Parting Shots
Politics—bullshit baffles brains
I’m going to start off by giving an honest disclaimer. I do not have the answers, I do not understand the economy in many respects and I am giving my opinion as it stands now but I am always willing to be educated and informed differently. This statement alone is unfortunately rare. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. It’s an amusing but true jibe at the multitude of essentially arrogant assumptions of knowledge. We see it all the time. People think they know the world better then scientists. Evolution? BAH! We couldn’t have...
read moreCircumstitions
This is a topic I have very strong feelings about because I happen to be a victim of the cruel and unnecessary procedure called routine infant circumcision. Thankfully it’s not so “routine” anymore and is no longer covered under Canadian health care. I personally feel it should be banned without true medical necessity. I could easily go into this topic with great depth and length, but I’ll try to be concise. As to its history, It’s enough to say that it primarily arose from religious and/or cultural traditions and eventually...
read moreThe Erosion of Customer Respect
Have you noticed customer service has been severely lacking these days, especially in large corporations? In decades past you always had a general meme that the customer was always right and companies did their best to be sure you were satisfied with their service. Now we face a very different attitude. In my opinion the worst invention of all time was the automated answering machine that puts you “push #1 for sales, #2 for technical, #3 for billing, #4 for IT, #5 for cafeteria, #6 for janitor…” ARGH. To add insult to injury, even huge...
read moreThe Danger of Fanaticism
Is anyone else out there kind of wondering whether the world is just going a little bat-shit crazy lately? It seemed like the trends over the last few decades were one of tolerance and liberalism and this was a good thing. When did these concepts become dirty words? I just read a story about a group of “morality police” who are banding together in groups and terrorizing citizens and businesses by demanding completely innocuous and personal choice issues like being allowed to shave your beard off or not wear a head covering if you’re a...
read moreThe Self-entitlement of Birds
Birds. When someone says the word I tend to immediately think of cute little chirping creatures: finches, robins, canaries. Then if I dwell more on it I might think of crows, seagulls and pigeons, all the ones we see most often. But there are a multitude of avian creatures that range from coastal ranges to deep forests. Nocturnal birds like the owl, predatory like the hawk, scavengers like the vulture, opportunistic like the house sparrow, they are everywhere and they manage to coexist with humans quite successfully. There are some people that...
read moreThe Fragility of Life
It only takes a day or two to demonstrate how vulnerable we all are to cashing in our chips at any time. No I’m not referring to the Casino, I’m talking about when our number is up. A brief brush with mortality leaves you a little more nervous about the time we have left and whether or not we’ll ever be ready to check out gracefully. I knew immediately that I was not OK and had my roommate take me to the hospital A few weeks ago I had just such an experience. After doing a follow up with a Gastroenterologist who during an...
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