OSTRICHISE YOURSELF FROM SOCIETY
I realise that my mean spirited assault on religious dogmaholics is an affront to common decency. Not only is it an excercise in futility it is just plain dumb. So I will concentrate on more productive endeavors like making fun of myself and others who think that there is hope for our species. The glass is not half empty it's half full! Life is a Garden DIG IT! Oh this isn't working...

Maybe I can pump sunshine up your wazoo every day and make this world a little easier to stomach. If I stopped watching the news and smelled the roses my mental health would improve. That's it! I must OSTRICHISE myself and bury my head in the sand. Ignore all the crap that is so distressing and live in the here and now. Aaah! The sun is shining for atleast another five and a half billion years what could possibly go wrong?

If you quickly calculate how many others on the planet are charming and how many are tedious you have to think that 80% are charming.
Well on a daily basis probably 80 % seem charming because we avoid the tedious at all costs. That's it then. I will surround myself in the warm glow of the charming and eschew the tedious for the rest of my days. I don't see any problem with that do you?

Well Dear
(email to my good-lady-wife)

You just about lost me.

Five minutes ago I was cutting out the cupboard floor to make way for the new dishwasher. I stopped about 3 inches from the end. I'm not sure why, but I thought what if the last guy just fished the electrical line through the floor and not in the wall.
I couldn't see anything.

Anyway I ripped the floor up and discovered that I had just started to tear the plastic off of the electrical line with the saw!
Another second and KAPOW! So today is my lucky day. I just stopped and hugged Ridley and I just wanted to tell you that I love you.

Oh, and did I mention that I found an electrical line to hook up the dishwasher.

REBIRTHING THE DEATH PENALTY

As a prelude to this tirade I must inform you that I am a softy at heart: I melt around puppies, shamelessly weep during sad movie scenes, enjoy sharing the planet with people who are charming and those that are tedious. The part of our society where all of my warm fuzzies evaporate is our needless molly-coddling of murderers, child molesters and rapists. Now I freely admit that the gross inadequacies of our Legal System, (it ain't Justice) prevent us from providing wholesale executioning of all deserving recipients, but we could atleast keep the real monsters locked up!

Now that improvements in DNA testing has exposed so many outrageous miscarriages of justice and freed wrongly imprisoned victims, it seems as though it's too risky to execute genetic dead-end scumbags. Since executing innocents is not acceptable, the solution to eliminating the deserving with extreme prejudice is to repair the system.
Why not start with the obvious, that the current premise of the entire system is upside down. That it is the victim who has been wronged and not the poor criminal.

I just read an article by David Griffin, executive officer of the Canadian Professional Police Association. In the piece he exposes the gross incompetence of our system in dealing with Conrad Brossard. This guy was sentenced to 7 YEARS in '96 for armed robbery and attempted rape, 4 years later while on parole(?) murdered Andre Lahaise and got LIFE. Then in 1980 while out on a day pass(?) escaped and stabbed Marc Lappiere 13 times and left him for dead. For that Brossard received 23 more YEARS. Seven years later Brossard was moved to a halfway house(?) where he attempted another murder! Despite all of that the National Parole Board again released him to another halfway house in 2002(?) and he murdered Cecile Clement who he had met at the nursing home where he worked(!?!?!?!?!)
If that guy isn't the poster child for capitol punishment who is?

If you're still thinking about phoning Susan Sarandon and sending her over to my house let's try this. Hypothetically, a violent career psychopath, while out on parole, is caught on video torturing and murdering a busload of nuns, orphans and a John Howard Society stenographer on their way to Disneyland. Gotcha! OK, this guy is basically a waste of amino acids with zero chance of being rehabilitated and is guarateed to reoffend. Why don't we mercifully put him down and harvest his organs (not the brain obviously) instead of providing room and board, (until early parole), three squares a day, a university education and time to pen a lucrative memoir all at a cost to the taxpayer of $100 grand a year! Come to think of it crash test dummies cost about $100 grand, Hmm.

You cannot argue that the most popular movies are the Revenge films with Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis and Seagal. They don't molly coddle the perps, they right the wrong in unimaginably satisfying fashion. The whole audience collectively yells YEAH! when the lead villain is exterminated. People are so frustrated with the status quo that they need this escape and film writers know it.

I'll tell you what, as our society greys with the aging Baby Boomers blooming into full potential victim mode, then law enforcement will percolate back to the top of politicians' agendas. Rich doddering boomers congregating like exposed defenseless penquins on an iceflow will require massive armies of cops to protect them. Random muggings will become as rare as unicorns. The ratio of security enforcement providers to penquins will be multiplied exponentially. You think I'm kidding? Just wait.

It seems self evident that the gap between the Rich and the Poor is returning to historical equilibriums. The wealthy will abandon the emerging in utter despair and reluctantly retreat to a well deserved (we tried) gilded new age of Entitlement. Futurists are correct in assuming the inevitable emergence of totalitarian Big Brother type scenarios as the desperate solution to our failing laissez faire approach to crime and punishment. As the citizens age and lose confidence in the legal system they will eventually force parlimentarians to legislate whatever it takes to keep them safe. That will probably entail enacting tougher penalties and stiffer sentencing, more prisons and less parole, empowered cops and limiting the legal options of psychotic killers. The ultimate act will be resurrecting the death penalty to skim the scum off of the shallow end of the gene pool.

Judges, defense lawyers and parole board members don't live next door to the miscreants that they parole. They and their families rarely encounter these human time-bombs because they are safely ensconced in their upscale enclaves. Until the upper echelon of the legal system are attacked on a daily basis the status quo will remain de rigeur. Violent offenders will be paroled to make room for the next wave and continue to wreak havoc in our society. Killers will keep spinning the revolving doors of the system. When the wrong people become their prey the system may begin to right itself.

The death penalty debate is bit of a sticky wicket because some of us don't want to play god. Some people believe that it is wrong to terminate the life of an asshole who would strangle their toddler, rape their daughter or mutilate their spouse in a heartbeat. Public opinion polls show that nearly 70% still support capitol punishment. People will do anything to get out of jury duty but there would be a waiting list to get on the execution duty roster.

If you were shipwrecked on an island with your family and Charlie Manson washed up one dark stormy evening what would you do?Would you acquiesce and passively hand over your precious cargo to the monster?Would you try to reform him and integrate him into your microcosmic society? NO! You would grab the nearest rock because you cannot afford to gamble with the lives of your loved ones.

Public servants are careless and wasteful when they handle your money simply because Hey it's not our money! The same may be said for the way they handle your psycopaths. Would the revolving door still spin if halfway houses were established next door to parole board members, judges, and defense lawyers ?

THE WHATEVERPEG K'VETCHN CENTRE

I recently had a Rosetta Stone dropped on my head.
You may remember that the Rosetta Stone unlocked the secrets of the Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

The Stone contained 2 languages, Egyptian and Greek, that were written in 3 scripts, Hieroglyphic, Demotic Egyptian and Greek. Because Greek was well known the stone was the key to deciphering the Hieroglyphs.

While trying to decipher the conundrum of Winnipeg's historic struggle to reinvent the 'Downtown' I realised that the key (Rosetta Stone) is to unlock the mystery of the citizens rabid resistance to change!

Why does Winnipeg have such a small town mentality and why are we perceived by the world as cheapskate complainers?

WEATHER-PEG:
During the last century as the Western World transformed from an Agriculture based Economy, Rural to Urban, we were infiltrated by disgruntled farmers who reluctantly vacated farms and small towns.

Farmers only go into town when they have to so downtown redevelopment is of little concern to them.
This also explains our unnatural-unstoppable- unrelenting-obssession with the weather.

I realise that Farming is intrinsically at the mercy of Mother Nature (btw all of my ancestors were farmers) but now Winnipeggers are famous for disseminating the extreme climatic conditions of our city to the entire world....

It's too HOT!
too COLD!

OR too DRY! ....too WET!







too much SNOW not enough SNOW for the crops!
What crops? You live in the city now? Do you mean your front lawn?

WHOLESALE-PEG:
Three groups that have been historically dogged by vicious and completely unsubstantiated rumors about being notoriously parsimonious or splurge-challenged are the Scots, the Mennonites and the Jews.

This city was settled by the first group, enthusiastically supports the single largest collection of Mennonites on Earth, and hosts the third largest Jewish community in Canada.

If, like myself, you are a member or related to a member who proudly proclaims their heritage with one of these groups laugh now...
if you are not, in order to remain politically correct, you are obligated to write a thousand word essay on the positive contributions made by all of the above.

Of course these fine citizens can't take all of the credit.
The various ethnocentricies of all of our other citizens can help to explain plastic guarded sofas, factory outlet malls and gigantic backyard gardens that grow more produce than is stocked at your local grocery store.

Ok smarty-pants, maybe you can tell me why Winnipeg doesn't have an IKEA store, NHL team, or why free weekend parking downtown doesn't even draw shoppers. The day that all of the parking at the FORKS is finally metered is the day that they can kiss it all goodbye!

WHINER-PEG:
This is a big small town!
Everybody knows somebody that you know somehow! If you have ever lived in a small town (I have) then you understand that community standards are enforced through the miraculous powers of gossip and shunning.

On top of that, Winnipeggers kvetch (Yiddish for complain), whine and generally carry on about anything and everything. Mosquitoes..Weather...Potholes..the Heat...the Cold...Cyclists...Snow Plowing...the Jets...Weather...Transit...9-term City Councillors..did I mention the Weather?

The truth of the matter is that we want it to stay small and not lose any of the idiosyncratic pleasures that gossip, shunning, and kvetching provide.


WHATEVERPEG KVETCHN' CENTRE:
Let us refurbish and rebrand our existing convention centre into the world's largest small town coffee shop where the locals can kvetch, complain, rant and rave about the whole city goin' to hell in a handbasket while enjoying the heavily government subsidized coffee and donuts.

Here the weather can be discussed until the cows come home.
We must continue to tell the world how awful this place is, and the weather..don't get me started! Hopefully nobody else will ever want to move here and that is exactly what we want! We love this place and we don't want it to change.

So we are shunning the world in the hope that nothing ever changes...
whatever!

McEUTHANISING OLD FOLKS!

In a final rush to find funding for crap like miracle cures for every known cause of death, the Baby Boomers will no doubt invent drive-thru recycling stations, cleverly disguised as restaurants, to facilitate the physical and spiritual relocation of their penny pinching parents to the great hereafter!


Why not?
The Soylent Green Restaurant (Google Charlton Heston Films if you must) could help feed the Rest-Of-The-World with plump pensioners.

Forget the old fashioned send-off, the trillions of dollars wasting away in savings accounts need to be rescued and funerals are frickin expensive.


"Well, here's that fancy schmancy restaurant Dad..
Why don't you go in and find us a seat...
I'll find a place to park...OK..
watch your head Pop...
there is the entrance Dad...
yes that door....see those guys in the white suits...
they must be the cooks...
yes they do look happy to see you too..OK.....
Be there in a minute....Bye now.....
KACHING!"

Please drive forward and collect your receipt..
Thank You and Have a Nice Day.

The great Demographic Dumpsite known as the Baby Boom is now forced to face the reckoning of imminent death. The real Boomers have hit 60 (like Mick Jagger) and even though most of them still have parents shuffling around somewhere, the media that has always catered to their every hiccough, will begin a mind numbing obssession with death!

It's hard to ignore this glut of hedonists because their sheer numbers have affected everything in our society from the current (unrealistic and unsustainable) real estate values to all of those crappy Hollywood remakes. As if that is not enough now society will be forced to prepare Boomers for the great unknown. So get ready for a deluge of spiritual psychobabble and supernatural malarchy about what is waiting for us in the afterlife. The Boomers will have to make death their own somehow!

Let's face it, the Boomers need to analyze and encapsulate their magnificent march to mediocrity so that all future generations can romanticise their 'reign of error'. Puh-leeze! Every aspect of the Boomers has been catalogued ad nauseum.

How could we forget:

WW2 to Wonder Years:
the GIs come home and everybody has a ton of kids as America eagerly maintains the Cold War for economic purposes. Pleasantville is embedded as the zeitgeist (spirit of the day) despite lingering annoyances like segregation.

Woodstock to Wall Street:
Entitled '50s consumerism produces '60s Hippys who accidentally transform society by tuning out with the novel concepts of sex, drugs and rock and roll. Unfortunately excessive self exploration through psychopharmaceutical methods succumb to reality in '68 with the assassinations of King and Kennedy.



Then the '60s WE generation turns into the '70s ME generation and the Neo Dark Ages engulf a Watergate Wasteland of Disco and Designer Jeans.

Greed becomes Good as the Hippy morphs into the '80s Yuppy and a pseudo Echo-Pleasantville emerges under the new I-Like-Ike father figure of Ronald (Raygun) Reagan.

Whoops! Then in the 90s with Daddy's cold war in the history section of the library, Globalisation, or global-isolation finally breaks through the veneer of the New World.

Oh oh. Now the Rest-Of-The-World wants to live in Pleasantville with all of the bells and whistles that the Boomers have taken for granted during the last fifty years. "Sorry Rest-Of-The-World but there just isn't enough EARTH for that to happen.

Could you maybe postpone this unpleasantness until we finish our freedom 55 early retirement. We're sort of busy right now waiting to inherit our parents accumulated wealth and then spending it on vacation homes.

Can you believe our parents actually saved money, GAWD! Hey if it wasn't for us our parents wouldn't have made all of that money in the first place!

We made our parents rich. Supply and Demand BABY! Lots of us and few of them. Plus all the Boomers got divorced so they had to find twice as many homes! Supply and Demand BABY!"

"It is a bummer that the Echo-Boomers or Gen-X-Y- Zers (whoever they are?) now have to pay $250,000 for a house that their grandparents bought for $15,000 in 1962 and their parents bought for $50,000 in 1982.

Oh well, when the Boomers start dying off, housing demand will collapse and homes will be affordable again."

The Boomers will continue to overcompensate themselves with Viagra, Vacation Homes, Visions and Vanity Plates for as long as it is medically possible. The next generations are faced with tidying up all of the nostalgic hyperbole, unfinished social restructuring and supersized global issues.

The year is 2020, in the dim light of their laptops, Gen Xers, Yers and Zers (whoever they are?)devise a strategy of their own for acquiring affordable housing, why reinvent the wheel, try one of these three time tested methods:

A.waiting for their Boomer parents to die (old school!)
B. warehousing their parents (nah)
C. recycling their Parents with something that they cooked up for the grandparents! It's humane, eco-friendly and politically correct. The Soylent Green Restaurant. Don't forget their convenient drive-thru, open 24 hours.