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.