Saturday, January 27, 2007

"Its all about me"

Mr. Paul N McCulloch once wrote this about Remembrance Day:

Remembrence Day...Posted on 2004.11.11 at 12:25
I for one HATE remembrance day. It is a day of Hypocracy.the overt messege: Lest we forget, never again, etc... they push that war is terrible, look at what these people had to go through for your freedom, never let that happen again, honour them for their sacrifice. The Underlaying messege: Look at what these men went through for you? if the situation arose, you should go as well. They gave their lives for you, we honour them for that, why won't you give your life when the time comes? war is glorious, people who die in war are honoured for decades to come. dying in war is heroic.We all see the overt messege, but the REAL messege is almost subliminal, we don't quite know it is there, or if we do we mostly brish it off. I used to hate remembrance day services, i hated the damned poem in flanders fields for the mindless repetitive ritual of it. Now i hate the day all together... for the hypocracy, and mindless repetitive ritual of it all. (close quote)

Mr. McCulloch, before you blaze up, and toke up this evening in peaceful, tranquil bliss, please remember this:

It is gratifying to receive all those appreciative messages backing our forces in Afghanistan. The men at the sharp end.
The Paras put it succinctly;

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night, because rough men stand by to do violence on their behalf"(close quote Barry Winters)

Twenty-five Canadians were murdered on 9/11. Dozens of aircraft, all potential flying bombs were diverted to Canadian airfields, that day, each one a potential catastrophe.

Canadian trade, Canadian markets and millions of Canadians livelihoods, their ability to feed their families was impacted by this very real act of war. This attack, strike, "cassus belli" was planned, co-ordinated, and launched by Al Quida from a failed state run for terrorist by the Taliban.

Denying Afghanistan and other failed states to terrorists and those that have issued a fatwah and declared global jihad against us, is what will keep us all safe here at home.

As surely as my Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry and Para Regimental forefathers fought and died to protect Canada in generations past.....our troops do the very same now.

Whence, no girls and few boys attended school in Afghanistan, six million boys and little girls attend school. Six million children with a future thanks to the sacrifice of Canada, Canadians and fighting Canadian soldiers.

Your thoughts about "subliminal" and "overt message" bespeak of your very small world. Your world is all about you.

An Alberta ranch boy, a cowboy, lied about his age in 1943 to join the Canadian Army and on June 6, 1944 Walter Clifford Winters and his brother Delbert Winters landed on Juno Beach. Your grandfather and great-uncle. They did so because ....their worlds were large.

I have served. I have no time for people and folks for whom it is "all about me".

It is indeed a good thing that I have decided that we shall never meet, nor speak.

God Bless our soldiers and our Battle Group.


Thursday, January 25, 2007

Viva la difference....no

Women are from Venus, men are...regular. Men are happy. Men are well adjusted. Men are at peace. Men are regular.

Women eat fibre every day. Concern themselves greatly with the cleanliness of the commode or facility. Hell, some of them turn on the bathroom faucet. They worry about their health, and the prepare for the moment. And after all of that.....women are still mal-adjusted and weird.

On the other hand once a day "everday" a man goes into the "readin room", with a cupa coffee and twenty minutes later...the place smells like a well enjoyed dump.

Out walks a well adjusted well evacuated man. The late Dr. MacIntire the first heart surgeon in Edmonto said it best. "A good cigar, a pair of shoes and a good BM 'everday'"

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Public Transit and retards!

This morning for the first time in two years I started up my truck. It is a new truck, newly purchased, registered and insured. It is a big truck. It is a big ole diesel Dodge 3/4 ton Alberta screw you green freaks truck.

For two years I rode the bus here in Edmonton. The fare is high, the schedules bad, too many drunks, ersatz disabled and retards. There is NO reason any intelligent person in Edmonton would use public transit for any reason.

Last week it was -25C and at 6:15 PM on one of the city's busiest thoroughfares, I waited 23 minutes for a bus. During that time, three "sorry Out of Service buses trundled past and one "Out of Service" bus stopped and the driver raced out to the adjacent KFC for the Tooney Tuesday special.

No one in their right mind would use public transit if they had an option. I can not recount how many times I have relinquished my seat for a some old guy or gal with a "walker". Always this "walker" is piled high with shopping and the person pushing the damned thing is healthier than I.

Yes, there must be some disabled transit system....but these folks using the same system as the rest of public simply is not working. No one is going to leave their cars at home to take a bus, to stand so some poor guy with a motorized apparatus the size of a Toyota truck take the space of a dozen other folk. That is the simple truth.

You have welfare mamas with prams the size of Volkswagen mowing folks down, whilst their "little darlings" are screaming. If it isn't the "white trash" making your daily commute the "bus ride from Hell", it is the unwashed, stale beer infused Indian that just has to sit beside you.

Yes indeed, there is something egalitarian as hell about all this but NO ONE will pay to "save the planet" and leave their car at home, to enjoy this little slice of heaven. Nor should they!

Then you have your "droolers" and "gobbers". Some years ago there were some billboards. Prominently pictured was some mongoloid...with the caption, "my place is in the community with you." On the one bus route I used to take there was a couple of folks from a group home that regularly used this transit route. One would sit on the front seats and spit on the seat beside him...every day. There was the one, forty year old "young mother" with the toy doll in the pram she had on the bus ...every day. Whilst indeed their place is "in the community" it is not on public transit.

So now I am "drivin agin"! Why should I use public transit, or care about "saving the planet" if the powers that be can't run public transit in a business-like, efficient and manner that satisfies and serves the customer?

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

It's ten o"clock do you know where Granny is?

It's ten PM and do you know where your granny or Mama is? Try the local McDonald's, she may well be there drinking "senior's priced" coffee and trying to get picked up!

Have you been to McDonalds and watched the same seniors at 9 AM returning at 10 PM to socialize, drink cheap coffee and probably get laid? Screw going to the bar, church groups or even senior celibacy for that matter! Just go to McDonalds swill coffee, free refills for seniors, and engage in a "menage et fifteen or twenty"!

Here in Edmonton when one patronizes those "golden arches" one does not go to the can and leave their breakfast or Edmonton Sun unattended. Your hash browns and newspaper are long gone before you can get back. Once I did catch some obstreperous, obdurate and unrepentant geriatric thief in the act. She looked at me and said "what"?

I love the peace of leaving the little lady and family asleep on Saturdays and hitting Rotten Ronnie's for breakfast and the week-end editions of both the National Post and the Globe and Mail.

So here I am at peace with the world and the Globe and Mail and this frail looking thief is reaching over my breakfast to snag my National Post. I look at the miscreant and say," excuse me, that is mine".

This elderly Jabba the Hut looking guy looks at me and says,"that's all right I'll give it back to you when I'm done". I look at "Big Al" and say, "OK gimme yer car keys, I'll give "em" back to ya when I'm done"! Gramps has no sense of humour!

There is always the imperious lady butting herself in front of you in line, and tapping her soggy coffee cup on the counter saying, "refill"!

They are never alone. They are all "ganged up"! Many of the women "dress" for the occasion. It is ten PM at McDonalds and there's granny in her best jewellery, her fur coat and a condom in her purse, humming to herself "I'm lovin it"!

"Ready aye ready"

The motto of the Canadian Army is "ready aye ready"!At Lundy's Lane it was first uttered when a young British officer asked a frightened southern Ontario farm boy if he were ready for the night engagement.The Canadian Army has a wonderful lexicon of nicknames for it's regiments The Hasting and Prince Edward County Regiment are, The Hasty Pees. The Seventh Toronto Field Artillery are Seven Gun...well you get the idea.It's all about pride ....Canadian Pride! I need Corb Lund now to write some kick ass music for this

To Lundy’s Lane Yankees came, a country to steal
Nothin to stop them but farm boys with musket and cold steel
The faint rattle of musketry over yon hill, came the enemy to kill
In the line scared but steady, ready aye ready they cried
The invaders came, and came, by the score they died
Forevermore in Canadian army lore
Ready aye ready!

Rocky Mountain Rangers, Lake Superior Snake Rapers, Hasty Pees and Loyal Eddies
Ready Aye Ready!

From Prairie fields to Flanders Fields, to the muddy bloody Somme
At the mercy of the gas and guns of the hun.
That hill the Canadian Corps to take sworn
Up Vimy Ridge they advanced at the steady crying Ready aye ready!
Through the smoke, clouds the Red Ensign flying and a nation born.
With shot and shell they sent em to hell leaving corpses to bury
Crying Ready aye ready!

Five Tribe, Seven Guns, Black Watch, Crazy Eights, and Kings Own Calgary.... Ready Aye Ready!

The RCAF over the cliffs of Dover flew fightin as part of the few.
Smashed into the enemy, ready aye ready, to few owed much, by so many.
Standin fast at El Alamein to Dieppe Bloody Dieppe in France we came.
always ready aye ready!
From Caen, the Falaise cauldron and the Causeway at Walcheren
To Ka Pyong and nameless Korean hills so many.
With shock, fire, maneuver and shell they sent the fuckers to hell!
Canadian soldiers always ready aye ready!

Lincs and Winks, Eeks and Squeaks, Canadian Grenadier Guards, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry
Ready aye ready!

Whenever Canada must make a stand even in a place like Afghanistan
Whatever place Canadian soldiers journey to keep us safe.
You mess with the best, you die like the rest!
Ready aye ready!
Our fightin regimental fathers that gave us our country and so much more.
Our freedom and liberty, forever Canadian soldiers have foreswore.
Ready aye ready!

We sleep in peace at night because Canadian soldiers are ready to fight.
The enemy isn’t in our backyard , thy sons are on guard, and you are free.
Ready aye Ready!

Grey and Simcoe Foresters, Princess Louise Fusliers , Hussars and Dragoons.Fort Garrys, Blue Puttees and the Glamour Boys of the 48 th Highlanders.Ladies from Hades...and Loyal Eddies!Ready aye ready!

Van Doos, Gunners, zippers, Highlanders Little Black Devils and infantryalways...........
ready aye ready!

There is a time to stand and fight, and a time not to

Hunted

It is hoped that one lives ones life honourably, well and well enough to avoid skeletons in one's closet. For most of us that is not the case. I am fifty-one years old. I have a successful small business. I have a rich and wonderful life filled with rugby, rugby friends, and a rugby playing son, who will one day soon play for Team Canada.

I was once married in the seventies, a marriage doomed from the very outset. Two twin boys and a girls were spirited away. Their mother did not keep in touch with me, fine, nor the children's dotting grandparents, unforgivable. Nor did the children ever contact the grandparents.

Bill is dead, never knowing those grand kids. Now one son feels compelled to meet his father. He has contacted and threatened my Mother with hiring an investigator. He says "give me" the contact information! He did or does not ask, he demands. He now experiences the imperative to "speak just once to his father". Does he, and why? Why now? Does he have a "right" meet or demand a meeting with his father now after two decades of not feeling this overwhelming imperative to meet "Daddy"

It is not a problem to meet this young man. everyone in my life knows my past, but why after all these years, would I want to? I feel no imperative to meet him or them. I did for many many years, and I did stand-by for a call that never came. In time the children left their mother and were "adopted" by her father and his wife.I felt no hurt, animosity, ill will, or any feeling at all. I am ambivalent.So I find the young man's blog and I see his picture and read some of his views and "musings". I see his picture and read his views re Remembrance Day. I served, my father and his brother landed on Juno Beach on D-Day. My "son" says he "hates" Remembrance Day. He feels outraged that it is all a sham, all hypocrisy and meant solely to shame him and others into guilt about service or sacrifice for something greater than ones self.

It seems to me this young man is what I call "an all about me guy". It is always, all about me. It is always, about what I want, what I think what I think, what I want at any given moment in time.I see his picture and I see his mother. I read his musings and I see poor writing, a poor grasp of history, anger and abject selfishness. I ask myself why? I ask myself, why do I want to meet this stranger? I do not want to meet this stranger. But do I have a duty to meet this stranger?

I do not want to be ever surprised by a call, a letter, a knock on the door, as I do not trust myself to be civil or welcoming. Do I write or e mail him and say, sorry I has been so long and what's the point? I have a son, with whom I play rugby and we drink together and we fight the Godless Druids together (hated rugby rivals)who may wonder will I love him less. I have also daughter who always thinks she is bringing up the rear, and may well have a case.

The problem is, I just don't care anymore, after well over twenty years. If anything I feel anger that these children and their adopted parents did not keep in touch with my parents if they didn't want to see me.

Damn, I hate folks that, for them. it's always about them.