World Jr. Hockey Team Canada 2019/2020

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Boxing Day Canada vs. US! Doesn't get any better! But before that happens, I thought I'd familiarize myself with the boys on the team this year. I have seen NONE of them play live. And I've only seen them play ONE game vs. Switzerland. An exhibition game. So I'm going by what the experts say and by stats.

That said, I do this every year and it's sometimes even surprising to ME how close I come to what the coaches do. I usually have a couple calls TOTALLY wrong, but in general it's not too hard to guess what's going to happen. I'll tell you what I think line by line, which won't be easy because the lines will probably change before Boxing Day and maybe after. I will highlight my top 5 guys to watch too.

So before the game yesterday, without having seen these guys play at all, I tried to guess what the forward lines might be. I chose the first line perfectly! LINE 1: Left wing - Foudy, Center - Dellandrea Right Wing - Dudas. This is weird. Foudy and Dudas are Centers. Dellandrea is too but sometimes he plays right wing. So I had him on RW, Dudas on LW and Foudy as center. Dudas shoots R so he'd be deadly for one-timers on his off wing. He's small and he is QUICK! Foudy had a goal and he was all over the place in the game. Dellandrea showed some great moves. The player of the game and one of my top two guys to watch in this tourney, was Aiden Dudas. He showed good speed, good passing, good penalty killing and a good scoring touch. And I think I like him even more because he's the smallest guy on the team tipping the scales at 168. This was by far the best line in the game. Great chemistry. I wouldn't change it. After saying all that, there's a good chance that this line will end up being a kind of high scoring third line.

LINE 2: This line will be line 2 only by default. It's because it will include the projected number one pick in the next draft - Alex Lafreniere. He is one of five players who stunk the joint out in the last World Jrs. so he has that under his belt. He's got 23G, 47A in 32 games this season with the Rimouski Oceanic. Keep in mind that the Quebec league always has higher scoring than the OHL or WHL or the like. I don't know why, but it's always the case. His 70 pts. are the most of any player on the squad so he'll be one to watch. He's a set-up man so he'll want a goal scorer on his line. And he's one of only THREE guys who are not listed on HockeyDB as centers. He's a LW. His center in yesterday's game was Barrett Hayton, but that's likely to change. Joe Veleno wasn't able to suit up yesterday, but he and Lafreniere are good together so the coaches won't mess with that. I predicted these two together, but that's a no brainer. I predicted Cozens on their right because he IS a right winger and he's a goal scorer. He's already got 20 goals for the Lethbridge Hurricanes this season. But the coaches put Nolan Foote on the right wing. He's got 15 goals with the Kelowna Rockets and speaking of rockets, his shot was impressive. So I think this might be a good fit with Alex and Joe.

LINE 3: I had Quinton Byfield on the left wing of the third line. I say line 2 will be line 2 by default because I have one of my feelings about this kid. A LOT of people agree.  He's 17, tall, heavy and smooth as silk. He skated around like he was playing pond hockey yesterday. This was an exhibition game, and it was Switzerland so he might not be allowed to do that in a real game vs. Russia or the US or one of the better teams. But he was darn impressive on offense as well as defense. He's got 22G and 35A with the Sudbury Wolves this season. That's comparable to Lafreniere's stats because he's in a tougher league. Even though Lafreniere has been touted as the number one pick for a couple of years now, this kid could shock the hockey world! I'd tell you to keep your eye on him but he'll be very hard to miss. They had him playing with Cozens as center and Lavoie on right wing, but I think they'd be smart to put Dylan Cozens on the right wing (cuz he IS one) and put the returning player, who has been playing in the NHL with Arizona this season, Barrett Hayton, in the pivot position. THIS should be their number one scoring line. Hayton looked very comfortable on the ice yesterday, like an NHLer playing with minor league players. All three of these guys are goal scorers who can also pass. This line could be DINE-O-MITE! I hope they put it together!

LINE 4: Line 4 will definitely be the fourth line. Well, I guess nothing is definite. When I was making lines, I couldn't help but notice that Raphael Lavoie and Benoit-Olivier Groulx BOTH play for the Halifax Mooseheads and both are lighting it up this year. 48 pts. in 30 games for Raphael and 41 pts. in 26 games for Groulx. They're both listed as centers so they may not play on the same line for the Mooseheads, but you can bet they're together on the power play. Chemistry HAS to be taken advantage of so I think these guys will be together. Connor McMichael was playing right wing yesterday with Groulx at center on a line with Dawson Mercer on the left wing. Dawson Mercer is a RIGHT wing so I dunno what that was about. However, McMichael is probably the purest goal scorer on this team. He's already got 25 goals this season for - hey what do you know! - Coach Hunter's London Knights. If Liam Foudy weren't so good on that line with Dellandrea and Dudas, I'd stick him with McMichael because HE'S playing for Dale Hunter this season too. But you can bet both guys are on his power play and they'll be together on the power play for Team Canada too. Chemistry! So line four, if this is it, ain't gonna be no checking line.

This leaves two extra players: Dawson Mercer and Akil Thomas. Team Canada still needs to cut one player from the squad and it appears that player might be Thomas. He was used more sparingly in the game than any other player. From what I saw of him, he was good, but it looks from his ice time, like he's the guy who will be cut. Mercer is very young, undrafted and almost as small as Dudas so it might be him who gets the hook. There always seems to be one player on the squad who gets inserted into multiple positions for penalty killing, injury relief, garbage time with a huge lead and such. I think it'll be one of these two. Unfortunately, the other will be cut.

On defense, Canada has the monstrous Kevin Bahl at 6'7, 240. He'll be paired with Jacob Bernard-Docker as the shut down duo. Jared McIsaac and Ty Smith are both returning players from last World Jrs. They both looked solid, especially McIsaac. Bowen Byram was the only defenseman who I thought looked a bit sluggish yesterday. He's a Vancouver Giant and they're my minor league team, but I gotta be honest, he might be skated around by opposing forwards at this tourney. Hopefully not at a really important time. Calen Addison looks like he'll be a really good quarterback on the power play and he'll be taking shots that will be tipped by the goal scorers. He's had a cup of coffee in the NHL with Pittsburgh and he impressed me yesterday. Also his stats are strong so he's definitely one to watch. But there's another young kid who looks like he might go very high in the next NHL draft. He's 17 but I'd say he was the best defenseman in the game yesterday. Jamie Drysdale is his name and he's got more points, 31, than any of Team Canada's defensemen this season playing for the Erie Otters. That includes 6 goals. Addison has 7 goals for the Lethbridge Hurricanes, but fewer assists than Drysdale. These two could be DINE-O-MITE as the point men on the Canadian power play.

I'm not going to say much about the Canadian goalies because the Swiss didn't test them very much. However, they looked weak during the shootout. Hopefully there will be NO SHOOTOUTS this year.

So here are my top 5 guys to watch.

Quinton Byfield

Aiden Dudas

Alexis Lafreniere

Jamie Drysdale

Calen Addison

GO BOYS GO!

Holiday Hypocrisy

Unemployed again. But it's the best time of year to be unemployed. It's the Christmas/New Years/World Jr. Hockey season. My apartment is cool, I watch football and hockey pretty much every day... I am happy NOT to be writing lessons for practically nothing 8 hours a day like I was last year at this time. I'm thinking of doing something productive with my time. I could study, write, clean, but - nah, I have a better idea: I think I'm gonna grow a white Christmas beard!

To be honest, I haven't been quite that idle. I've thrown myself entirely unwillingly into that hypocrisy we all know as the job market again. It's a(n) hypocrisy we all participate in and actually contribute to. We consciously or subconsciously know it's hypocrisy but we surrender to it. Let me splain. No that would take too long. Let me sum up.

Yesterday I applied to a university called Dongshin University. Again. You see back in Feb of 2011, 8 years ago, I was living in Pyeongtaek  ( I think Anjung to be specific) in my little, traditional Korean house just waiting out the winter applying to universities for the spring semester, which starts in March. Pretty much what I'm doing now. And one of the places I applied to was Dongshin University in a little pear growing town called Naju in the South of South Korea. It's got a big statue of a pear just as you're coming into town and another one just as you're leaving. They grow lots of pears there. You know, the big, juicy, round ones. I don't find them half as tasty as a small, pear shaped Bartlett pear from the tree in my Mom's back yard, but they're treasured over here.

I was (almost) successful in my bid to work at Dongshin in 2011. I nailed the interview and got the contract. Here is a scan of it.

But you know me and my bad luck. The year 2011 was when they stopped allowing criminal record checks from just any police station in Canada to be used for job application in Korea. In their wisdom, the Korean government, or the immigration portion thereof, thought it best to only accept CRC's that originated from the main RCMP office in Ottawa, Canada. That meant that anyone teaching English in Korea from Canada, and there are a LOT of us, had to get one of these:

every time we got a new job here. For me that's almost every year. It's like that for a lot of us. They KNOW that NOW in Ottawa, and you can get one of these in a couple of weeks if you don't mind paying for the faster service and delivery. But back in that first year there was a huge backlog. Mine took 5 months. So I was unable to take the Dongshin job. I got entirely frustrated with Korea and left. The day before I got on the plane home to Canada, I received in my little, traditional Korean mailbox, my criminal record check, which was then useless.

The stamped, verified, or "apostilled" criminal record check, along with

BAM! A stamped, verified or "apostilled" degree and

BING a valid passport, get you

BLAM an alien card so that you are entitled to work in Korea.



So what is the hypocrisy of which I speak? I just told you a good deal of it. Think of what a person has to do in order to get all this documentation and proof of existence. You have to fill out a lot of applications in which you volunteer a lot of information and you have to PAY. We'll get to the PAY  part of the hypocrisy later. Let's talk about the information part. We have to work backwards from the passport. The absolute height of the hypocrisy of which I speak might have been the "guarantor" for my passport. You need a person to vouch for your existence. A reputable person like a doctor, lawyer, clergyman, politician, used car salesman, drug dealer, you know, a reputable person from a well respected line of work, to vouch for you. Failing that (and I failed that) you need a notary public. This is essentially a lawyer who notarizes things. For money. The idea is to get somebody of good moral standing who you have known for some time to give you a character reference. But I didn't know anybody nearby the passport office who fit into any of the categories that were allowable, and I was in a hurry. So I paid a total stranger, a notary public, 50 bucks to sign a document that said this dude's okay. 50 bucks. If anyone ever asks what your character is worth - it's fitty bucks. At least in Canada.

But let's go back even further. One does not just GET a passport, oh no! One must fully commit to a society, a system, a(n) hypocrisy first. What did I need to get my passport? I mean other than flipping a lawyer fifty bucks. I mean the very essentials. You need to fill in the blanks on that passport application. What does one need to do so? Well initially, you're gonna need a name. Sounds silly but you can't get a passport without a name, can you?

If you want to get really Orwellian, read this article about Canadian and American birth certificates. It basically says that what we think of as money is not money. Only heavy and unwieldy gold and silver are actually money. The banknotes we exchange, and now the credit card transactions, are just debt obligation bonds against a gold and silver standard. We think the gold and silver reserves to back up these debt obligation bonds reside in our countries, but our countries have been bankrupt for a long time. Their bankruptcies, or their debt, is owned by the World Bank/IMF. They're the same thing. The World Bank owns Canada and the US.

Interestingly, our birth certificates too are debt obligation bonds, but they're more like stock. We, us people, are the preferred stock of the corporations of Canada and the US. Our birth certificates are registered securities. Stock certificates against which WE are the sureties or the "chattel." We are possessions, livestock if you will, registered at birth (or shortly thereafter) as the property of the world bank as partial payment to them by the corporations that are our countries. Our countries sell us to the World Bank at birth without our parents' (or obviously our) knowledge or permission. We are sources of revenue and taxes for our countries from birth. That revenue we create by consuming, working, doing our social duties like getting married, getting jobs, having families, buying shit, it gets sucked up by our countries and sent off to the World Bank to help pay the interest on the ever increasing debt our countries owe them. It is estimated that if we could cash in these bonds, which we can't, they'd be worth over a million bucks each. My character is only worth 50 bucks, but my existence is worth a million and I don't really OWN either. How's THAT for hypocrisy?

Now the PAY part of acquiring a passport. We need an address. That requires a home. Somebody's paying for that home. You need to outline your entire education. School ain't free either whether you go to a for profit school or a public school, you or your parents pay in money or taxes. You need a phone number, which you pay for. Phone numbers are increasingly important. You can't get a bank account any more in some countries without a phone. And without a bank account, you can't get a job. So we all must PAY the phone companies and the banks. No choice. Cuz we gotta work, right? How else can we afford a home, education and a phone? And we also need two pieces of government issued I.D. Preferably photo I.D. So you need a driver's license. And probably a car.

This is how deeply you have to dive into your county's financial culture before you can even get a passport so you can get OUT of that country and financial culture. So now you're in Korea. You want to work. You need to get the criminal record check cuz they don't know what kind of shenanigans you've been up to in your country before you got here. And the criminal record check done by your countries top police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, don't mean shit either unless you pay a total stranger, that good old lawyer/notary public, fitty bucks to stamp it and say, "Hummph hoaa hrrrr yeah this dude is A O K!"

You also need a degree. You don't need knowledge or skills. You need a piece of paper stamped and/or signed by a university official saying, "Huuumm hooo heerrr haaaa yup, this dude is OK!" But that's not good enough either! You need a total stranger, hello again notary public, to whom you pay another fitty bux, to vouch for the guy who vouched for the document that vouches for your education. My degree is just a voucher I bought. And I am still paying for almost every year.

You also need a medical check cuz nobody knows what kind of medical (mostly sexual) shenanigans you've been up to in your country. So they do blood and urine and physical tests to make sure you don't taint the health purity of Korea. And you pay for this too. A doctor analyzes the results and says, "Hooarr hhrrrmmm hummm yup, this dude is okay." I absolutely KNOW we can't be more than a few years away from a new immigration law in Korea making it necessary to get a lawyer to vouch for the doctor who vouched for your medical test results. They almost have that already. Only medical tests done at certain hospitals by previously vouched for doctors (most likely vouched for by a notary public who doesn't know the doctor at all) are acceptable. But at least we don't (yet) have to pay those notary publics. What a great gig that must be eh? "I'll say you're a good person for 50 bucks. 50 bucks for validation here folks! Get your proof of character right here for the low, low price of fifty dollars!"

So back to Dongshin University. My application package was sent in the morning and I was contacted the very same afternoon. I was pretty sure I'd get a response because not only had I actually been hired before at this school, but part of the job was teaching kids camps during summer and winter break for the Naju City School Board. I had actually done THREE camps with the NCSB, one right AT Dongshin University. I sent pics of one of the camps I did including the director, Mr. Lee and the representative from the NCSB, Mrs. Choi. I sent their phone numbers because they still remember me and will vouch for me. Mr. Lee actually ran for mayor of Naju City last year and I included this pic of him with his number.

Add all this to my 20 years of teaching experience 12 of which has been in universities and colleges and I'm a shoe-in, right? Well the reply was simply, "Do you have your masters degree?" You see it's not the knowledge that's important. After doing this for 20 years, I AM a master! But without a piece of paper signed by somebody at some university stating, "Ho herm hummm hrrr yeah this dude's good," along with a stamp from a total stranger, the notary public, which costs a lot of money plus fifty bucks, well I just can't be trusted can I? So Dongshin will probably hire somebody with nowhere near the skill and experience I have, with a masters in bagpiping or auctioneering and I'll keep looking for work.

Are you seeing the hypocrisy? This is why I will be drinking heavily while watching football, NHL and World Jr. Hockey during this season. If you should happen to get a Facebook message or a text from me that's incomprehensible, go easy on me. The tedium and soul-sucking nature of applying, interviewing and getting all the dox for a new job might just be my least favourite thing to do. Kinda puts a damper on the whole Christmas/New Years/World Jr. Hockey/NFL football season. But I'll try to keep a few sugarplums in my head even if they might have to be the highly fermented kind.

Carrot Chronicles

The Genesis

I have never been fired in my life. Well... I've been "fired" twice, but once it was from the CLE and once from a hagwon in Korea. I put the word "fired" in quotes because the CLE is a carnival in Thunder Bay. It stands for the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition. The dude I worked for had stolen some money from the owners, as carnies sometimes do, and he needed someone to pin it on. I wanted the job for one reason: the shirt. While wearing a CLE shirt you get unlimited rides. So I got lotsa rides that day but I got fired for stealing money. I was totally innocent of course. Back then I was living the cleanest life I've ever lived, going to church and everything. I just laughed in the guy's face when he accused me. I knew exactly what he was doing.

I'm not sure which fake business deserves less credit for propriety, a carnival or a hagwon. The hagwon from which I was "fired" was owned by a couple and I had been accused of lying to my students by the wife of the couple so called her a fucking bitch. The accusation of lying was as legitimate as the one about theft although it came at a time when I wasn't living very cleanly. The next day they let me go, but I had basically quit that one the second the (accurate) words "fucking bitch" escaped my mouth. She was a psycho.

So for the third time I'm being "fired" and those quotes may be best placed around that word in this instance. The place I am working now, Carrot Global, is on par or worse than a hagwon or a carnival. That'll give you an idear of how wrongful this dismissal is. I want you to know from the beginning of this story of woe that, once again, I've been working illegally. I just can't seem to find my way to an honest employer in the ESL industry. Carrot Global is who employed me. They have many parts to their business. One is teaching kids (hagwon) and one is teaching executives in businesses. I have an E2 visa. I think to teach at a business you need an E1 visa. I had a student try to get me hired on at Samsung LOOOONG ago and this was the problem even back then. I have had an E1 visa once. It was when I was working at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies as an adjunct professor. At the time, I guess you could just call a person an adjunct professor instead of a teacher and - BAM! - E1 visa! But now, if I'm not mistaken, you need a master's degree. While I was working at HUFS, they changed a rule and decided to hire only master's teachers because, as anybody knows, a master's holder in dog grooming is so much better at teaching English than a holder of a B.A. in English Literature! Needless to say, the immigration laws, rules, habits, behavior, and the ways ESL companies get around them are as fluid as the stuff that shoots onto your windshield and doesn't even freeze in the winter.

The Exodus

You need to accept a few things when you are forced to work illegally. One is that in situations like these, the employer can do almost anything to you and you have little to no legal recourse. Of course they don't want to go overboard because the worker can report the company, but the workers never report the companies. This is because the worker gets punished, most likely deported and banned from working in Korea for a while. The company gets a puny fine and a wink wink nudge nudge warning never to do it again. Right from the get-go it started with Carrot, or as I affectionately call them, fucking Carrot.

After being promised several interviews and having them cancelled last minute costing me train and bus fare, Carrot got me placed at SKhynix in Icheon. The boss there, Andrew Choi, (I don't even know his real name - Choi Jong Hyun - I just checked the business card he gave me on the first day I met him), had had a big fight with a guy who worked here. Michael was his name, his real name. From all accounts he was a bit flaky but I'm sure now he was probably more justified in his actions than I was lead to believe by Andrew, whose side of the story was the only one I heard. He said Michael was fighting with security guards and yelling and screaming. Whatever. They needed someone to replace him and I was their guy. So I was put into the highly incapable hands of a Carrot office worker named Chris. Again with the nickname. Chris is Korean too. I don't know why they all have these nicknames. Maybe they feel better about all the shit they do if it's at least semi-anonymous. I can't say.

Anyhoo, Chris interviewed me like this: "I don't really know what they want me to do here I was just told that I should interview you. You basically have the job if you're not a weirdo." I'm paraphrasing, but something to that effect. Another example of the stellar organization, made up of the stellar employees, that Carrot is. So for weeks Chris fumbled and bumbled through the process of getting my paperwork and immigration done. I had to go out of the country to get my visa and there were a few times it could easily have been done before I started working for Hynix, but Chris managed to mismanage things so that I started working there before I had my visa. This was even MORE illegal than working without the E1 visa. For over a month I was working with only a visitor's visa.

Now I'm not sure it was totally Chris' fault. Andrew is notoriously mistrusting (notice I didn't say DISTRUSTING) of the teachers. It's entirely possible that he wanted to get me working and see how I worked out before formally committing to me. Of course I worked out well. The students liked me so I eventually got my E2 visa and became a little more legal over a month after I had started teaching. Unfortunately, this delay might have been the cause of my eventual doom. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

The first day I met Andrew was the key to this whole mess. He met me at the Carrot head office in Seoul. He, Chris and I tried for a couple of hours, and failed, to get me a decent phone, but with only a visitor's visa, that's impossible. Andrew ended up getting me one in his name that eventually I changed to mine. Just one of the problems they caused by not getting me set up for work in a timely manner. You'll quickly get the idea that another one of Andrew's quirks, aside from mistrust and lack of respect for the teachers, is doing exactly everything at the last minute. That makes things disorganized and slipshod - has anyone worked for an ESL business that ISN'T like this?

After not getting me a phone, we got into Andrew's car and went to the SKhynix campus in Icheon. It's a huge, well protected campus. Security at every entrance and things like laptops, hard drives and zip drives are not allowed. Of course I wasn't told this so before we could get into our building and get me into my lodgings (a dorm room shared with two other teachers) I had to go through my bags and take out anything like that. Andrew kept the hard drives with my whole teaching life on them, in the back of his scorching hot car all day long. When he met me outside the dorms and handed me the hard drives he nearly burnt my hand with them. Luckily they weren't damaged.

The important part of that day was the drive. On the way Andrew informed me that the contract said that I could be given up to 30 hours but I wouldn't work that many. I'd start at a leisurely amount and then in my second month I'd be teaching night classes. Three hours a night Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  But he assured me that I still wouldn't be over 30 hours AND I'd be paid extra for the night classes. Since my contract included the wrong working address and the wrong residence (so that immigration would think I was working for their hagwon in Seoul, not the Hynix campus in Icheon) I didn't pay any attention to it. I took Andrew's word that he'd do what he said. I know what you're thinking: They're lying to the government, why wouldn't they lie to you? This is another disadvantage to working illegally you will find.

Song of Song's

The first problem I had, and Andrew still hasn't recovered from, was when I got back from my visa run. One of the "office managers" named Song (again Korean with an inexplicable nickname) was anxious to prove her worth. They do this by seeing how many hours and how much money they can suck out of the workers. They're not teachers, they're workers. Because I worked morning and night, there was no way to take my two-day visa run trip to Japan without cancelling a class or two. I rescheduled some but missed some night classes. So when I got back Song tells me that I will need to teach two make-up classes, one on a Tuesday this month and one on a Tuesday next month. Well THIS month had only one Tuesday left and it was the next day. So I had to go into my Monday night class and tell my students that one of their make-up classes would be THE NEXT NIGHT. These are people working some of the most sought after jobs in the country. They have far more important things to do than make-up ESL lessons. On 24 hour's notice! I knew I'd be lucky to get any students for this class. So I asked the head teacher and one of my roommates, Lance if I shouldn't just fudge the attendance and mark everybody present. He gave me a sort of on the fence answer. When I went to class ONE student was there. I taught him, but when I got to my computer to record the night's attendance, I had a feeling this would be one of the MANY instances in my experience in Korea where lying was the best course of action. I said before that I'm not living as cleanly as I once was. Korea has been a big reason for that.

However, despite my better judgement and all I had learned about Korea, I told the truth and marked only one student present. The entire next day Song was all about throwing me under the bus for her last minute scheduling of the make-up classes. "You really CAN'T let that happen again, Dave!" "You just can't HAVE that kind of attendance!" "I really MUST impress upon you... blabbedy blabbedy blab." Finally she took me into another room and repeated and REPEATED this shit and even told me that one of my students said that I had said they didn't have to come to class. That was just not true. I said I would be there and I would teach but I'd understand if they had made other plans. I said to Song it isn't my job to chase my students around like they're in kindergarten. I asked why she was so incredibly concerned about my attendance. I then put it together. She gets paid according to my attendance. I said that and she denied it but not very believably. Finally, against my better judgement and Korean training, I told some MORE truth! GASP! I told her that I shouldn't have been teaching those make-up classes in the first place. It was Carrot's choice to postpone my visa run several times. If they had done it when they should have, before I started work, I wouldn't have had to miss classes. Furthermore, it was HER last minute scheduling of the make-up classes that caused this. I had warned her about this when she'd told me. And the manner in which she told me, "one Tuesday this month" instead of TOMORROW, made it pretty clear that she KNEW this was last minute scheduling and a shitty thing to do to a teacher.

Sometimes experience and social skills can be advantageous in the ESL racket. The people doing the hiring all want these things. But when you get into a situation like this, for the umpteenth time, when somebody is lying to you and you KNOW it, not only do you know it but it pisses you off that she thinks such a simple lie is too clever to be detected by you, you really have to work hard to control your anger. I was working so hard my mouth was like the Gobi Desert! Every word I said smacked, popped and whistled. I wasn't just being lied to by Song so she could blame her mistake on me, I was being lied to all over again by every scumbag I've dealt with all the way back to that psycho hagwon bitch and the thieving Tilt-a-Whirl operator from my youth. Song noticed this and it scared her. She probably knew it would have been nothing for me to pick her skinny ass up and throw her out the window. Problem solved! *Dave dusts hands and quietly returns to work

But that wasn't what happened, was it? Like a kindergarten tattle-tale she ran to Andrew. I don't know if she turned on the water works or not, but Andrew instantly got up like a father protecting his innocent daughter and told me he needed to talk to me in private. The same room as it turned out. On the way to the room I said, "If this is anything to do with what Song and I just talked about, I have nothing more to say about it." But he didn't heed my warning. They never do. I should have said, "I'm going to strafe you with a barrage of honesty here the uncut purity of which you have probably never dealt with in your life. I will not be held responsible for any damage to your personal or public fortress of deception. You are hereby forewarned!" But who's kidding who? You are ALWAYS held responsible. So I told Andrew exactly what I had told Song. And he has held it against me ever since.

The Book of the Job

After the three months of night classes were over, the month of November was really nice. I think I was working a leisurely 17 or 18 hours. Andrew added a class or two to some of our schedules and it became a very serviceable line of his to say when adding new classes, "The contract DOES say we can give you up to 30 hours." I always thought there was an implied wink and understanding between us that that was crap. Like he'd said in the car. And true to his word, without the night classes, I'd been around 20 or 21 hours the whole time. Then came the textbook writing. Almost exactly a year ago to this day I was wondering if I would be able to complete the one-year contract I had signed. I was only 4 or 5 months into my contract when December rolled around. December 15th was the last day of classes at Hynix and nobody was sure whether or not we'd get another year of work. See Carrot had to agree to terms with Hynix and, as I told you, that, like everything, had been left to the last minute. This is something I had asked Andrew about before I had started working. I had a university in Busan offer me a job then the funding got pulled at the last minute. Seems to be a theme. huh. Anyway, he had told me we'd find out in October probably. If not, for SURE November. Well, here it was December and nobody knew. As far as I knew...

SO this Busan university had said that if things were splitsville with me and Carrot at the halfway point, let them know and we'd try to work things out. So I needed to know from Carrot if I should take them up on that offer or if I would continue to work the same job. Just the paperwork of changing jobs is deterrent enough to leave the job you have in Korea. So I wanted to stay with Carrot/Hynix if I could. I knew there was a possibility of being asked to write lessons for the new textbook, but I figured they'd need a new contract before they wrote a new text. No?

No. Before we knew if we'd get a new contract Andrew dumped on me the prospect of writing the new book with a couple of other teachers. It was less than a week before classes ended. He said it was going to be 8 hours a day at the Carrot offices in Seoul. When I started to protest I swear to God he said, "The contract says we can give you up to 8 hours a day." NO IT DOESN'T! As I said the contract said up to 30 hours a week. 8 hours a day 5 days a week was overtime. Andrew knew it but he was tryin to screw me (and possibly the other two guys) out of the extra money. But this time it was on the phone. I STILL had the Gobi Desert smacking and crackling, but I may have sounded more in control. And I didn't even mention that the 40 hour weeks were against my contract AND against our agreement.

Andrew, however, didn't sound in control. He was yelling at me for the Song incident saying how I was a trouble maker and how it seemed like I was just complaining again. He said, "Do you want to keep working here? You sound like you want to quit." I said I wanted to keep working but I didn't want the 2 hour commute both ways. I even gave him a very legitimate medical reason why I couldn't make the commute. I had recently gone to the doctor for high blood sugar and frequent emergency urination. So frequent that a 2-hour subway trip could have been, shall we say more than a little uncomfortable for me? But he didn't care. I also had my own computer that I preferred to the ones Carrot supplied and for several other reasons, it would just be easier for everybody if we could make the lessons from home.  We had just received confirmation that I would be allowed to remain in the dorms over the Christmas/New Year break so that wouldn't be a problem. He said at the beginning of our hour-long phone call that he'd need to ask his supervisor with yet another nickname - Patrick. By the end of the phone call he was yelling about how he'd told me a hundred times that Patrick said that we couldn't write the lessons from home. I knew he was lying but I summoned all my strength and said, "Oh. Well I guess that's that. I misunderstood. I thought you said you hadn't asked him yet." And the call ended.

Andrew had said it MIGHT have been possible to get a place for me in Seoul but he wasn't sure. Last minute again. Otherwise I'd have to commute two hours in the morning and two hours at night to sit for 8 hours in front of a computer in the Carrot office. The alternative, he said, was that I don't work at all and get paid nothing for that time.

Well the lodging never came (if he ever had any REAL possibility of giving me lodging in Seoul or not) so as the week went on, I chose the obvious bluff and said to Andrew in the office on the last day of work, "Okay, I'll take the time off but I'll need you to give me a letter of release so I can work at a camp during that time." I legitimately HAD found a children's English camp that was interested in hiring me. I get camp work really easily. Andrew just ignored me when I said that to him. Probably a good thing otherwise his head might have exploded.

The next day I got a call from some girl in the Carrot office. Another nickname. This one I forget. Probably Grace. Grace said that for legal reasons it was impossible for Carrot to allow me to NOT work and they'd need me to do the lessons. I am pretty sure Andrew was at the office listening in on the phone call. I said, "Oh that's interesting because Andrew told me that was an option. Are you saying Andrew is making offers to me that he is unauthorized to make?" She was obviously startled but pretended that went unnoticed of course. Andrew wasn't breaking the law, I was. So Grace said we needed to work out an arrangement so I could do the lessons. I should have held Carrot over the coals then but I was too nice. I said to "Grace" that we needed to stop pretending Carrot gave a shit about the law. We both know my working there was breaking the law and Carrot had no problem with that. The reason Andrew wants me to work in the office is because Andrew doesn't trust me to work at home. But I had written Andrew a sample lesson right after hanging up the phone after our hour-long argument entitled "15 Myths About Working From Home Being Inefficient." It had only taken me about half an hour. I said to Grace that I showed Andrew how efficient I could be from home so he really has no reason to mistrust me. Notice I didn't say DISTRUST.

She sounded as though this was the first time she'd heard about this. She told me that was a good idea. Working from home would be fine. I said, "Oh good! There is the problem of my now needing to cancel with the camp people, but since Andrew will be willing to make this concession and allow us to work from home, I'll cancel with the camp people. See how easy this stuff is when we're all honest and reasonable?" I was surprisingly calm on the phone. Probably because we were being honest, except for her initial attempt at pretending Carrot was concerned about the law. No snaps, crackles or pops in my talking. And I got a few messages in to Andrew in case he was listening, which I know he was.

The writing of the text went off without a hitch. Lance told me they were expecting about 4 lessons a day out of each of us. I wrote 7 a day. Maybe not all primo lessons but no mistakes and all of them were used in the book. Some have been complimented by my fellow teachers and their executives. Yes, we eventually DID get a new one-year contract and we were asked to make all four textbooks, so that's 80 lessons, whereas I was lead to believe we'd only be writing the first textbook, 20 lessons. The most hilarious part about the whole thing - "15 Myths About Working From Home Being Inefficient" was included in the second text of the new year.

Lamentations

The other two lesson writers did well and told me they appreciated being able to write from home. I'm sure they too were more productive because of it. Even Andrew probably received accolades from his bosses on such a forward thinking and successful idea they assumed came from such a backward-ass person as himself. But the 15 rounds I had to fight with him to get this very positive result went unappreciated by Andrew. In fact it made him hate me even more.

It was a new year. 2019. Not far into 2019 Lance quit making me the longest serving teacher in the place. In just over a year, I think about 10 teachers had either quit or been fired. And when I talked to some of the ones who left, and some of the teachers who had talked to some of the others, there was one common complaint: Andrew. Now it wouldn't be right to just say he was the cause of everybody leaving, so I'll try to give you some idea of the things he did that caused such a revolving door of good teacher after good teacher leaving this very good position in the ESL market.

subsection: Numbers

Carrot may not pay the best of these big business ESL providers, in fact they may pay the worst. I've seen some with the starting wage of 4 million won a month. This is for a contract of 30 hours a week. It includes an apartment if you are an E2 visa holder and may include one if you aren't. This is $3,372.00 US at current exchange rates. $4,470.00 CDN. WOW! Is our dollar THAT low now? Good God Canada! What the frig? No wonder I'm over here!

The contract I got started at 3.2 million Korean won, which is $2,698.00 US or $3,575.00 CDN. Not bad at all! When I finished my first year here, I signed on for another 6 months to the end of this current contract between Hynix and Carrot. I signed for a little more, 3.4 million, but I didn't get any severance pay, so it worked out to a little less. Who pays LESS for your second contract?

That's another bonus. A one-year contract here includes severance pay equal to your average month's pay. If you're Canadian, you build up pension at the same rate. But if you have a boss that doesn't want to pay you severance and won't tell you that until you ask him, then he waits a day or two to make his bargaining position stronger THEN says that, no, by law severance doesn't need to be paid unless it's a full year contract. And if you're an F visa holder, they can pretty much do what they want.

You get Korean holidays and 10 days of vacation, (which the boss may ACTUALLY tell you to teach make-up classes for (I'm not kidding!)), but you end up having a lot of classes cancelled because these executives are really busy! Most of my students were very nice and cancelled with fair warning too so I got a lot of extra unexpected time off. Especially for a guy like me, who is the same age as most of them, these execs are actually easy to get along with.

The best part was that my contract, I THOUGHT, was going to be 21 hours or less. So The numbers are hard to beat in Korea. Unless you have a supervisor who wants to mess with them.

Lamentations II

So how do they mess with the numbers? One big way is scheduling. If they don't like you, they will give you a nightmare schedule. They know that will only last until you privately work out other arrangements with your students... ahhh but they DOOO enjoy creative scheduling here! Every day but Monday I've had a 7:30 class virtually my whole time here. Monday is a day when teachers who don't live here are busing in from their hometowns (and workers too) so since buses don't run that early, the 7:30 classes are not offered on Mondays. Having said that, I've been offered 7:30 Monday classes MANY times by the "office managers" around here. I'm sure they just do what Andrew tells them to do. It's really strange how they seem to forget from time to time that we keep that slot open for people who go home, or travel out of town for the weekend. huh. Odd.

Then there have been several attempts to suggest or even demand I teach a Saturday class. I have always refused because it is my right to, but you know you're losing points every time you do that.

Then there's the regular scheduling. It COULD be SOOOO easy, but they made it hard! There are some teachers who live here. I'm one. We should have the morning schedules. The teachers who don't live nearby and need to commute should have the afternoon schedules. The best times for all the executives seem to be early morning and late afternoon. It's a no brainer for a good scheduler. But for someone who wants to make inconvenient schedules, it's also a no brainer. Splits every day! Morning classes and evening classes separated by long periods of not really being off work.

Believe it or not, when I started here, Andrew had a rule that any time between classes must be spent on campus. Not necessarily in the office, but not in your room... in the dorm... a five minute walk away... where your bed is and where you can take off your socks and pants and relax. He had a time clock folks! When I called him "backward-ass" I was not kidding. A timeclock where workers actually punch in and out of the office!

We have badges that we need to scan every time we go in or out of any of the campus gates. The teachers all worried that somebody would read the record of your badge scans and find that you were not on campus but actually using YOUR time to do something YOU wanted to do! I put an end to that fast. I started going to my dorm for long breaks between classes. I didn't care if I got caught. I'm sure this became known very early on by everyone, including Andrew, but I also got my stuff from China, where I lived before working here, including my computer, and I often made lessons during my time in my room. I mentioned at meetings a few times that all good teachers do lots of work at home. Any good educational institute needs to account for that. I was certain there was going to be a huge argument about this, but, by the grace of God, the internet was disallowed by security in the Carrot office. This made it so that nobody could easily do actual work in the office and Andrew relented. This is another battle the teachers won that made things better for us, but just pissed Andrew off.

Proverbs

My Mom had one famous proverb that she must have told all of her kids a thousand times. "Never give one without the other." My Mom did a pretty darn good job of treating all of us kids equally. There were exceptions, mostly with Jenn because she was the only girl, like curfew for example, but other than that, my Mother kept things fair. And that kept us happy. Well that might be a strong word. It kept us from killing each other. In keeping with the Biblical theme Joseph was the favourite of Jacob and Jacob gave Joseph a coat of many colours. This created resentment amongst his brethren and they didst throw him in a pit and waited for some human traffickers to happen by. And, lo, they didst betide. Whenst they didst, his loving brothers soldst Joseph for 20 pieces of silver. Anon they covered his coat of many colours with goat's blood and shewed it to Jacob telling their father that Joseph hadst been slaineth by wild beasts... ests.

Cheaper than Jesus I guess. He was betrayed by Judas for THIRTY pieces of silver. But how much was that? What could it buy? Well according to Bible scholars, that depends on what you mean by pieces of silver. There were many kinds of money in those days. If you just melted them down, even 30 of the highest valued silver coins of the day would only be worth a couple hundred bucks. But at the time 30 pieces of silver, being what Jesus was worth, was an amount that was scoffed at by unbelievers. The phrase has been used euphemistically to mean almost worthless ever since. So 20 is, I suppose, less than worthless.

So what could a boss do to make his workers bicker, fight, or treat each other as less than worthless? Just treat them differently. Play favourites. Give every one of them a different contract. Give them all different schedules and vastly varying hours and pay. Checks right across the board here! Strangely enough, and to Andrew's horror, this actually turned the workers against him rather than against each other.

Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself. Treat others as you want to be treated. I hope he doesn't mind but I'll use the example one of the most recent guys fired here, Jay. It's NOT a Korean person, but an actual Jay. Well James I guess so on we go with the nicknames. Let's see if the reasons Jay was fired were trespasses he committed against Andrew that he couldn't forgive while at the same time committing the very same trespasses against others.

I taught one of Jay's students since September. He tells me Jay used to be really late for classes. Like how late everyone finds out about whether or not there is a new contract here. Like how late my visa was obtained, which staggered my phone plan, housing, visa and contract in the most inconvenient of ways. Also caused the problems with Song and the Andrew to the rescue incident. Like how teachers of the night courses found out over half way through them that there would be a final test given by Carrot and a little about what was on it. (because Carrot hadn't decided those things until over half way through the course) Like how I was told the reason I was not getting my contract renewed 6 months after that thing had happened. Woulda been nice to have an extra 6 months to look for another job! No, it appears in this way Andrew expects the teachers to do unto Carrot what Carrot  doesn't doeth unto them.

The story goes that Jay, when he missed classes, would even ignore texts and phone calls from his students. Sorta like Andrew ignored requests in person AND by texts and phone calls for the meeting about dividing Jay's classes between the teachers. And when I didn't have a phone how furious he'd get at my not being able to keep in touch with him! "Why haven't you checked your messages or your emails?" he asked? Yet when he said my contract ended on the 31st of December (because he obviously wanted me to write lessons again this year between the 15th and 31st when there ARE no classes here) it took him three days and intervention from HR to have a look at his copy of my contract and realize he was wrong. Like when he said he couldn't re-hire me because my visa expired before the end of my contract, which he pretended he thought was the 31st, it took him those same three days to look at his copy of my alien card (that HE had acquired from Immigration for me) before admitting that my visa doesn't expire till February, leaving us PLENTY of time to sign a new deal. Like it took him all that time to then change his mind and give another flimsy excuse for firing me. No, he doesn't do things promptly the way he would have us teachers do them.

There's a quote, maybe not a proverb, attributed to Herbert Hoover but I doubt he's the first to say it: "Children are our most valuable resource." I remember talking to another teacher here about how Andrew doesn't trust the teachers, how he thinks we're all cheating on our attendance, conspiring with the executives to take classes off and who knows what! He actually accused other teachers of those things to me when I first came here. One of the reason why he wanted us where he could see us I suppose. There was a girl from the head office who came to the campus to fill in for a short time and I was talking to her about this. Not long after, she was in the staffroom arguing with Andrew on the phone and said that he treated us like children. In a yell loud enough for the whole staffroom to hear, Andrew screamed, "BECAUSE YOU ARE CHILDREN!!" Now, if he thought like Herbert Hoover, I guess that wouldn't have been bad. But Andrew gives no respect to children. The only thing I've ever heard him say about his own daughter is that she's a "nightmare." Now I can forgive that because I have known plenty of students and kids that I actually loved that I might say the same thing about jokingly. But how joking was he when he said these things?

The one thing he doesn't understand is that here, the teachers are LITERALLY the most valuable resource. They ARE the product. And it is not always good to have your product changing all the time. The executives and HR at Hynix have made it very clear that they really don't like the constant teacher turnover. They want long term teachers. The word is that several others besides me are going to be let go. There will be 6 new native female teachers hired. There are going to be some angry executives who don't want their current teachers replaced by young fembots who do whatever Andrew wants them to do. He's shooting himself in the foot by treating us with the lack of respect some people show to children not realizing that we are his most valuable resource. As far as I know a new contract has not yet been agreed upon. If Hynix finds out about these plans, Carrot, or Andrew might not fit into the Hynix plans. I told him this when I yelled at him on the phone. But he just thinks I'm complaining.

Judges

So what was the "reason" given for my third "sorta" firing and why do I say it's even less legitimate than the false accusations against me made by the carnie and the crazy lady? I ask you, my dear readers, to sit as judges and see if you find me wanting as did my current employer.

I promise this will be the last silly nickname. Abby, the sixth or seventh office manager whose worked here, (they come and go too, probably for the same reason), asked if I wouldn't mind teaching a class last period Tuesday. One of Jay's classes. Or I should say ANOTHER one. I've been teaching one of his classes twice a week since September. Back then I was the only guy who got one. That's when Jay was ALMOST fired. He was dropped to part time and changed from monthly to hourly salary. This cut his salary in half. Now something I know that Andrew probably doesn't know I know is that the extra money went straight into his pocket. At the time I thought Jay had been fired and ALL the teachers were going to get extra classes so I said at a meeting that we will need to talk about this meaning he'd better spread some of that money around. We're not all going to teach extra classes while he collects the money for it. Especially if we're doing it on short notice and saving Carrot's million-dollar contract and possibly Andrew's ass. But at the time he said Jay wasn't fired and I was the only one who got one of his classes. To teach for free while Andrew collected all the money. The only reason I took it was because I was at 19 hours at the time and that put me up to 21, our verbally agreed upon maximum. You can imagine how thrilled I was when Jay was ACTUALLY fired and Abby offered me another one of his classes. To teach for free while Andrew collected all the money.

Imagine how thrilled I was now when by no coincidence it was offered to me at the WORST possible time in my schedule. Imagine how even MORE thrilled I was when I remembered that the first class of Jay's, back in September, had been offered to me at the same time. Now you're getting it.

I was told both times that there is no possible way the student could study at any other time. Well, my first student I got from Jay, Yoo Min So, (no nickname) told me he had never told them that. He actually didn't even like that time. The time offered was last class on Tuesday, 3:30-4:30. He wanted morning classes. So I schedule his classes at times more convenient for both of us.

The new class was offered to me on Tuesday from 4-5. That isn't even teaching hours! We're supposed to be finished at 4:30! I finish at 10:30 on Tuesdays. I've made my schedule like that so I can write lessons during Tuesday afternoons. Lessons that my students request, lessons my students say they like best and lessons that I know fit into their personal interests. I tailor these lessons to my students levels, needs and interests. The book doesn't do that. This is why I get very high evaluations. Even 100% evaluations!

So I call up Abby and ask if this is really the only slot in the schedule I could teach the class. She says yes. I know she was probably lying because by the end of the phone call she agreed to call the executive and ask for a different time. She didn't. She also didn't give me his number so I could do that. She just gave the class to someone else. Easier. Then she probably lied to Andrew and said I refused it. Easier.

What actually happened was I explained to her that this put me above my agreed upon 21 hours. Of course she brought out Andrew's serviceable 30-hour maximum line of bullshit and I explained to her why that was a line of bullshit. She probably didn't know that. She's new and I doubt Andrew would tell her anything like that. I then said that I would need, and the other teachers deserve, some extra money for teaching Jay's classes. Why is Andrew not offering any? She said she didn't know so I suggested a meeting. She refused. She doesn't have the authority to do that UNLESS Andrew told her to refuse a meeting. Because at the last meeting when Jay was almost fired, some of the teachers agreed that we would need a meeting to discuss this if it happened. Andrew knew this. Abby was at the meeting and SHE knew this. That's why it was refused. A few times during the call.

But even when I found out I wouldn't get any extra money for the new class, I didn't refuse it. I just said that I would like it in a different slot in my schedule. I offered to call the student myself and arrange something. That was refused. She ended the call by saying she'd call the student to arrange an alternate time. She didn't. I didn't want a 6 hour open space between classes on Tuesday. Who the hell wants something like that? Tuesday morning, sure. Another day, sure. But 6 hours after my last class on Tuesday? TWO classes offered at that time? That's just not a coincidence!

What do you think? Am I being a bad employee? Am I causing trouble like Andrew says? Before you make your judgment, there's one last thing for you to ponder. If it was so hard for Andrew to have a meeting about giving the teachers extra money, like they fucking should have been, for these extra classes, then why was it so easy for him to call a meeting the very next Monday? It was an evening meeting. For dinner. A sort of thank you dinner for the teachers who had helped by taking Jay's classes.  But it was a secret meeting. Some of the teachers weren't invited. Me for example. The teacher who had already taught more of Jays hours than anybody will. I was excluded from the meeting and Andrew told the people who went to keep it a secret from me. He proceeded to get drunk at the dinner party in a very professional manner.

Revelation

This, I'm sure, will come as no revelation to you: I am getting shafted here. This is nothing short of wrongful dismissal and if I had a legal leg to stand on, I'd probably try to do something about it. But I don't because I was illegally hired. Oh, I'm sorry, one final nickname: I called Lizzy at Carrot HR and she has already made up her mind that Andrew can do no wrong. She calls him her "buddy" and got a bit giggly thinking about him. There's no use pounding THAT pavement. Even if I give a letter to the owner about this he'll probably say, "He was hired illegally anyway. We're free and clear. Cut him loose." Easy.

I suppose I can hope that my students will complain and maybe Hynix will change English providers or maybe tell Carrot to replace Andrew, but that'd be a Christmas miracle. I've taught at a few schools before where the people in charge did shitty, shitty things to their teachers but kept right on working there while good teacher after good teacher came and went. HUFS and Chonnam University are two that come to mind.

I AM currently trying to find some legal work here. Put out two application packages yesterday. It's such a monumental task to do all the immigration and paperwork, but I guess I'll have to do it again. My revelation should probably be to just get a legal job, but if required to do illegal things like academic fraud, fudging the attendance, lying, cheating, stealing, just say, "HELL YES! Or JONG MAL NEH!" Whatever the Korean equivalent would be. A bit depressing.

However, in keeping with the Biblical theme here, I put up my Christmas lights, wrapped my Christmas presents, even watched a Christmas movie. I think that helped me to get into the Christmas spirit and if not totally let this go, at LEAST get excited about the Christmas season that I will now have off instead of being forced to write lessons for Carrot at a tremendously cut rate. I might teach a kids camp in the new year and get a university job starting in March. If that's the case (and it IS the goal) then I'll have Feb. off too. Which is nice. So I got that goin' for me...

The Wrath of Grapes

Okay. Let's look at the whole picture here. And let's start with Don Cherry's age. He's 85. Do the math. Born in 1934. So when he was old enough to just barely understand what was happening, WWII was going on. (5-11 years old) In his most formative years Canadians were helping to win the war, remembering the war and in vast majorities, like almost 100% I'm sure, they were buying and wearing poppies.

You're not going to like this but I'm going to tell you another majority during that time. And the "N word" will be bandied about all willy-nilly. So if you can't endure that without being offended, skip ahead a paragraph. I need to do it for the purposes of accuracy and honesty. Until the early 70's, according to Stats Canada, 97% or more of Canadians were "European Canadians." This is the euphemism Statscan uses for white because it's just a helluva lot safer nowadays NOT to use that word in Canada when referring to people. But when those censuses were taken, I'm sure the box that was checked said "white." And I'm sure nobody considered that racist. I was alive in the early 70's. I said lots of racist things back then too. I didn't even know they were racist! I called Brazil nuts "nigger toes," I ate black babies candy, I picked sports teams by saying, "Eenie meenie miney moe catch a nigger by the toe," I even went out for Halloween as Aunt Jemima in blackface. In my peer group, when there was a fight (between ANY two people, and because there were only two non-white people in my neighbourhood, it was going to be between two white kids) a common chant could be heard: "Fight, fight, a nigger and a white." When somebody I knew saw me, they might greet me with, "What do you figure?" The clever answer was, "I figure nigger's lips are bigger." Then there was a song I heard my Dad sing once or twice: "Daniel Boone was a man - was a big man. But the bear was-a-bigger so he ran like a nigger up a tree." I'm sure if I thought really hard, I could come up with a dozen more normalized horrors as bad or worse than these. But when I was in elementary school I also had a black girlfriend named Anita. She was from Jamaica. Her and her brother Marlin were the only black people in my neighbourhood. (well, their parents too, but I mean the kids) Our next-door neighbours, the Bardy's, were native Canadian, which I think were the majority of the 3% non-white residents of Canada at the time. I couldn't believe my luck to have black kids living so close by! Close enough that I could walk to school with Anita. Every day. I think I was more fascinated by her difference than put off by it. She was very shy and quiet but I encouraged her to talk because I loved her cool, Jamaican accent. We sat together and held hands underneath our desks. One day I told her she was as sweet as an apple and she really dug that. So was I a racist kid or not?

A total of 619,636 men and women served in the Canadian forces in the First World War, and of these 59,544 were killed and another 154,361 were wounded. Of a population of approximately 11.5 million, 1.1 million Canadians served in the armed forces during the Second World War. In all, more than 45,000 died, and another 55,000 were wounded. Given the statistic of 97% European Canadians above, I need not mention, but I will, that almost all of these people who were wounded or who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country were white. Since the 70's the white portion of the Canadian population has dropped to around 70%. That is a very rapid decrease in a country that was almost completely white since confederation over 100 years earlier. This change in Canada was not handled well socially. It was dealt with in a most Canadian of ways: it was ignored, pushed down, hidden, covered up and replaced by statements of great multiculturalism that required the immediate support and action of the entire country. We were never a multicultural country until we were told we were, (not to say ordered to be). This was not universally embraced by Canadians.

In her New York Times article, Dr. Cheryl Thompson, an assistant prof at Ryerson University, says,  "In the month since the photos of Mr. Trudeau surfaced, I’ve had white Canadians share with me that they, too, performed blackface as a child, or that blackface was ubiquitous in their community. If my research has encouraged some white Canadians to stop fearing their own racist pasts, more of our public leaders could surely do the same. What we need is courage, not a polite, “Sorry about that, eh.”" Read the article and click on all the links in it you can. It's an enlightening account of Canada's past and how my country has downplayed and hidden its history of white dominance. It always pisses me off when Canada is hyperbolically characterized as a big, nice, polite, friendly country. That wasn't my experience, and I grew up there! People who insisted on being different got their asses kicked in Canada too, don't kid yourself. And the reason people were polite was because if they weren't - you guessed it - they got an ass kickin'. Drivers who drove like jerks - ass kickin'. Spelling colour, honour, or behaviour without the "u" - ass kickin'. Some of the schools I went to you could get your ass kicked for wearing uncool shoes for crying out loud.

And in the years when I was growing up in Canada, not wearing a poppy around Remembrance Day was behaviour that would be questioned. Wrong answers to those questions could be assumed to result in an ass kickin'. I'm not going to say that this was wrong or right. I'm not going to say that the soldiers who died in wars fighting for our Canadian way of life would be happy or unhappy with the rapid change in our cultural make-up. I'm not going to presume to say whether or not multiculturalism legitimately IS our Canadian way of life, or whether it's just one that has been fairly recently manufactured. What I am going to say is that this momentous change in our country was foisted upon us (or is it "foistered" lol) completely without instructions. We were expected to adapt socially on our own. I have mixed feelings about how Canada adapted to the biggest change in my country since I was born. I have blogged on it frequently. I believe it has forced many Canadians to quickly develop multicultural thinking and tolerance, even respect for other cultures and people. I also believe Canada overreacted and became the most reverse-racist country in the world in many ways showing unfair favouritism to new Canadians. I love the fact that we welcome refugees and poor people looking for a better life into Canada, but I don't like the fact that a lot of immigrants are the rich from other countries bringing the despicable tactics and business practices that made them rich in their countries into Canada. I believe most Canadians have dealt with it in an honourable, egalitarian manner, and this makes me proud of Canada. Mostly. But there are some who haven't done so. And we don't hear about them. We don't WANT to hear about them. I've blogged on THIS before too. Canada has become a nation of ostriches putting our heads in the sand when cracks in our culture appear. We don't want all that negativity! It's harshing our mellow! It OFFENDS us! And we have become offensively offended. This is part of Canada I am NOT proud of. Don Cherry is the latest of many examples. Nobody gets their asses kicked any more for not wearing poppies. But we can be fired for having the wrong opinion. We can be fired for having a baby. And we can be fired, like Don Cherry, for saying things in a way that is a little to politically incorrect for some.

This hypersensitivity, I believe, is one result of this monumental change in Canadian cultural diversity. The other is more alarming and it is lesser known due to its mellow-harshing nature. If you're a Canadian who thinks Don Cherry is bad, you're probably in for a rude awakening. Another cultural crisis in Canada is Don Cherry on steroids. From 80-100 white supremacist groups in Canada in 2015 to almost 300 today.

We can't deal with the results of such a large cultural change by simply pushing away the negative results of it. Celebrating well adapted Canadians and ignoring or hiding the others does NOT a multi-cultural country make! We can't just BE multicultural by calling ourselves multicultural! And it looks like we're about to learn this lesson the hard way because immigration is only going to rise. Again, I have mixed feelings. I am sympathetic to compassionate immigration, but I call bullshit on the stated reasons for a lot of Canadian immigration. "Skill shortages?" "Gaps in the labour market?" Are they just euphemisms for cheap and handy labour? Why can't we train existing Canadians to acquire those skills and fill those gaps? The corporations who run our country could so easily afford that! But they don't have to and we don't force them to.

And now we come to the bigger issue. In the NY Times article, I'm not sure what Peter Mansbridge meant when he said Canadian voters were not interested in the pictures of Trudeau in black face and would prefer a return to the "real issues," but I am one Canadian who would prefer a return to the real issues. To me the largest issue in Canada, indeed the world, is not racism, immigration or any of the minor issues causing bruised feelings and butthurt in my country. The largest issue hasn't caused anywhere NEAR enough outrage yet! I'm sure if you've read my blog you know to what I am referring. It's been called social pollution by business professor Nuria Chinchilla. It sounds like a fake name to be sure. Stanford professor Jeffrey Pfeffer explains it well. If you read one article or link from this post, that one would be a good choice. I have the health issues he described and others and I have always considered workplace stress to be at least part of the cause. For me the stress of changing jobs frequently due to one-year contracts, working in foreign countries, and being apart from my family, friends and culture that the Canadian soldiers fought and died for, is part of that stress. Add to this the highest tax burden in the world (read my blogpost if you have an issue with that statement) and the pressure to have kids, raise kids, AND work long hours at jobs we usually hate, put on every male and female in our country, and you have yourself the largest problem in Canada. But why don't we talk about this? Why is it pushed down and hidden away? It's like the white supremacy groups. It harshes our Canadian mellow. I've been blocked by many a Facebook friend for speaking honestly about it. A lot of my family probably consider me a raving lunatic and a black wind of ill favour bringing words of unwanted darkness into their artificially lit lives. But I gotta be me!

Canadians KNOW they're not supposed to be honest like me and talk about these downer topics. They KNOW they're not supposed to complain about their jobs and their long hours because it's not the Canadian way or some dumb axiom they've been prescribed by the billionaire class of Canada and have taken religiously like the Soma it is. They know they're supposed to pay their high rent, pay their high taxes, earn their low pay, and vote every four years for the people who made it that way. Why? Because the truth has been hidden and blocked. Things don't need to be this way. Canada has SO much wealth! We could be the envy of all countries if we didn't have such drastic income inequality. If we didn't work such long hours and so much overtime, our companies would be more efficient and we'd get more time off. It's been proved again and again all over the world. Even in Japan where they are infamous for working themselves to death. Canada doesn't need to be thrown up there on lists of happiest, freest and most multicultural countries in the world to make us APPEAR to be so, we could actually BE that country if we just solve this, our biggest problem. And not just the vast majority of Canadians - the middle and lower classes, but the rich would be happier too! Because they'd make even MORE money! It's a super easy problem to solve! But our rich and our government don't have the collective balls to enrich the 99%, spread out that wealth, reduce the workweek and raise productivity, job satisfaction and profit and solve our major problem.

So like I usually do at this time of year, I write another blog post about the largest problem in Canada. A problem that has forced me to move away from home. A problem that has caused racism, hypersensitivity, and a lot of other minor problems we squabble about in Canada. Maybe someday the people of Canada will realize this, force the government and big business to do something about it, work less and make those big businesses even richer, be happier people again and make our country into the country our war heroes died to create. Then I'll move back home and you can be absolutely sure I'll buy and wear a poppy!

Some, most or ALL of this most certainly is what contributed to the wrath of Grapes and caused him to be over-passionate about his country and those who died for it. I forgive him.

Trump Girls

I suppose this is where it began with Donald Trump. His first wife, Ivana.

I mean... you can see why Trump married her. Blonde bombshell. Forgive me but I've noticed a pattern. See if you can spot it.

Here's Marla Maples,

and now Melania.

 

Look at her classic Natalie Portman-ish good looks! She's a bit of a departure for Trump in that she's not a blonde.

Yeah, that's more his style.

 

YIKES!

But there have been so many other women in his life! Let's see now...

Here we have Ann Coulter and Kelly Ann Conway. Two of Trump's biggest supporters. In fact I can't tell them apart. Neither seems to know the meaning of overzealous support.

If you've never heard of a verbal blowjob, just listen to one of them talk about Trump.

Absolutely shameless Trump promotion that translates into self-promotion.

Almost like...













No, wait a minute, she's gone. Huckasand probably wasn't young, hot or blonde enough.

But the replacements are coming!

Pam Bondi, who he recently called in to help with the "witch hunt" impeachment proceedings. She said, "If the president calls out my name, I come," or something like that.

And this is the chivalrous president making certain Paula White's shapely, that is to say GODLY body is well taken care of.

I couldn't make it to the end of the video but... "To say no to President Trump would be to say no to God." Blonde, buxom, hot bod, how long before Trump is buying her a glass church with hush money? And speaking of hush money and scandals...

Summer Zervos.

Karen McDougal, and, of course,

Stormy Daniels. Make America horny again. HAH!

But what about...

NO! NO! NO! Absolutely not! Nononononononono! Young, buxom and hot, but too brunette, socialist and... uh... tanned?

Yeah, that's more like it!

Okay, her too. You may recognize these two gals from FOX. Tomi Lahren and Laura Ingraham. Two blonde beauties at FOX news who shamelessly defend Trump. It gets them on TV and it makes them money. After the whole Trump thing blows over, they'll be two of MANY who make a little bit MORE money writing books about these crazy days.

Heavens to Betsy! She has magically stayed out of Azkhaban. A self-proclaimed educator who is as evil as Umbridge from Harry Potter. Have you ever seen this Deatheater with her sleeve rolled up? No you haven't! I would LOVE to see her in orange!

And even...

She belongs on the list too! If not for her highly questionable rise to the top of the Democratic Party over the FAR more popular Bernie Sanders, Trump would never have become president. Sanders was WAY ahead! And since even Hillary got more votes than Trump, Sanders would have slaughtered him. American politics! She cheated to beat the guy with more votes, then was beaten by a guy who cheated to beat HER when she had more votes. Almost poetic!
Anyway, there you have it. The girls of Trump. Even Bond had less of a pattern. I'm sure you see it too. It can't be just me.