People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
George Orwell





After giving some thought to what I said yesterday about the violence in Iraq being a coup, I've reconsidered. I think it can be more accurately called a revolution. A coup is a battle for control of an existing government, a revolution is the removal of an existing government and replacing it with an entirely different structure.

The terms have come to be used interchangeably through the ongoing bastardization of the english language by politicians and news hacks.

Could Americans though come to refer to the people committing the acts of violence against their soldiers, as revolutionaries? The term revolutionary has a lot of historic cache in the US lexicon, conjuring images of George Washington, and other heroes.

However, one could argue that the United States represents a tyrannical force that has pressed a boot to the throat of the Iraqi people.The people advocating, through force of arms and explosives that the americans should leave are the same as Washington's minutemen at Valley Forge. Attacking from the shadows at an oppressive infrastructure, that's how the American Revolution started.

“Life is one long process of getting tired.”
Samuel Butler

The bunker serves as a strong barrier to the elements outside. Sometimes, however, it's not strong enough. The outside world has a way of conspiring to sneak up and attack me.

As I huddle in the corner, awaiting what tragedy will befall me next, I'm gripped by the images that scream from the magic box. Much wrist wringing and wailing about whether on not to call the horror in Iraq a "civil war" or not. When assorted groups are isolated by religion, location, or ideology and are all seeking control of the government, it's a civil war.

As I pull my slippers tighter onto my feet, I have to wonder why it's taken 3 and a half years to summon up the truth to call this civil war, what it is.

I'm blind with a furious anger this morning. After a shift from hell, I get stuck at work for another 8 and a half, when some idiot decides that his inability to manage his personal life is reason enough to fuck with my life, and my health.

If an individual chooses a free wheeling lifestyle, in which they abuse their own body in ways they see fit, fine, I don't care. When your abusive lifestyle affects me, then you have a problem that is no longer your own business.

My libertarian bent prevents me from doing any more than just shaking my head when I hear about people putting chemicals into their bodies as long as they have "eyes wide open" I'm hardly one to complain. However, when that choice means you miss a shift, which is unable to be filled requiring that I, who has made a choice to live a reasonably healthy lifestyle (coffee and cigarettes notwithstanding)then you empower me to complain. When you make a decision to remove tools that will assist me in doing that job, out of spite, creating work for at least 4 other individuals, then you have a problem which is no longer your own. Your choices, as I see them, leave, or suck it up and just do your job with respect to your co-workers. You have a problem with your employer, fine, take it up with them, but don't fuck with the people who just want to come in, do their jobs and go home. Your mood swings, which I suspect are exacerbated by chemical abuse, should not be the barometer by which other people enjoy their shifts.

A professional would come in every day, do their job to their best of their ability with the resources they have available. A professional, would only complain upwards in the management chain about problems with the tools they have available. A professional would address problems with their co-workers with their co-workers and not immediately go running to management to report problems. A professional does not "investigate" short comings by co-workers and report those to management, ESPECIALLY, in a unionized workplace. A professional does not attempt to shock his co-workers by sharing his chemical and sexual exploits in graphic detail with his co-workers.

A professional does not do the things above, and then complain about the resources not provided by his employer. You want to be treated like a professional, act like one.

Interesting Boo Hoo from Cherie Blair, Tony Blair's wife this morning. She has said there is "no professional morality in journalism" to a group of English University students.

One can make a few arguments about this. First, I would hardly say that a woman who's husband was an architect of an invasion, based on false evidence and lies that has arguably killed 655,000 Iraqi civilians is in no position of lecture anyone on morality.

Second, ultimately what they do, and how they do it is determined by a free market. The issue of morality lies with the people who buy their product. Arguably, all they do is interpret an event.

I'm waking up this morning to snow. This can't be good for anyone. Especially not me. I moved away from snow years ago, and aside from a lapse in judgment which led to a 4 year stint in Whistler. I've lived in Vancouver for two reasons, one, I love it, and two, it's the city in Canada with the least amount of snow.

This snow has put me on uncertain footing, I need to relax light another cigarette and take a nap.

"Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking."
H. L. Mencken

Another day of lousy coffee.

Things are getting nasty in the bunker. This water situation is getting worse before it gets any better. I'm led to believe that it will take several clear days before this interminable water advisory will be lifted. Looking at the weather on the magic box, I'm seeing that there is nothing but rain for the foreseeable future.

This bad news is making my already irritable, unstable mood even more agitated. Without the bare necessities of life, your faithful (well, technically sporadic) correspondent is being left with very little recourse, than an all out temper tantrum.

As I peer out the windows at the clouds, somewhere above the din of the city a little tiny voice can be heard from my window "curse you, rain fairies" as a little tiny fist waves out my window.

A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it.

H. L. Mencken

Things are grim in the bunker. Dirty water, bad coffee, OJ Simpson is back in the news, and I couldn't be feeling any worse than I am. Ordinarily, I'm in agreement with TS Eliot, however I have to digress, November is indeed the cruelest month, not April. This vicious, unpleasant weather is taking it's toll on my psyche.

My erratic sleep patterns, the unsatisfying coffee in the morning, and all this damn talk about banning smoking on the patios is causing a severe twitch in my left eye which is starting to frighten small children and dogs on the street.

"The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom."

H. L. Mencken

Another week of boiling water evidently, the coffee still tastes like shit, and I'm starting to get grumpy about it. If there is only one thing that is necessary for the bunker to run without things degenerating into complete chaos, it's coffee.

More rain coming down today tells me that it's going to get worse before it gets any better. The wind is screaming like a banshee, and the hatches are battened down. The ionizer is whirring full air, for the chain smoked cigarettes have filled the bunker with an impenetrable haze.

A fist fight broke out at the library last night, there's a certain poetic justice to that. A group of people were upset that a community meeting was being held as an information sharing session, and wasn't publicized. The City of Vancouver wants to share information, it just doesn't want to tell them where it's being shared.

Beaten up

I'm feeling like I've been through the wringer this morning. Things are reasonably quiet here in the bunker, and the weather is reasonably cooperative.

The coffee still tastes horrible, and we're supposed to keep boiling our water until the end of the week. It's amazing how sensitive we are to these things, evidently at a cost-co or some such store, people were hoarding water, as soon as it was being put on the shelves, it was being taken off by the caseload.

Alas, the only people who should be panicking about this are the immune impaired. I take reasonable precautions, I do boil my water, and I filter it, but, and this is a large but, I'm not going to freak out about this.

I have come to a realization about how much water I use on a given day, which I hadn't come to appreciate before this. Every time I cook, 3 times a day, I'm using litres of water. I'm using another few litres when I was the dishes, another few pailfulls when I shower, shave, and brush my teeth. I had always considered myself a bit of a water miser, but the reality is, I'm just as bad.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
H. L. Mencken

Hiding in the bunker this morning, things are pretty grim. The coffee tastes horrible, the water even worse, and the rain is still coming down.

A thought occurred yesterday, that I think needs fleshing out. It's been pondered a lot in the past few days as to why the republicans lost so many seats in the mid term elections 12 days ago. Putting aside strategies and short term policy differences, I think the failure on the part of the "right wing" is more fundamental. The republicans have walked away from their base conservative values.

A "true" conservative is an advocate for smaller, lesser intrusive government. It let's me look out for me, and if I can't do that, the government will not be there to help me out.Conservatism has been hijacked by a christian minority that seeks to do the opposite, interfere in the private lives of all citizens, and create administrative infrastructure that will meddle in the most personal of personal matters, think about sexuality, reproductive rights, and privacy laws.

The conservatives in the states have walked away from their traditional libertarian beliefs, and wandered into totalitarian territory. Freedom of movement, speech, and thought have all been encroached in the past 5 years.

"Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood."

H. L. Mencken

I've been told that perhaps this blog is a little bit of a downer. Surely there must be something more interesting to write about, rather than just griping about George Bush et al.

That criticism is probably true. As I ponder the future from the bunker, I'm not sure if I'm an optimist or a pessimist. I try, believe it or not, to be an optimist. I do have a lot of faith in the human spirit, I don't believe people are inherently evil.

I do think people try, and get in over their heads. Somewhere along the way the compass goes awry. There is no re-do button in human lives, trust me if there were, mine would have worn out a long time ago.

I do think some people are needlessly cruel, not out of a sense of elitism, but out of a sense of weakness in themselves. There is a need to justify one's existence, one's need that they are better at something than someone else. Sometimes when that reason is not evident to themselves it manifests itself in a deprecation of another.

I was thinking the other day about how many crime dramas appear on the TV every night. On a given night, between 8 and 11 PM there are at least 5 police dramas appearing on television, CSI, Law & Order, Criminal Minds, Numb3rs etc.

I like these shows as much as the next person, but one has to wonder why one profession in particular is the focus of so many shows. Is it because crime is truly the most primal form of human behavior, that murder is the simplest human act in which to distill drama?

The formulas for these show are essentially the same, A body is found, a witty comment is made, a passing character we meet in the first 10 minutes is introduced, and dismissed, only to return in the final act to be named the murderer after 35 minutes of red herrings in which we learn assorted life lessons from the characters on the show, mixed in with a healthy dash of character development and exposition on series long story arcs that may or may not be concluded.

Why are there so many police shows on? Perhaps it's a need to justify to ourselves that we give police an extraordinary amount of power and we need to justify the abuses we sometimes read about in the paper or watch on the 6:00 news.

Just the other day I saw footage of man being tased, repeatedly in California because he did not have proper identification at a library. There is also footage of a policeman punching a man repeatedly in the face after he has been pinned down. Here in Vancouver, we have a case of several Vancouver Police Officers apparently beating a man then re-enacting one the photos from Abu Ghraib prison.

The individuals who did this are not going to appearing as poster children for any police departments in the near future.

The libertarian in me resents any police presence in society, the property owner in me is grateful that they are there to protect me. My downstairs neighbour is a police office, and I can't imagine him doing anything cruel or unjustified. However, slap that uniform on someone and a transformation occurs. This is a theme that has been studied in literature for centuries. Most actively, it was examined in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, starting with Zorro, going through to Batman, and James Bond, who is better known by a number.

boiling over

"No one has ever succeeded in keeping nations at war except by lies." : by: Salvador de Madariaga - )

Vancouver has had a boil water advisory posted for the next few days.  Yeah Gods, this is not how the day is supposed to go.  I'm sitting here with the kettle boiling so I can brush my teeth, trying to avoid a gastrointestinal disease that might be caused if I brush my teeth.

Makes us realize just how important water is to us on a daily basis, as I measure out the jugs of water.  Makes us wonder what other things we take for granted.  How about electricity, how about a reasonably safe roadway system?  We now have peanut free sections on airplanes.  We become accustomed to being taken care of how do we ensure our safety at all times?

“Lack of loyalty is one of the major causes of failure in every walk of life”

Napoleon Hill


A vicious and unpleasant storm whipped past the bunker last night, a perfect companion for my mood.

Sitting on the couch, staring at the window as the tempest tore past, I thought of issues of loyalty, solidarity, and faith. I wondered why it is, loyalty has become such a rare thing that it is to be treasured like a rare diamond, why is it so difficult for people to remain loyal to each other?

I have learned in the past few years to hold those people, who are loyal, very close. I have come to learn that those people are rare. 'Tis better to have a few people around who do know of loyalty, and practice it, than a lot of people in my life who would betray me at the drop of a hat.

This lesson I learned during my salad days in the political game. I heard a phrase, at a meeting, that stuck with me. "Dance with the one that brung ya". In the short term, loyalty has cost me, it's cost me jobs, it's cost me a career, and I'm not sure how many thousands of dollars. It has however rewarded me more than any amount of money, I've got a circle of people around myself whom I trust with my life.

As I shuffle into different environments I meet new people, and I foolishly head into friendships and companionships expecting the same loyalty and honour among these new people. Alas, most of the time it's not meant to be.

0nce more unto the breech

“…..if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties.. if that is what they mean by a “liberal” then I am proud to be a liberal. “: John F. Kennedy

The past 9 months have been very trying ones for this damaged soul. The web of lies being spread south of the border have infected the governing party in this part of the world.

Our military presence has escalated in a part of the world notorious for being unkind to foreigners. While the rest of the world has come to the determination that they should stay out of Iraq and Afghanistan, our shiny new prime minister has rushed headlong into Afghanistan, using the spectre of 9/11 as justification. For the first time since WW2 Canadian kids are coming home in boxes.

As I sit here, the magic box is glowing with the shiny face of Bush Jr. sharing his hopes and dreams for the future. It makes me sad, this is a man is obviously way out of his depth, and but for the intelligent people with nefarious motives surrounding him, he would have curled up into a little ball ages ago and started crying.

the prodigal blogger returns

Well,
An unfortunate series of events in February conspired to render your faithful correspondents computer inert.

A shower of sparks, a loud bang, a puff of smoke led to your correspondent squealing like a schoolgirl at a museum display of giant cockroaches.

Suffice to say, I've now returned, and we'll refer to my missing posts as my "lost months".