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Sacred Places
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
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There are places in society where money has no currency, or to attempt to use money is acknowledged to be wrong.
One example of this is Sex. While a woman's body is her own to do with as she chooses, we have any number of pejorative terms to describe any woman who exploits this for money (and most civilized people will have a similar prejudices against the men purchasing affections.). A slightly less obvious example of this is the Trophy wife, wherein the woman is disproportionately younger or more beautiful than her partner - an alliance of comfort or convenience, and while outwardly we tolerate it privately we observe and condemn it.
Religion and spirituality is an arena where most people realize that money has no influence. Disregarding the obvious hypocrisies of the Christian and Catholic traditions, most of it's most venerated leaders and saints have been poor, and no one of any credibility or sense would equate wealth with enlightenment.
Politics and Justice. This will be less obvious because both Canada and the US have entrenched systems of bribery, but in the purest, most abstract sense ideal government should reflect the will of the people and be uninfluenced both by individuals and companies with vested interests. Governance is both for and by the people. Allowing lobby groups and corporate interests to "donate", "fund" or otherwise "support" political parties that will further their interests is Bribery by another name, and obfuscates the value and purpose of politics. Voting and Politics are currently done on a "Per Dollar" basis, where every unit of currency has measurable influence, whereas Democracy was founded upon the principles that every individual had a measurable level of influence. While most parties currently rely on funding from the private sector to further their agenda, to have a true democracy we would need to remove this funding and create a system whereby the people allot a discreet ration of government funding to each party, providing a level playing field. Comparatively it would cost us very little and provide enormous benefits, however stopping the corporate juggernauts is not so easy.
In Justice, the corrupting influence of money is entrenched and transparent. We hear reference to the cost of lawyers, generally prohibitive, the implication that the more one spends on one's mouthpiece the "better" or "more favorable" the quality of justice one can expect. While on the one hand this is clearly true we should remove the word Justice from it, you might be buying laws or outcomes (the same laws that corporations have had created and revised ad-nauseum to protect their interests), but you are not buying Justice. The topic of corporations is the subject of a different post.
80's Dating Videos
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: WTF
- Hits: 1682
Amusing and Nostalgic. Wayyy before my time, but I sure recognize the players...
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Gainer, Gas, Saskatchewan
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2863
The family reunion in Saskatchewan, a poor night out with the staff, sleep, the next morning off to Saskatchewan for the Boyle Family Jamboree. Were it just me I'd give it a miss, but there's the kids to consider (and they as well would give it a miss, but it's family, and they should know them). We set off, the grey, ragged skies of Calgary seemingly following us from Alberta, talk about the importance of getting gas before we run out, I've only ever run out of Gas once in my life, and a 5 mile walk with a Jerry Can taught me a lesson...
I thought. Past Swift Current the towns along the highway get smaller, we pass Chaplin and the Salt mines, the gas light comes on, not even a 100 KM to go...
...and there are no service stations. None. Just the bare and rolling prairie. After our conversation the boy and the girl are watching the guage anxiously, finally, a couple of old houses beside the road, an ancient gas pump, we swerve in...
...looking at the pump, it's not hopeful, 70 years old at least, no sign of a nozzle or hose, there's an older lady getting out of her car ... "Got Gas?" I ask, despite all obvious evidence to the contrary...
"Sure do." She replies..."Let me go grab you a can", And she goes into this little house, a makeshift diner, waiting, waiting...
After about 5 minutes she emerges with 5 empty plastic Jerry Cans under her arm, "Had a bit of a run on it..." she apologizes "But we might be able to squeeze enough out of these to get you to Caronport...it's only 40 KM up the road...when did your gas light come on?"...
There's a faint swishing of gas in a couple of the cans, we marry them, upend them one by one into the tank, marry them again, try again, 20 minutes work for a couple of tablespoons of gas at most...
"How much do I owe you?" I ask, not for the gas so much as her futile helpfulness and good intentions, "Nothing, nothing, come on in and have a coffee, brewed fresh this morning, sign our guestbook", and we have no choice, the boy and I, help her line up the empty gas cans beside her SUV so she can fill them tomorrow, go in for a coffee, small, character living room-cum-diner, sign the guest book..."You know, this town, it''s the home of Gainer the Gopher, where y'all from anyways?" and when I tell her Calgary she explains Gainer the Gopher to us, I know Gainer the Gopher, I lived in Saskatchewan long enough, it's the comically surreal small-town Saskatchewan, David Lynch couldn't cover it better, reminds me a bit of the squirrel lady from ratrace, we head off with our coffees again...
Drive slow, cautiously, optimizing the speed to mileage ratio, we wanna get to Caronport, count the kilometers, eventually, eventually, hold your breath, every kilometer in that direction is one less that we gotta walk, ...
And we make it.
Moose Jaw, the skies clear and the unbounded horizons, visit with family, short, we've arrived at the end of the reunion, dinner tonight, breakfast the next day and we're heading back, spot deer, antelope, a trio of badgers surfing through wheat, the daughter's impressed, she's never seen a badger before, finally Calgary again in the early evening, and now, perhaps, my vacation can begin...
Farewell
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 2178
A productive day. Daughter to camp, AMA, Maps and Health Insurance, Bank, deposit cheques, write up a years worth of child support, various other things...
Then Lunch with A*****. His last night, Saturday, he's on vacation with the rest of us, going back to Italy, but he's decided not to return. I don't blame him. Life here, in this restaurant, it's fucking shit. He misses his daughter, his common-law, well, there are problems there, but whatever battles he faces there are easier than the restaurant here. He's done.
So is the restaurant. Lunch, a cheap ethnic buffet, we talk about it, how tired it is, the faded and worn linen, dirty, old, it's over, it's time. The owner, the customers, the freeloaders and moochers, it was, still is, an institution, but it should be done. Over. Now. He's free, I still have a month left, and the impending vacation with the daughter, the trip (just passed) to Saskatchewan, they're all threatening my finances...
We talk, of his past few days, the going away parties, the people he saw, people he missed....he didn't miss much. In the two years he worked here he left the city maybe 3 or 4 times, always, only with me, to Waterton one weekend, Banff another, Prospecting, Drumheller another. His life, otherwise, was work, the classic immigrant-on-immigrant slavery, the Conservative sanctioned and thinly veiled "TFW" program, the 12 and 15 hour work days, 5 and 6 days a week...
The restaurant, we've been besieged as of late with Corporate Realtors, Accountants, he's making plans, we don't know what they are but we can guess, the Nephew, supposedly the "Inside Scoop", he isn't privy, he provides us with contradictory guesses as to what it's all about twice a day...
I'm envious of him. I don't want to go back, at all, ever, we've been through a lot, me and him, we and the nephew, he's been a sport, born all our innuendo and insults, dark gallows humor, he's been a good worker, a proper colleague, co-worker, another stand-up guy in the trenches, these are rare, and we talk about his job offers, opportunities back home, they are not so good, restaurants there are run much the same as restaurants here, shit pay, long hours...but there, there's no tipping, no compensation, it's worse, if it can be imagined...
Awkward, these goodbyes, he still has to pack, get to the airport, me, to pick up my daughter from camp...
But it's time, and he comes round the jeep to give me a hug, he's crying, and I feel it, feel every fucking inch of shit this country dumped on him, there's no reason for it, fucking hell, and a slight epiphany, selfish motives perhaps, mediocre financial gain, but I'm in the same boat, and why is it so fine that the restaurant so shit on me, and I double my resolve to leave...
...he's crying, leaves quickly, I promise to visit him, but time and paths weave and I think we both know better...
In a sporting good humor, good-naturedly wearing the boots, belts, cowboy shirt I picked up for him, he'd never been hit on by so many men in his life...
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