US planned intervention, (or more accurately MORE PUBLIC intervention), in Syria. Don't even worry if the whole mess confuses you. I've been doing my best to follow it and still think there is plenty I have yet to discover. But I have found a few things that have cleared it up somewhat for me. And Syria agreed to put its chemical weapons in international hands so if the idea of blowing some Syrian infrastructure up, (along with a few people), was actually about discouraging chemical warfare, hey, no more need to do it, right? Well this thing is not so simple and I am not convinced that the thought of launching a few cruise missiles Syria's way was the farthest thing from the minds of the powers that be BEFORE there was news of chemical weapon use.

Consider the report by Dale Gavlak, an Associated Press correspondent who was told by some Syrian rebels that THEY detonated the chemical weapons by mistake. The rebels received the weapons via Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar Bin Sultan and were not trained well in their usage. Some soldiers got curious, fiddled with the wrong buttons and BLAMMO! Rather than a red line in the sand for the rebels or the Saudi suppliers it seems ignoring this report and believing some other mystery intel that the public isn't privvy to that confirms the Inglorious Bashar el Assad troops did it is the way to go. The soldiers told Gavlak! That seems at least as credible as any story I have heard saying Assad's troops were the culprits. Particularly after hearing that the Saudis are interested in using the US as a kind of invader-for-hire. They basically said attack Syria and we'll foot the bill. But that is sometimes the problem: we have to hear our news from media sources that juuuust might have a GUNTOTHEIRHEAD ... I mean a bias. The best of the best Anderson Cooper. We KNOW he's not keeping anything from us after he honestly and forthrightly admitted to being gay. He was recently on Letterman talking about Syria and Letterman asked him how Russia and China could be okay with this crazy butcher Assad. Cooper just mentioned that Russia, China et. al. sell arms to the Assad gov't. No mention of the US and Israel and Saudi Arabia and Turkey and so on doing the same with the rebels. No mention of the reasons why. You telling me I know the trillion bazillion dollar reason and A C doesn't? I think he just knows better than to bring it up. But I don't. I brung it up in another post. Give it a read.

And now I'm reading reports out of, also biased sources, (Russian and Lebanese newspapers), that Prince Bandar has been negotiating with Russia to stop supporting the Assad regime. In return they will give Russia control of the global oil market and safeguard Russia's gas contracts and military bases in Syria. Some leaked transcripts of a closed door meeting between Prince Bandar and Vlad Putin also revealed that Bandar promised the full support of the US. Also, and this gives you a better idea of the kind of negotiations we don't get to see, it was hinted that the threatened Chechen terrorist attacks on Russia's Sochi Olympics just might happen if there is no agreement reached. Those terrorists are controlled by Bandar allegedly and well they just might not be reigned in if we don't get what we want from you. Putin's response was, "We believe that the Syrian regime is the best speaker on behalf of the Syrian people, and not those liver eaters." This in reference to the rebel soldier footage that showed one Jihadist eating the heart and liver of a Syrian soldier. Liver eating, baby torturing, yes, these are the troops, the largely Al Qaida troops, that the US has been supplying since the rebellion began. Greed can sure make for strange bedfellows! Unfortunately, Chechen terrorism might now be a demonstration sport at the upcoming Olympics.

Are you going to even try to tell me that these "freedom fighters" will not go all Rwandan on their enemies if they win? THIS is the major concern of the Bashar government troops. They say they aren't all that worried about US cruise missiles, they are worried that if the Sunni Muslim rebels win, the mostly Alawite Muslim Bashar regime will be massacred. Since 1970 when Alawite President Hafiz Al Assad came into power in Syria, Alawites have been strategically inserted into most positions of power in government. The Alawite dominated Bashar regime, run by the Alawite Assad family represents a controlling minority in Syria much the same as the Tutsi minority control of the Hutus in Rwanda which led to the massacre of half a million people in 1994. Now I am not an expert on the various factions of Islam but the Alawites are not really Shia, the traditional enemy of the Sunni sect. They are actually a Sunni branch but they have some beliefs that the Sunnis regard as infidellish? The Alawite beliefs are actually kept secret to all but their converts so that adds to the mystery. But I have read that the government, yes, the Bashar El Assad government that has been painted as the villains in this squabble, are pretty okay with religious freedom in Syria. I've read that Alawites sometimes celebrate Christmas, Easter and the Epiphany and even, gasp, drink alcohol! sacramental wine in some ceremonies. Alawite means followers of Ali. The Alawite belief in God being made flesh is another bone of contention here. In fact neither Shia or Sunni Muslims would back them up on this. Alawites reckon that Ali, God made flesh, created Muhammad the restorer of the original monotheistic faith of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and other prophets. They also reject the Qur'an and all the traditional prayers associated with Sunni teachings. And interestingly, they believe in reincarnation although, and I'm not makin' this up, women, who do not have souls, cannot be reincarnated. They don't get to learn the secret Alawite doctrine either. If you get transformed successfully seven times you can return to your place among the stars. If you are not such a good Alawite in one incarnation you might return as a Christian. Infidels return as animals.

These are not such outrageous religious beliefs to me. Except maybe the woman thing though I have been rejected by, I mean MET some soulless chicks in my day. But this, and the desire to have majority control, Sunni government, is what the Free Syrian Army, the rebels, believe they are fighting for. If this had even a little bit to do with the war, why would Israel, America and many other nations be backing the rebels who are the people they, (tell us they), believe to be responsible for so much terrorism in the world? It IS why they have, until now, been backing them SECRETLY. If the US government was outraged about the chemical weapons, maybe Senator John McCain wouldn't have been found playing online poker during a debate on military intervention in Syria. The one and only slightly redeeming motive behind the people who are orchestrating this proxy war would be that if these folks in Syria are willing to kill, torture, massacre, eat liver over reasons such as these then maybe they almost DESERVE to be taken advantage of. Because somehow I just can't imagine an Al Qaida rebel soldier, even after his country has been devalued by the war and bought up cheaply by vulture capitalists, saying, "Geez, maybe Allah is trying to show us that we really shouldn't have been murdering our fellow Muslims and countrymen over religious differences." "So fuck 'em! Steal their land and resources and make ourselves swacks of cash!" That is what this war is about. I think the people of Syria could bone up on religious and other kinds of freedom. They should be consequenced for the use of chemical warfare too. But the percentage of people living below the poverty line in Syria is a reported 19% compared to 1% before the war. Millions have fled their country. Hundreds of thousands have been killed. Who knows how many have been tortured? I was recently watching the movie, "Dubyuh" and in that movie Penis Cheney is talking about the plan to do exactly the same thing in Iraq. He says, "We won't own it but we'll control it." This punishment certainly doesn't fit the crime. But someone with billions of dollars at stake, (or more likely TRILLIONS), in Syria will try to justify to themselves, and us, that it does.

I mentioned the "Clean Break" strategy in my previous post about Syria. I feel I should probably get into that in more detail here to let you know how long the strategic and economic schemers have been planning exactly what is happening right now in the middle east. And I thought it might interest you to know the kind of people who are running/ruining the world. The document is actually called, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm", 1996. Richard Perle was the main author/strategist behind the Clean Break. He was a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defence and member of the Defence Policy Board Advisory Committee, chairman of that board under Bush Jr. in 2001 at which time he got dramatic budget increases for missile defense programs. So he has some political influence in the government. As do all of the co-authors of this document. Let's see how he has used that influence, shall we? Perle resigned, or was forced to resign, from the Defence Advisory Board in '03 due to conflict of interest. It was discovered that his venture capital company, Trireme Partners, which invested in technology, goods and services related to homeland security, and was registered in November of 2001, just two months after 911, was benefitting from increased threats to homeland security. I'm not suggesting he had anything to do with the 911 attacks but he sure did conveniently cash in on them! And he was definitely using his position on the advisory council to make a huge push to increase fear of a threat to national security and massive new investment IN it. For example, he advised the air force to lease 100 767 aircraft refueling tankers from Boeing, a $20 million stake holder in Trireme. He even joined forces with fellow neoconservatives Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, (another contributor to the Clean Break plan), to promote war on Iraq after 911 and headed the sinister sounding "Office of Special Plans." Along with Ahmed Chalabi and David Wormser, (Clean Break contributor), Perle created all kinds of bogus fabrication about Hussein's Al Qaida and Bin Laden ties, not to mention the WMD's in order to push the US into war in 2003. Flynt Leverett of the Bush Nat'l Security Council said, "There were constant efforts to pressure the intelligence community to provide assessments that would support their views. If they couldn't get what they wanted out of the intelligence community, they simply created their own intelligence." Through all of this he just got richer and richer, but none of that is what constituted conflict of interest.

In March of 2003 the New Yorker published an article describing a meeting between Perle, arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, and Saudi businessman Harb Zuhair in which Perle, (allegedly), offered to influence American foreign policy in Saudi Arabia in exchange for investment in his company, Trireme. The US Dept. of Defense Inspector General, (and golf buddy of Perle no doubt), determined the conflict of interest provision was NOT violated because Perle was only working 8 days a year at the D of D at the time. How many days of influence do you need to broker a deal? Trireme dissolved in '05 probably because people were beginning to think this company run by the man with the nickname, "Prince of Darkness" might be a little crooked.

He was also co-chairman and director of Hollinger Inc., Conrad Black's creation that got him jailed for fraud. And he's a non-executive director of Autonomy Corporation, a subsidiary of HP. Autonomy specializes in pattern recognition technology and knowledge management apps. What this means is they design programs that "understand" unstructured information. Programs that infer what the user wants and find other information that might be of interest. GREAT for increased post 911 internet and phone policing!

It might be a good time now to mention Perle's 2004 book, "An End To Evil: How to Win the War on Terror." In it he defends the 2003 invasion of Iraq, suggests ways to abandon all Israeli/Palestinian peace processes, invade Syria and implement strict U.S. domestic surveillance including biometric I.D. cards. These are fingerprint, face, DNA, palmprint, eye scans, even voice and odoour recognition technologies that, (what do you know!), use Autonomy-type pattern recognition and knowledge management.

Yeah, that's right, "INVADE" Syria. Between '96 and '04 Syria went from being "rolled back" to "invaded" in the plans for world domination drawn up by this intrepid group of Jewish, Zionist Neoconservatives. First of all there are a couple more influences that need to be explained. I promise I'll get to the details of the Clean Break that have been carried out to the letter but I want to give an idea of the details behind their motivation and not simply call it greed. Zionism first. Theodor Herzl wrote a book called Der Judenstaat that envisioned an independent Jewish state in the 20th century. Detractors see Zionism as a racist abandoning and/or expulsion of all other races and a retreat into a homeland closed off from everyone. This is far from original in our world for some reason, but it is one of the few movements away from multiculturalism that might be GAINING momentum. It is not new though. Evidently Ibn Saud once talked to FDR about setting up a Jewish homeland in Germany as punishment for what they did to the Jews.

A "neoconservative" has been described as a liberal who has been mugged by reality. Perle once said, "If you got into the world of international affairs and looked with some rigor at what was going on in the world, it was really hard to be liberal and naïve. WOW I got the TWO dots over the I! I love my new computer! Because liberal and naïve go hand in hand and not hoarding unspendable quantities of cash while a billion people on the planet have exactly nothing, is childishness! I don't think these assholes have been mugged by reality, they've clearly been mugged by greed. I wish greed had given them a much harsher mugging but that's just me.

Okay, now the provisions of the Clean Break plan and let me warn you, if you can't stand pure evil euphemistically worded in business or strategic terms, this is NOT the document for you! 1. Rather than pursue comprehensive peace with the entire Arab word, concentrate on (Israel), Jordan and Turkey to destabilize and "ROLL BACK" those entities that are threats to all three. 2. "Hot pursuit" anywhere within Palestine territory and promoting alternatives to Yasser Arafat's leadership. 3. Self-reliance and strategic cooperation with the US. 4. Terminate aid in order to promote economic reform. 5. The containment of Syria by engaging in proxy warfare and highlighting their possession of WMD's. 6. Economic "reform" is a necessary starting point toward rebuilding Zionism. 7. "Seize the strategic initiative" along Lebanon's northern border and engage with Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. 8. Strike Syria's drug money and counterfeiting infrastructure in Lebanon. 9. Remind the world of the nature of the Syrian regime. (Occupying Lebanon in violation of treaty, terminated Lebanese sovereignty, Hama massacre in '83). 10. Remove Hussein in Iraq to foil Syria's "regional ambitions." 11. Protect Jordan's King Hussein with some tangible "security" and shift their economy away from dependence on Iraq by persuading the US business community to invest in Jordan. 12. Support a Hashemite control of Iraq to wean the S. Lebanese Shia away from Hezbollah, Iran and Syria.

Okay these are just some. I should probably explain the last one first. Hashemites trace their ancestry to Hashim Ibn Abd al Manaf the great grandfather of the prophet Muhammad. Hussein of Jordan was a Hashemite related to King Faisal I, who was king of Iraq and Syria and had the blood of Muhammad in his veins. This is important to some of the practicing Muslims over there. I have read that good old Dick Cheney is scheming to unite Iraq and Jordan under the present king Abdullah of Jordan, Hussein's son and a Hashemite. This retro-religious thinking won't go over well with the present Assad regime but it is expected that once he is toppled, the "allies" can put a true zealot into power who will be appeased by the blood of Muhammad in Abdullah's veins. Jordan has been well protected and supported by American military and economic influence for some time now.

I explained how Turkey has been a key ally of the natural gas interests in "Pipeline-istan" in my last Syria post.

The U.S. have been the Rosco P. Coultrains of the middle east along with Israel, hotly pursuing Palestinians in Lebanon, Syria or wherever, and where in the world is Yasser Arafat? Oh yeah, he's dead. Died mysteriously in 2004. Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Sheath stated in a document called "The Price of Kings," "I have no doubt he was assassinated." Arafat's French doctors said that whatever toxic chemical was in his body did not register on their toxicology table. It was poison they didn't have in their labs. His personal physician was denied access to Arafat during his fatal "sickness" by Arafat's wife, Suha, and I still don't think an autopsy has been performed.

Keeping countries "self-reliant", or poor and terminating aid makes them easier to "roll back" and control.

Syria is contained and engaged in a proxy war only imaginary WMD's were not highlighted as in Iraq - chemical weapons were.

What does "reform" mean? They are economically "reforming" the whole region and dividing up resources in government and large corporation boardrooms as we speak.

Strategic initiative is another fine euphemism!

Perhaps some of the proposed targets for missiles are Syrian drug and counterfeiting locations. They would be called "terrorist infrastructure" though or something like that.

We have all been reminded of the Syrian massacres perpetrated by Assad governments. Jon Stewart call it "The Inglorious Bashar" regime.

Hussein permanently removed from Iraq! WMD's still not found.

The last two go together only it's Abdullah, not Hussein in Jordan any more.

Anyhoo, I hope this makes the situation over in Syria a bit clearer and it makes future events not-so-shocking. It's depressing as hell, eh?