An open letter to Jordan Peterson.

Dear Dr. Peterson:

I admire your work. I do not worship you or credit you with improving my life, but I do admire you. This is largely because I love the way you make your detractors look foolish and your critics look incompetent and misguided. Mostly, though, I like you because the people who loath you are typically people who I feel are deserving of my loathing. I smirked when I wrote that, but it is true. Those who hate you are enemies of truth, logic and humanity itself and, therefore, my enemies.

That said, I have a question for you.

I would first refer to two incidences where you were engaged in public discourse.

In one case, you were on a panel and a female member of the audience asked something about making a difference in the world. You responded by saying that people need to make sure their own house (lives) are in order before trying to change the world. She didn’t like that.

Second, you were involved in a debate with some black, race-baiter who called you an “angry white man”. In response, you asked him how much, precisely, in percentages, would your success be attributed to your skin colour – 50%, 60%, 70% (I am paraphrasing).

So, my question, combining these two viewpoints, is: How much, precisely, does a person have to have their lives in order before getting involved with matters that involve the community and humanity? 80%, 90%, 100%?

Certainly, a person’s life is multi-faceted and it is not a simple matter to judge whether, in total, one’s life is in order. For example, a person could be happily married but financially challenged; or successful financially but in a marriage that needs work; or, be financially secure, have a wonderful happy family but the bed is unmade, there are dishes in the sink and dust on the furniture; or maybe the house is clean, the person is happily married with a boat load of money and no debt, but inexplicably depressed.

You see where I am coming from with this. If we were to take the many elements that make up a person's life, we’d need a spread sheet to track exactly the degree to which their life is “in order” and then extrapolate, based on an established set of standards as to whether he/she is worthy of going out into the world to support the public causes that they deem important. Some people may never deem themselves worthy even though the causes they would champion desperately need people to fight for them.

For example, maybe a person’s life needs improvement, but the local school is forcing trans ideology down little children’s throats. Should that person, then, stay at home and try to figure out what is wrong with their personal lives to the exclusion of fighting against the indoctrination of small children? Or maybe a person wants desperately to have their voice heard in defense of freedom and bodily autonomy.

Personally, I wouldn’t care what a person’s non-criminal, personal travails were as long as they were fighting against far-left, globalist, marxist ideologies (God knows, the monsters who are trying to destroy our societies will be fighting for their evil objectives regardless of their personal situation).

I, therefore, wonder whether it is advisable, in these troubled times, for anyone to delay standing up publicly for what is right for any reason. Too much self-reflection and not enough public action could yield some pretty horrific results.

I hope I made some sense there. You are beacon of hope in what is becoming an increasingly lost world. Love and kind regards to you and yours.

COVID And Vaccines - Was Anything Actually True?

Can you give me a list of things the authorities told you about the so-called pandemic and the COVID mRNA injections that turned out to be true? Certainly, our trustworthy Medical and Government masters would never tell us untruths, so this should be easy. So, while you think about this, I can mention several things that you can take off your list - things that were said that turned out to be untrue.

 Two weeks to “flatten the curve”.

This was the first big whopper of a lie. The majority of folks prone to doing whatever those in authority tell them, eagerly lapped it up and dutifully suspended their lives while looking with hate filled eyes at anyone who resisted. Then two weeks turned into two years and the resistors appeared to be right. Cognitive Dissonance, however, prevented the lock-down enthusiasts from acknowledging this.

The COVID virus did NOT originate in a lab but, rather, through the consumption of bats

It has been clearly established that the virus did indeed originate in a bio-lab in Wuhan. And yet those who suggested this in the initial stages of the pandemic were unjustifiably vilified and demonized. It is believed that this is because Fauci was involved with increasing the potency and deadliness of viruses at the lab and did not want anyone to know. 

Vaccines are the only way out of this pandemic.

While saying this, medical authorities were busy banning Ivermectin as an early treatment for COVID and dismissing the fact that vitamin D promotes a healthy immune system as “fake news”. Since then, even though large studies in such places as Japan and India showed that Ivermectin was an effective early treatment for COVID, health authorities continued to ensure that it remained unavailable. Sadly, it appears that the reason we accepted that vaccines were the only alternative in fighting COVID was because the real alternatives were taken off the table and denied us. 

One shot is all you’ll need / the vaccines will give lifetime immunity

“One shot Summer”; “One and Done” -  words said confidently by experts and other very influential people. And we have seen just how that played out. Some people have since had 5 doses and still obliviously line up for more. People have apparently lost their minds.   

The vaccines are safe and effective.

This was, perhaps, the biggest whopper of them all. It was not long after they made this claim that they revealed that the efficacy of the injections waned after a period of months and more would have to be administered. This is hardly an example of effectiveness. And as for safety, we should defer to the multitude of people who have seen loved ones be horribly maimed and disabled as well as die and ask them how safe they feel the vaccinations are. Also, there were four vaccines to start – Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Astra Zenica, but soon after release the J & J and AZ shots were withdrawn after they were linked to deadly blood clots. Safe? I think not. 

I will never implement a divided society

Ontario Premier, Doug Ford, promised to never segregate the vaccinated from the vaccine-free, only to renege on his promise. Health care workers, teachers, paramedics, Police, Fire and many in the private sector were coerced into getting the jab over threats of losing their livelihoods. Further, the vaccine-free were denied entry to restaurants, bars, theaters, concerts and a host of other public gathering places.  This sounds a lot like segregation to me 

Take the vaccines and you will never contract COVID or be able to spread it

How many times have we heard that said by high-profile mouth pieces – everyone from Rachel Maddow to Joe Biden. And people took these statements to heart only to watch a Pfizer official testify on camera that they never tested the vaccine for transmission. Saying that the vaccines prevented spread has proven to be a very egregious mistruth and no one at Pfizer came forward at the time to correct the misstatements. We can only speculate as to why. I’m sure profit had nothing to do with it.

Get the vaccines or you will kill grandma

See above. Vaccinated people were as much at risk of killing Grandma as the vaccine-free. And as a result, many people were blackmailed into getting injected just so they could visit their aging parents and grandparents. And many aged relatives died alone because their offspring recognized the danger and were not willing to be coerced into taking the experimental gene-therapy shots. In essence, government caused these poor souls to die alone in isolation.

Children should be vaccinated

In a Senate hearing in the USA, Fauci admitted that there is not a scintilla of scientific evidence supporting giving kids boosters. 

The vaccine-free are misogynist and racist

There are few worse names a person could be called in present-day Canada than a woman-hater or someone who hates minorities. When Trudeau made this statement, he proved himself a despicable hatemonger who was willing to throw a considerable percentage of Canadians under the bus to pursue his horribly divisive and ugly agenda. And not one of his bought-off, mainstream media outlets called him on it.

Vaccine induced immunity is far more effective than natural immunity

Not only has this been proven to be untrue, multiple vaccines, administered on a never ending, continuing schedule would be necessary for the vaccinated to remain in any way immune, whereas natural immunity has always been considered to be for life.

Masks are an effective way to reduce transmission

Studies have shown that the masks that people typically wear – i.e., disposable masks and cloth masks – serve limited to little purpose in preventing transmission. They are certainly not “effective”.

The Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines have been thoroughly tested.

Then why, as stated above, were two widely promoted vaccines withdrawn after proving dangerous? In truth, vaccines take many years to go through short, mid and long-term studies.  Further, even if there was testing going on for years, only nine-months had elapsed between the outbreak of the virus and the time the vaccines started to be injected into people’s bodies. This is, supposedly, the time it took to isolate the virus, develop an effective vaccine specific to the virus and manufacture and distribute billions of doses. Imagine the logistics of such an endeavour. It defies imagination, unless the vaccines were already produced and sitting somewhere until an opportunity to be distributed presented itself, which is a troubling thought.   

Have you made your list?

If you can come up with anything, I’ll be impressed because there are very few, if any, statements and promises made about the pandemic and the vaccines that turned out to be true. Many were sanctimonious platitudes. Some were out-right lies designed to get us all vaccinated. I hate to fall back on a cliche that became popular during the pandemic amongst those whose critical thinking abilities remained uncompromised by the endless propaganda: ‘The vaccines were not rolled out because of COVID; COVID was rolled out because of the vaccines’. And the more we learn, the more likely this appears to be. 

A Fairy Tale About Journalists

Once upon a time in another world, a world far, far away - not this world, a different, fictitious, one - there were Journalists. Some worked in print, some in radio, some in TV and some published online. These were ethical, honest men and women. They spent their lives pursuing the truth and then shared those truths, no matter how unpleasant, with the public. Sometimes they put themselves at risk to do so. Many were relentless and self-sacrificing in their desire to serve the public good. They never compromised their principals. They were the backbone of their democracies.

Then, something happened.

There was this virus, see? A pandemic. And vaccines were developed to combat that virus.

The Journalists, in their zeal to protect the public from this deadly virus, endlessly promoted the vaccines as the only way to end the pandemic. Indeed, they believed it was. Drugs like Ivermectin were dismissed as ‘horse paste’ and the benefits of Vitamin D in boosting the immune system were dismissed as ‘fake news’. Many, many people took the vaccines having faith in the Journalists they trusted.

Some of the Journalists, however, on their time off while at home, began to do some research of their own and what they found was troubling. There were, it seems, many distinguished and accomplished medical and scientific experts who were raising alarms about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines. They were saying that there were considerable risks in taking the new injections which they said were based on an experimental mRNA technology, never before used widespread on humans. Furthermore, it appeared that these experts were being banned and censored even by their medical regulatory bodies.

The more curious of the Journalists did more research and started to believe what the vaccine critics were saying. They went to their superiors and provided the information they had found with the intention of sharing it with their readers/viewers/listeners so as to provide balance to the narrative so educated decisions could be made. Astoundingly, they were not just met with arguments against their proposal, they were told, in no uncertain terms, not to mention, no matter how briefly, any information that was not 100% supportive of vaccines.

Some had no problem with this; others were deeply troubled, especially when excess death rates skyrocketed, young people developed heart problems, healthy athletes started dropping dead in the middle of games and sudden deaths by unknown causes became common.

“These things never happened before” they thought to themselves and again went to their superiors asking if they could work this disturbing information into a story. This time the response was even more direct. They were told that they would be fired if any of that information was made public and they would never work in any media again. 

This was, of course, an opportunity to do what Journalists are supposed to do – serve the public and tell the truth.

None ever did.

After all, they had mortgages, children to support and lifestyles to maintain. So, none of them spoke of it publicly. Even when people kept becoming disabled and dying.

None. Of. Them.

In fact, it was worse than that. Not only did they never speak of what they strongly felt were the deadly effects of the vaccines, they kept eagerly promoting it publicly, urging people to take more and more shots and promoting hatred towards those who didn’t.

'The unvaccinated should be imprisoned” they said. “Let them die in the gutters” others said. The mantra of “The unvaccinated should be denied healthcare” echoed throughout the main-stream media. “The unvaccinated are misogynists and racists” the Marxist leader of one unfortunate nation screamed.

There was no one to speak for those maimed and killed by these unknown causes which, for some curious reason, never existed before the vaccines were rolled out.

In the end, when the dust settled, the number of disabled and dead kept rising as did the number of vaccines sold.

And guess what also rose – the number of Journalists warning the public of dire consequences if they failed to take the vaccines. Not a single Journalist was fired. “You will kill Grandma” they screamed. “How can you be so uncaring” they shouted as their campaign of shame ramped up and up and up.

But, take heart, mortgages were paid, children got the latest i-phones, fancy restaurant dinners were consumed, and nice vacations were embarked upon by members of the most ethical profession in the world. (Not our world, remember. A different, fictitious, world.)

And fewer and fewer people lived happily ever after.

The End?

 

So, How Do You Like Victimhood So far?

We are afraid. Fear is what defines us as a society. The press emphasize it every day. So do politicians. Victims rights advocates are everywhere pointing their fingers and going tut tut. Emotionally soft soccer moms and dads peer fearfully from their comfy suburban homes and quiver in their fuzzy slippers.

Being a victim is like a badge of honour here in soft, sensitive, socialist Canada. Just purse your lips, lay the back of one hand against your forehead and point the finger of your other hand at your victimizer. Presto, the politicians are there empathizing with you and the press is there with their mics and cameras. You are a celebrity.

Children have been bullying each other since time immorial. Now, all of a sudden, it’s a national tragedy that we all, as a society, must come together to solve. Never mind that bullying is a right of passage for children – a way for them to learn about resilience, courage and self preservation. After all, everyone knows that the best way to defeat a bully is to stand up to him/her. It’s especially preferable to kick the snot out of them. And the victims who do, grow in character and become stronger and more self confident. Of course this is not what our society teaches children. Never are they told to stand up for themselves. Rather they are told to embrace their victimhood and run to others for help. And of course, as is always the case, others – the education, justice and welfare systems - coddle the perpetrator and disregard and disempower the victim. It often seems like they care more for the bully than they do the victim. But that’s to be expected from a system that considers all perpetrators as victims themselves, who have no responsibility for their own actions and can always blame society for whatever mean, spiteful inclinations they may have.

All poor people are victims too. Victims of our heartless capitalist system. Just try and find a media story that asks a homeless person what he has done to rise out of poverty. Never are any of these people expected to do what humans have done since time immemorial and pull themselves out of poverty by trying harder. Always they are cast as helpless victims of a society that has abandoned its responsibilities for them. In reality, with the exception of the disabled and mentally ill, it is they who have abandoned their responsibilities to society. They are the ones who victimize society by demanding that we take responsibility for their lives so that they may be saved from the effort.

Here in Canada, victims are everywhere and they get way too much attention and regard. Often they are either victims of their own laziness or they are soft, overly sensitive people who fall victim to their own neurotic sense of offense or entitlement.

A while ago, a woman launched a class action against a tattoo parlor in Oshawa whose sterilization tools were 2 degrees below the required temperature. When the story broke, public health officials, in an attempt to justify their existence, fell over themselves drawing it into the public eye. The victim doesn't even know if she contracted anything. Many patrons of the tattoo parlor have been tested negative for any inflictions like HIV or Hepatitis results so far. The victim, however, is suing for mental duress. These days you don't have to come to any harm to sue, you just have to be worried that you've come to harm and the lawyers and assorted victim’s lobby groups run to see who can reach the victim’s validation finish line first.

I once read about a thief who broke into a family’s garage while they were away. He got locked in and spent a week eating dog food before the family finally returned and let him loose. He sued and won a settlement for emotional duress. I’m not kidding. These days, even burglars whose schemes are inadvertently thwarted by their own incompetence are considered victims by the courts and entitled to financial compensation.

Another time a drunk party goer dove from the top floor of his party host’s home into the pool. Apparently the host had stopped him several times before he escaped unnoticed to the top floor and dove. He broke his neck and sued. And guess what? He won a huge settlement. After all, we couldn’t expect him to be responsible for his own actions, could we?

And we wonder why the radicals are secure in their belief that our society can be toppled. Seems to me that they may be right. We have become vulnerable and soft in our world of plenty. Never do we look to ourselves for answers to our problems or blame ourselves when we do something stupid and fail. Why should we when there is always a politician, reporter or judge at hand to blame someone else.

However, in the victim hunt game, no one is better at exploiting our irrational feelings of victimhood than politicians. They thrive on making us all believe that we are victims of something or other. It’s how they convince us that we need them. It’s how they remain relevant to us. At election time they prance around promising to devictimize us all. Parents who can’t take care of their own children are told that they are victims of a society that does not pay for their children’s daycare. Mothers whose children were conceived through voluntary sex with an irresponsible man with no prospects are told that they have been victimized by him. People who become addicted to booze, drugs, gambling or even sex are told that they have been victimized by a disease and that they, as individuals, are not responsible for their own actions. Laid off auto workers are victims of a government that has not done enough to preserve their jobs. People on waiting lists for subsidized housing are told that they are being victimized by a government that will not build more housing for them. Shooting victims in welfare housing are told that more government funded basketball courts and community programs would have prevented their plight. Kids who drop out of school are told that they are victims of a system that is not giving them the right opportunities.

Whatever problems we have are not our fault, they are always caused by the last government and can be solved if only we elect a new government. Therein lies the fraudulent staple of our democratic political system. And we have bought into it hook line and sinker.

Never are we told that we live in a free and democratic society. Never are we told that our problems can often be solved by making smarter decisions, holding our heads high and pressing on. Always we are told that it is someone else’s fault and if only we had more government help and intervention everything will be alright. After all, what politician in his right mind would ask people to try harder. Don’t we elect governments to do more for us and save us from the pesky responsibility of trying harder? After all, who the hell wants to try harder? We’re way too busy surfing the net, downloading songs or videos, doing selfies tracking the lives of Harry and Megan or other unimportant sports stars or celebrities.

Well, sorry to tell you, but it’s all a crock. People will always fail. And sometimes it’s because they made bad personal decisions and didn’t try hard enough. Sometimes, bad things just happen to them through no fault of others. Of course, we will never hear this simple truth from politicians or the press. After all, they have a vested interest in making us all feel like the victims of others so that we look to them for our salvation. It’s how they make their living and perpetuate their own existence.

More Stuff - Less of What Matters

Every generation of adults deserves to be able to tell their kids and grandkids how much better off they are. It’s like a god given right, or one of Darwin’s main theories, or something.

........Cut to the toothless old man sitting in the rocking chair gumming an old pipe while the kids sit around him on the floor: “You kids got it pretty good these days. You got nothin’ to complain about. Why, when I was a young-un, I used to walk 6 miles to school, in minus 20 degree weather through 8 foot high snow drifts….…..barefoot.”

Yep, the old refrain. No adult should be deprived of the pleasure of saying it and no kid should be deprived of the pleasure of rolling their eyes at it. (Or, at least a variation of it.)

It’s a right of passage – a proud tradition. It’s not about shaming the younger generation. It’s about expressing pride in our advancement and development as a society – the pride of actually being able to provide our offspring with a better life than we had. And indeed, here in Canada, every generation since the great depression has been better off than the one before. Every generation, that is, except the current one.

When I tell my 11 year old daughter about what it was like to be a kid in the sixties and seventies when I was growing up, she sighs and expresses her regret that she didn’t get to experience it. And, I can’t help but feel sorry for her. Her world is different. It’s harsher, faster, more superficial, way more sexual and far more materialistic than mine was when I was her age. It’s also full of strangers.

Earlier this year, my six year old came up to me and said “Daddy, do you know what the white boy in my class said to me.” I said: “White boy? …Hmmmmm……..How many white boys are there in your class?” “One” she answered.

Yep, it’s a brave new world out there for Canada’s founding peoples.

And not only do our children have to struggle to try and understand how to fit in as a fringe minority in their own schools and neighbourhoods, they have to do it with hardly any family to support them. Many of them are the only child born to their parents. Many of their parents were an only child themselves. This means that many kids have no uncles, aunts or cousins. Their families are smaller and there are fewer people in the world connected to them by blood who can offer a sense of belonging, comfort and protection. I can’t even imagine having no family, and yet this is the fate we have bequeathed to our children – a familyless future as they grow old. And it will be even worse for their children as this pattern of white extinction plays out.

When I was 13, I would bound out of the house early Saturday morning, run or bike up the street, find my friends and play with them all day. I knew everyone on our street. Sometimes I wouldn’t even make it home for lunch. And my mother never gave it a second thought. She never told me to be careful as I left. She never did anything to street-proof me. There was no reason to be concerned. The neighbourhood wasn’t a place to be feared, it was a place to live. And live I did. In trees, in fields, in ravines, in bushes - wherever I felt like being at the time. We’d take the trail through the woods and go swimming in the lake, with *gasp* no adults present. When I rode in the car I’d ride in the back, no seatbelt, with my chin on the front seat visually drinking in everything - part of the action. I’d take my bike on 10k trips with my buddies deep into the countryside. I was on the go all the time and that was that. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be when you’re a kid? Why would any parent agonize over something so natural – so right?

Compare that with today. Good-grief, most parents are quivering, neurotic basket cases when it comes to worrying about their precious children. As a result children are given far less freedom than I had growing up. And they have far less fun too. I don’t know why, or when, we became a culture dominated by fear and worry for our children. All I know is that our children are worse off and their world has become smaller and less welcoming because of it.

Sometimes, when I have a day off, I walk my kids to school or go get ‘em for lunch. Their school serves a pretty densely populated neighbourhood. No-one lives more than a half a kilometer away from the school. And yet you would not believe the number of kids who get a drive to school. Instead of walking with friends or classmates, these often pudgy kids travel separate and apart from everyone in their own little self-contained metal and glass bubble. And we wonder why kids are so self-absorbed these days. Hell, even if I had the time to drive my kids to school everyday, I’d make ‘em walk anyway. Not only is it good for them physically and socially, it’s good emotionally for them to understand that Dad is not their personal chauffer. And while they trudged off to school, I’d be able to finish my morning coffee in peace and chuckle about how so many parents these days cater to their children like subservient toadies.

A few generations ago, parental love meant providing kids with comfort when they were hurting, advice when they were confused, food when they were hungry, a warm coat when they were cold and a good smack on the ass when they deserved it. Children learned appreciation, humility and respect. These days parental love is measured in how much stuff they buy their kid(s). It’s a compensatory measure, I think, to assuage mom’s guilt for having to (or, in some cases, choosing to) work. Whatever the case, kids these days got it all. Well, not quite all, as is demonstrated anytime a parent takes the little blighter(s) out. “Gimme, gimme, gimme….Can I, can I, can I…..I want, I want, I want……” TVs, laptops, cell phones, the latest fashions, junk food.…My god, they’re like little versions of government - no matter how much money they suck out of you, they can always find a reason to demand more. Then they waste what you give them on selfish frivolities.

And the endless commercials and ads targeting kids doesn’t help. When I was a kid, there were no ads for toys on TV except for at Christmas time. It’s almost impossible to imagine, isn’t it. Compare that with today. Now, toys are advertised on TV every frikken day. When once kids could expect presents only at Christmas and birthdays, now, they expect them twice a month, or more oftener. And, many of them aren’t often disappointed.

Sadly, though, no matter how you slice it, my children’s lives are far less rich and considerably less fulfilling than mine was when I was their age. I suspect most parents feel the same. Kids have so much more than we did in the way of material possessions and yet so much less in the way of satisfaction, contentment, optimism and freedom.

I figure I’ll never get to give my version of the ‘six mile barefoot walk through snow to school’ spiel to my kids. It is, after all, a parable about how things were so much worse when I was a kid. For it to sound authentic, I’d have to believe that my kids are somehow better off than I was at their age. I’d have to actually feel a certain level of pride and accomplishment at the ‘better’ life I was leaving them. Sadly, all I feel is a mild sense of pessimism. Oh well, maybe my kids don’t have as much in the way of personal freedom, individuality or spontaneity as past generations did. And maybe they don't have as many adventures as I did growing up. But there is that new I-phone they’ve been asking for. A quick trip to Costco and everyone will feel a lot more optimistic, I’m sure. At least ‘till tomorrow.

Being a Breeder is Fun

It all happened so fast. One moment I’m a carefree single guy, playing in a rock band, drinking copious amounts of beer with nary a thought for the future – the next moment I’m married with two kids, working in an office and planning for my retirement.

What the hell happened?

Lately my hair started thinning out. Crap. I made it to my late forties with all my hair intact, and now, this? Isn’t baldness supposed to happen earlier on in life, like in a man’s twenties or thirties? It’s not fair to let me build up a false sense of smug security about my hair and then pull the plug (no pun intended) like that.

My waistline has also undergone a *ahem* slight fluctuation over the past few years. I used to be as skinny as a 2 x 4, now I’m, well, slight less so. Not fat, mind you, just not skinny. Ah, the changes age brings.

Mentally, though, I’m at my peak. What I lack in memory or attention span, I make up for in experience, wisdom, and emotional maturity. Thank heavens for that. It takes all the intellectual and emotional energy I can muster to stay on top of this ‘breeder’ gig.

Being a breeder might be fun, but it’s not always easy. For one thing, years ago, everyone was a breeder. Breeders had lots of company. These days, it’s a lot different. There are a lot of non-breeders around. And they have a lot more free time, disposable cash and material stuff than us breeders. Sometimes I feel jealous. All those exotic trips and restaurant meals; doing what they want when they want; being able to get-it-on with each other in any room in the house anytime of day or night without worrying about little peering eyes and curious ears - what a life.

But there are benefits to being a breeder. For one thing, if nuclear Armageddon were to happen tomorrow and the food supply were to run out, I could always cook and eat the kids. That’s a huge benefit right there. What price can you put on survival anyway? And they say that childhood obesity is a bad thing. Not if you’re a parent facing starvation it isn’t. In that case, it’s an extra week of life.

Aside from being a good source of nutrition, children can also be an unending source of entertainment. It’s all a matter of approaching this parenting thing in a creative manner.

In my household, the adults never stop laughing. Last evening at supper, for example, I plopped down heaping plates of asparagus, turnip and brussel sprouts in front of the kids and then sat across from them noisily eating a huge chocolate bar and bowl of ice cream. Well, you should have seen their faces. The wails were amusing, but it was the tears that really cracked me up – the way they make wet little trails down their little cheeks. I never laughed so hard in all my life.

Without a doubt, the opportunities for levity never end when you have children. Cutting off their phone calls when they are talking to their friends is always good for a howl of indignation from them and a good belly laugh for me. Listening on the extension and then nonchalantly joining in the conversation uninvited is another way to brighten up an otherwise mundane day. And then there’s the ‘turning off the TV in the middle of their favourite show for no particular reason‘ trick. That’s my personal favourite. The begging and pleading is funny, but when they stomp off to their rooms crying and wailing, well, it doesn’t get much better than that.

And we mustn’t forget the greatest invention for parental entertainment ever invented – the computer. It’s so easy for kids to get hooked on it. All the sites and games for children - my kids love ‘em. And so do I. We love email too. Whenever I’m feeling a little down or maybe bored, I just go into one of their accounts and delete a message or two – or maybe the entire email account. Then I hover in the background when the kid comes home from school and logs on. Whooo hooo, what a scene.

My oldest daughter (11) likes going on a website called “Club Penguin”. There, each kid gets to be a penguin character. They talk to each other, play games, earn penguin money and buy pretend stuff. It costs $6 a month to be a member. Last week I suspended her membership and told her that I wouldn’t reactivate it until she cleaned her room, scrubbed the bathroom, vacuumed the living room, did the dishes & laundry and washed the windows. By the time she finished crying, my cheeks were aching from laughing so much. You should see how clean the house is now.

Anyway, as you can probably tell, I’m lovin’ being a breeder. I cannot imagine my life without having those wonderful little people around to brighten my day. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my daughter just loaded her new MP3 player with a few hundred songs. It took her a whole week. And I’ve got the owners manual right here. Let’s see…….deleting songs. ……page 6.

It's a Nannyriffic World

It’s become such an ingrained part of our culture that we don’t even think about it anymore. It’s natural - like a baby crawling. In fact, it’s exactly like a baby crawling, only in reverse. Instead of crawling so we can learn to walk, we have given up walking so we can crawl. And crawl we do, straight to nanny government whenever something bad happens. It has become so much a part of us that it’s practically an involuntary reflex – beyond our conscious control. We don’t even know we’re doing it any more. The doctor taps our knee with a small hammer and our leg jerks upwards. Something unpleasant happens to someone and we reflexively become a pathetic parody of Oliver Twist. Our arms extend outwards towards government, clutching our empty bowls, as we plaintively beg: ‘Please suh, can I ‘ave sum‘ore?”.

Always more, never less. More help; more protection; more safety; more intervention; more intrusive meddling. It’s what we demand and it’s what our almighty government benefactor loves to provide. Day by day, year by year, decade by decade, government does more and more for us and we do less and less for ourselves, our families and each other. Government grows bigger and stronger. We grow smaller and weaker.

The fairy tale maiden used to clutch her chest and sigh “my hero” when the dashing knight vanquished the evil villain. Not any more. Now she struts to the press conference microphone and publicly pouts about how there would be no evil villains in the first place if only our mighty government hero would fund more social programs.

But it wasn’t always this way. Once upon a time, people actually overcame obstacles in their lives without begging government for help. It’s almost impossible to believe. Were we really that unenlightened and regressive as a species? Imagine, actually accepting that, in life, we sometimes have to take the good with the bad. What WERE we thinking? After all, there should be no such thing as ‘bad’. And if there is, it’s the government’s fault for not regulating it away.

Hey parents, need that extra second income so you can buy that 3rd big screen and go to Cuba on vacation? Are the kids getting in your way? Don’t worry. The government will give you state subsidized daycare so Mommy can get out there and do stuff that’s really important and fulfilling, like maybe work in an office or a shopping mall.

Hey University students, are you having to go sober a few nights a week because those nasty tuition fees are eating up all your partying money? Hey, don’t worry, government will cap tuition fees for you and tax the middle class to pay the difference. Pretty cool huh?

Hey girls, is that hot boy ignoring you because he knows you don’t put out? What’s wrong with you? Get horizontal already. There’s nothing to worry about. If you get pregnant, the government will pay for an abortion or, if you decide to keep the baby, it’ll give you a free apartment and monthly welfare cheque, even if your boyfriend lives with you. Now that’s progressive.

Are your elderly parents getting in the way? Are you stressed out at the thought of having to take responsibility for them in their final years? No problem. Just ship them off to a handy-dandy government funded Nursing home and forget about ‘em. They’ll be happy, you’ll be happy and you’ll have a lot more free time to watch reality TV and bitch about how tough life is.

Are you or someone you love dieing of cancer? Never fear. Here in glorious nannyriffic Canada you get health care for free. Yep. You don’t have to do anything for yourself. Just let nanny do it all. Here, take a seat. The doctor will see you in three weeks. The specialist will see you three months from then. Tests will be done next year and treatment should start, oh, sometime between your wake and your funeral. And don’t worry about the cost. It’s all taken care of. Of course you’re not allowed to pay for faster service. That would be unfair to the people who can’t pay. So you’ll just take what nanny gives you and be grateful for it. Here, have some hydromorphone. That’ll take the edge off while you wait.

Our enslavement was inevitable; our freedom fleeting and doomed from the start. Maybe humans were not meant to be free. After all, we have always lived under one form of tyranny or another, whether it was by tribal chiefs, dictators, monarchs, feudal landlords or whatever.

And now look what’s happened. This whacky experiment with democracy and capitalism is hardly a few hundred years old and already it’s starting to unravel. When it started we were free. People knew that freedom was directly linked to personal responsibility and autonomy. Our constitutions protected citizens from the state and enshrined individual rights and freedoms for all. And then what happened? Why, we promptly proceeded to barter away our freedom and autonomy to the state, piecemeal fashion, in exchange for safety and help in managing our lives.

You see, deep down inside, modern people don’t really want to be free. Been there, done that. What they want is to be protected and safe. ‘Risk’ is the new N word - a dirty word that must be expunged from our society. In fact, we have reached the point where taking even a minimal risk can be a crime, punishable in a court of law.

Not wearing a seat belt is stupid. It’s not particularly dangerous, mind you, given that 99.99999% of drivers never get in a serious accident, but stupid none the less. Same with adults who don't wear helmets on bicycles & motor cycles or 'personal floatation devices' (what a moronic term - what the hell was wrong with 'lifejacket'?) on water craft. Stupid - yes. But illegal? Should it really be the government’s job to haul us to court and punish us for making a free and conscious personal decision to take a stupid risk? Geez, if acting stupidly is a crime, why are the women of "The View" still walking the streets?

And speaking of stupid risks - it seems to me that it’s far riskier to have unprotected sex these days. If the government was really interested in protecting us it would punish anyone who engages in sex without a condom. Maybe give ‘em some demerit points on their driver’s licenses or something if they are caught doing it in a car. It seems a little inconsistent to fine someone for not wearing a seatbelt but let them get off scott free when it comes to something as dangerous as not wearing a condom. 

After all, if government insists on being in the business of protecting us from our own indiscretions and bad decisions, it might as well take its role seriously, and start by addressing the proliferation of STDs. After that, it can get on with enforcing the seatbelt laws. It’s simply a matter of setting the right priorities.

Mass Murder and Self Delusion

"THIRTY-THREE DEAD” read the headline as I collected my paper from the doorstep. “Gunman massacres 32 at Virginia Tech University and then kills himself.”

Another day, another madman, I thought to myself, as I made my way to work. And I thought little more of it. No disrespect to the victims or anyone affected by this atrocity. It’s just that I try not to expend time thinking about horrible stuff that is beyond the ability of humans to predict or prevent.

I don’t ask “why” every time something bad happens to strangers. I don’t look for reasons and I don’t look for cures. I just accept it and move on. Maybe it’s because I’m a male and we have the neat ability to compartmentalize stuff. May it’s because I’m an insensitive clod and uncaring lout. Or maybe it’s just because, as I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize that sometimes bad things happen to good people and, quite often, life just isn’t fair.

Sometimes I feel very, very alone. Few others appear to think this way. In fact, everyone seems to think that every problem has a cause and society has an obligation to find that cause and take care of it so nobody else gets hurt.

Most people, it would seem, are not satisfied with simply acknowledging that sh*t happens. They want to examine the sh*t and poke through it looking for small undigested bits of food to analyze. It’s as if they believe that through their analysis they will somehow be able to design a diet that produces sh*t that smells like roses. Sorry folks, but some people turn to sh*t no matter what you feed ‘em. Nothing to see here. Move along.

A gun man goes on a rampage. Gun control fanatics poke their heads out of their grant funded burrows and claim that nothing like this would happen if only we would ban guns. Gun advocates, on the other hand, claim that the killer would have been stopped short if all students were allowed to carry concealed weapons. Anti-drug zealots point to the fact that the killer was on some sort of pharmaceutical. Therapists and psychoanalysts speculate about his childhood. Community activists use the opportunity to demand that the government put more social programs in place. A spokeswoman for some toilet tissue company claims that if the murderer had only wiped his bum more often with their pillow-soft toilet tissue, he never would have been in that ghastly mood to begin with.

And then there’s the famous “reverse blame” trick. The killer was an immigrant from some third world country whose Foreign Minister reportedly expressed condolences and said he hoped that the tragedy would not "stir up racial prejudice or confrontation''. Hmmm, now where have I heard that before? Wait….I know, we hear it from community leaders every time some whacko non-white nut-job kills people here in the West. Apparently it’s all the rage these days whenever there’s an attack by someone of a non-white persuasion to turn it around and pretend to be scared of a backlash. It never happens when the killer is white though and the victims are not. You’d never hear a representative of the white community begging a non-white community to please restrain themselves from “racial prejudice or confrontation”. After all, that would suggest that the non-white folk could actually think racist thoughts. And as we all know, only white folk are like that.

In any event, I digress. Aside from the fascinating social and political overtones that mass murders typically offer, I really don’t think too much about them. And, I firmly believe that trying to figure out 'why' these things happen is often neither useful nor sensible. Punish the perpetrators when these things happen. That's pretty well all we can do.

After having our so-called experts study human behavior and social constructs for decades, we are still no closer to stopping stuff like this from happening. The lunatics still pop-up from time to time to make the experts look ineffective and useless. Sometimes I think that the experts are really nothing more than social activists with degrees - more interested in invoking social change than actually finding a solution. That said, they do, however, serve one useful purpose: They make us forget our powerlessness. They make us feel like there’s something we can do to prevent the next big one. And, like self-deluded fools, we buy into it.

Quick: name me an important Canadian value. Strength? Naw. Honour? Nope. Courage? OK, stop it, you’re starting to crack me up. No silly, the most important Canadian value, next to tolerance, is compassion. Sigh.

Everyone wants to be compassionate. No, wait, I mean everyone is expected to be compassionate. So, everyone does their utmost to make everyone else think they are compassionate. And would a compassionate person deny some nice research scientist a tax funded grant so she can do more research on why people behave badly and kill other people? Of course not. Why, that would be positively un-compassionate.

OK. I know what you’re thinking – “What a heartless goof this guy is”. As if we are really that different from one another. In reality, the only difference between me and you, is that I’m not fooling myself into believing that I am something I’m not.

If you are like most people, you probably think of yourself as compassionate and caring. You don’t like to see others suffer. Me neither. But that doesn’t make me (or you) caring and compassionate. It just makes us normal, self-absorbed people, capable of occasionally furrowing our brows and displaying short bursts of quasi-empathy. Daily I pass homeless people in the street. Momentarily I feel bad for them, but I don’t take any of them home. Do you? Daily I read about murder, rape, starvation, abuse and genocide in the papers. Momentarily, I feel sorry for them, but It doesn’t affect my appetite or my sleep. Does it affect yours?

I seem to be incapable of feeling anything other than a brief, distant touch of something remotely resembling sympathy when strangers are killed. All I really care about are people who are part of my life. It’s sad about the dead students in Virginia. It’s a sad thing. But it’s not a sad feeling for me. Not particularly. If I was to feel sad every time a complete stranger was murdered, I’d be a pretty dour guy. Do you know how many people get killed every day around the world? Enough to make feeling sad for them a full-time gig. And who wants to go through life like that? Better to just be a self-absorbed, pitiless cad. And best to be honest about it. I may be a pitiless cad, but at least I’m not self-delusional.

They Knew Who They Were

In 100 years the white race will have no nations of its own. But every other race will.

Just think about it.

No – wait a minute. I mean, all you folks who are not white think about it. All you white folks, never mind. I didn’t mean to actually ask you to think about it. After all, that would require effort. And I wouldn’t want to interrupt your busy day. And anyway, your cultures are hardly worth preserving anyway. If they were, you’d be doing it already. Right my Swedish, Dutch, British and Canadian friends?

Quick - name me five multicultural countries.

I bet you didn’t name a single country in Africa, Greater Asia, the Middle East, South America, or Central America - did you. Every nation you named was in North America or Europe – wasn’t it. Nations that were founded and developed into the most desirable and successful societies in the world by white folk. And nations that were, until a few generations ago, inhabited mainly by white folk.

But not any more. Now they are ‘multicultural’ societies - the only societies on the face of the planet where the founding majority race actually decided to commit cultural genocide on themselves. I know it’s hard to believe, but its true. Virtually all nations that were once culturally unique to white folks are now multi-hued tribal hodgepodges with no common understanding of their culture, heritage or future.

It frightens me to contemplate that, in a few short generations, white folks like me will have no culturally unique societies to call their own. Whether you are a white Canadian, a white citizen of France, a white German, a white Swede, a white Fin, a white person from the Netherlands or a white anyone. Not a single white person on this planet will be able to live in a nation that is culturally unique to them and that they can call their own.

But everyone else will.

It’s a testament to the accomplishments of white folk, I guess. Everyone else wants to be where we are to bask in the glow of our success, drink from the fountains we have built and eat from the buffet tables we have set. And that’s OK. Generosity and sharing is what Christianity (the basis of all western white cultures) is all about.

But, in the process of sharing our wealth with the world, did we really have to give up our cultures too? Did we have to sell-out all that our forefathers struggled for, fought for and believed in? Did we have to abandon our identity and our past in such a cavalier and unnecessary manner? No one put a gun to our heads. No one threatened us. We had a choice all along – we could have done what every generation in history has done and required newcomers to our countries to bend to us. Instead, we decided to bend to them.

With no precedent to look to – no successful historical models to refer to - we decided that it would be a good thing if we, on purpose, let millions of foreigners come to our countries, form ethnically separate tribes within our borders and essentially ignore our cultures.

With no proof that such action would have any positive results for our children, we white folks somehow decided that other cultures must be given equal consideration and respect within the borders of our own nations. My God, can anyone tell me what borders are for, if not to help people protect and preserve their cultural identity and way of life? Why do we have any borders at all if our culture is so unworthy of defending?

We have become brainwashed. And me as well. Even as I wrote the preceding paragraph, I felt slightly dirty - like the comments were somehow racist or something. Imagine. How on earth is it racist for a people to want to live their lives within a secure border, among people like them who share the same history and understanding of life?

And do you want to hear something sick and twisted? You know how white folks are constantly told that it is racist to prefer being around their own kind? Well, if you think about it, this preference is, in fact, the very basis for multiculturalism itself. We are told that folks from foreign cultures need to form their own communities so they can be with their own kind, have a sense of belonging and be happy. Get it? It's racist if we do it to them, but perfectly acceptable if they do it to us.

Of course, aside from the sick and twisted, there’s also the sad and ironic. While multiculturalism lets foreigners in western societies surround themselves with their own kind to the exclusion of all others, it also erodes the ability of the founding white race to enjoy the same privilege within their own nations. The more foreign cultures there are vying for space; the less space there is for the founding culture to enjoy and the more space the founding culture is forced to abandon to foreigners.

Even now, entire neighbourhoods and cities are being overrun by people whose main intention is to grow their foreign culture within their host nations and increase their influence and political power. Their communities are largely insular and separate from traditional white culture. And every square mile of land they occupy, is a square mile lost to white culture.

Maybe its poetic justice. Years ago, whites colonized many of their nations by force, now they are colonizing ours by stealth through the back door with our permission.

Whatever the case, if you are white you should cherish the little bit of culture you have left here in the West. In 100 years, your race will have no nations to call their own. They will likely not even have any nations that they control politically, what with the astronomical abortion rates and miniscule birthrates among whites.

Like lemmings rushing towards the cliff edge, white folk are on a journey to oblivion. Voluntarily, and almost eagerly, they have taken steps to ensure that future generations of their kind are politically disempowered and culturally marginalized. They have implemented social policies that will surely relegate them to minority status in their own nations within this century. Eventually, they will be just another multiculti, minority voice crying out to have their interests known amongst dozens of other multiculti voices, each focused solely on their own needs. It is the natural outcome of this culturally fragmented, tribal society that we have willfully created.

For a brief shining moment, white people had it all. They were rulers of their lands and masters of their destiny. They lived safely together, immersed in a comfortable cocoon of cultural familiarity and belonging. They shared a common purpose and set of values and a common identity. THEY KNEW WHO THEY WERE.

Nowadays, whites don’t know who they are, where they are, where they are going or where they’ll end up. And the saddest part is not that they don’t know – it’s that they don’t care. As such, they deserve whatever unpleasantness destiny typically delivers to such complacent, unappreciative dandies.

Wherever white people end up, though, I know one thing - there’ll be a lot of other people there who don’t look like them and don’t think like them. A lot of other people who share nothing with them in the way of cultural values. A lot of other people who have a drastically different idea about what their society should look like. And a lot of other people whose first priority will be to defend their own cultural interests and take care of their own. Something white people sadly failed to do.

Terrible Thoughts and Puerile Predictions

Maybe you think it, but you dare not say it:

1. The white gene pool is suffering because many of the smartest white women in Canada are not having any children.

2. All young men should get a vasectomy at age 20. Being a father these days means being 50% mommy, so mommy can be 50% daddy. And if things go bad, men don’t have a chance in Canada’s women-friendly, man-hating family court system. Best to just snip, snip. The risks outweigh the reasons not to.

3. Kids who don’t have two loving parents of the opposite sex, start life at a disadvantage.

4. State funded daycare is a communist travesty geared to transfer parental responsibility to the state so the state can raise our kids for us in the manner it deems appropriate.

5. No one locks his door more tightly than a thief. That’s why the state trusts us less than we trust it.

6. Immigrants have a lot more kids than people born here. Eventually they will dominate and replace the founding culture with some other culture. And it might not be a better culture. Then again, it might. After all, what’s here at the moment could stand some improvement.

7. Strong, independent, conservative minded Christians created the best nations in the history of the world. Then they let soft, valueless, left-wing secular humanists destroy them.

8. One reason Canadians can’t get good health care is because they have to wait in line behind the hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees who enter Canada every year.

9. No one over age 50 should be allowed to permanently immigrate to Canada unless they are rich. We can’t even take care of our own old people properly. We don’t need any more.

10. Bob Geldof and Bono are pompous, misguided communistic jerks who have made themselves the laughing stock of every despot and dictator in the world.

11. In general terms, non white people are more racist than white people.

12. 100 years from now, every European nation except for Britain will be run by Islamic governments. Soft, purposeless, secular Europeans will be no match for their aggressors’ strong resolve and fanatical loyalty to their religious ideology.

13. 100 years from now, Canada will have the highest standard of living in the world, next to Australia. We will be self sufficient in water, oil, natural gas, electricity, wheat, livestock and most vegetables. We will be famous for pioneering cures for cancer, AIDs, Arthritis and other maladies. Citizens will live to be 150 and remain healthy all their lives. We will also have a mighty army. Patriotic young Canadians will line up to serve their beloved nation and revel in spreading peace and freedom through out the world. We will fight tyranny and oppression on many fronts around the globe and be a beacon of strength, steadfastness and uncompromising principle. We will also be known for having the most open, transparent and incorruptible government and political structure in the world. The future will be ours.

14. 100 minutes from now, I will be waking up from this dream. It was pretty accurate up to number 13 though, wasn’t it?

You can tell my age with carbon dating

I am a hypocrite. A seething mass of contradiction. I say one thing and do another. I do not walk the walk or talk the talk. I am unable to reconcile my beliefs with my actions. I live one way and expect my children to live another.

I am a man and the father of girls.

On one hand, I look at the world through the eyes of a man. And I despair. I see how feminism and women's abandonment of the home has pretty well destroyed white western societies. Birth rates are so low that white people will be reduced to small powerless minorities in their own nations within this century. Real estate is more or less unaffordable for most single parent families, and other one income families, thanks to the proliferation of dual income households. Our sons are drugged into docility by prescription happy doctors and career focused mothers. Kids are committing suicide in increasing numbers. Many kids are uncivil and fat, having no mother at home to keep them in line and feed them properly. They are also terribly spoiled and self centered, thanks to guilty career obsessed parents who make up for their lack of time with an excess of tolerance and material gifts. And men have fared no better than the kids under the thumb of feminism. Many are punitively garnished for support and routinely denied joint custody of their children by our man-hating women-friendly family court system.

On the other hand, I look at the world through the eyes of a father who has daughters and no sons. It makes me feel a bit better. Certainly my girls will benefit greatly from our feminist-centric society. Once they clue into what’s going on, they’ll probably get off on holding all the cards. They’ll be able to have good careers. They’ll be able to leave their husband for no good reason whatsoever and still get the house, kids and fat support payments. And they’ll probably love being able to choose from the vast array of men out there who would be willing to be mommy half the time so they can do more important things.

Or maybe they’ll suffer a blow to the head, go insane, and decide that being a mother is the most important thing they could do. And maybe they’ll seek out a man to marry who will be willing to support his family throughout their children’s formative years so they have Mom there when they need her. Naw, that’s just plain crazy. What woman in her right mind would do such a batty thing?

In any event, I can tell you this - whatever path my daughters chose in life, I have no doubt that they will grow up to be strong, independent-minded and successful. They could be no less with me as a father. I would raise them no other way.

As for me, I’ll just sit here and watch fascinated as my body slowly fossilizes. Soon, they’ll haul my antiquated ass off to the museum where children will gawk at the sight of me while a tour guide describes in an icily snide tone how men like me became extinct.

Then all the kids will go home, turn on some vacuous TV show, nuke a pizza pocket and wonder what’s keeping mommy so long at the office.

It's a Bad Trade-off For Any Dad

My daughters don’t know it yet, but they owe their entire existence to a simple decision my wife made. What was that decision, you ask. Simple - She decided to be a stay at home Mom. That, in turn, lead me to decide to have kids with her. It’s as simple as that. (And, oh yeah, the love and deep emotional feelings and stuff also had a bit to do with it.)

I could probably be very happy spending my life with a career oriented women if there were no children involved. But, I would never-ever willfully marry and have kids with a career woman. Why on earth would I? It would be nuts for me to put myself out like that.

Look, maybe women are genetically equipped to be dad 50% of the time, but I am not genetically equipped to be Mom. Most men aren’t, I think. They just do it because – well, I don’t know why, exactly. I guess it’s because they weren’t as discerning and smart as me in choosing their spouse and plotting their life’s course. It’s kind of mean to say, but, I wouldn’t trade places with any of ‘em. I don’t care if their TV is bigger than mine and their house worth more. My life is way better than theirs.

Having my wife at home gives us tremendous freedom and takes a lot of pressure off us and the whole family. Well, except for the financial pressure. But, that’s a sacrifice we choose to make. While the dual income families enjoy the extra stuff their extra income awards them, We enjoy the quality of life our traditional lifestyle awards us. I bring home the bacon, my wife takes 100% care of the household. No rushed 7:00 AM dropoffs at the daycare centre for me; and no frantic rush hour driving to make the 6:00 PM pickup . No leaving work when one of the kids is sick.. No watching my exhausted wife stumble through the door at 6:30 PM with a briefcase in one hand and a bucket of greasy chicken in the other. No laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning, shopping, or any housework. My wife does it all, baby. And not only that, she’s got a heart of gold and tremendous strength of character. She also looks half her age and has a body that I would happily die for. And, oh, she doesn’t mind when I go to the pub to have a pint with the guys. (Hate me, it’s OK, I understand.)

I have always said, and I truly believe, that any man who makes a decent living should think long and hard about having kids with a working woman. Why would any man take on so many additional headaches just to be able to buy more “stuff”? And, after all, in the end, that’s all he would get for his troubles – more stuff. He wouldn’t get happier. He wouldn’t get more satisfaction out of life. He certainly wouldn’t get laid more. (Stressed out working women make tired lovers.) He wouldn’t get more family and personal quality time (Family and personal time is much more plentiful for fathers who come home to a clean house, a home-cooked meal and a closet full of laundered and ironed clothes.) All today’s dual income families get is an extra income stream to buy extra “stuff”. (Laughably, a lot of that second income stream often gets used up paying for the stuff necessary for mommy to work outside the house in the first place – expensive daycare, a second car, transit fare, lots of nice clothes and shoes, a lot more meals out & takeout, guilt gifts for the kids, etc.)

If you ask me, it’s a bad trade-off for any dad (and for many moms, I would wager.) Is it any wonder that fewer men are getting married and many don’t want children. Can’t blame them really.

At heart, men are simple creatures. They are not prone to overanalyzing their lives like many women are. They think more than they speak and act more than they think. They are at their best when their role is clear and they know what is expected of them. Once upon a time, their world was like that. Mine still is.

I often sit and wonder why more dads don’t go off the deep end with all the gender gymnastics and parental uncertainty they have to deal with these days. It must be hell going through life not knowing exactly what the hell it is you are from one minute to the next – Momdy or Dadmy.

A few days ago, I was waiting for my morning train to work and it was delayed. While waiting, I happened to be standing beside two men who were conversing. They had apparently not seen each other in a while. One was telling the other that he had a one year old daughter and his wife was expecting their second. He and his wife were on different shifts. He would leave work, pick up their baby, take her home and spend the rest of the night tending to her. Baths, feedings, clean-ups, the whole thing. Apparently, the baby was an all-nighter. He had to give up playing hockey, he said. It was really sad. He sounded less than happy. In fact, he sounded resigned. Resigned to his destiny.

Destiny? Maybe his. But not mine.

Personally, I would never willfully choose such a life for myself. I am surprised that so many men still do. Amazing, isn’t it, how far a bit of sex will go. One day you’re having some great lovin’ and not really thinking about the future. And the next you’re munching on leftover KFC, doing the laundry and changing a poopy diaper while Mommy works late at the office with Raoule.

If I had a son I would be advising him as follows: “My son, freeze your sperm at age 18 and get a vasectomy. Then, cavort at will in the garden and pick the most beautiful flowers to decorate your bed. Never get married and never, ever have kids unless you find someone who’s willing to be a full-time Mom to your children and a full time wife to you during your children’s formative years. You deserve no less, my son. And settling for less, makes you less of a man.” That’s what I would tell him.

But, alas, I have daughters, not sons. So my advice to them will be different. I will advise them as follows: “My darlings, get University degrees, have careers and make lots of money. Then, around age 30, marry a good man and have a few kids. Then, go back to work and leave the kids with me and grandma during the day. After all, my sweethearts, you don’t need no man to support you. You can support yourself. If your husband is any kind of man, he’ll understand.” That’s what I’ll be telling them.

What? How dare you. I am not a hypocrite. Boys and girls are different, that’s all. They need different life strategies to prosper. I’m just trying to steer them in the right direction so they’ll be happy. It’s the least a good father can do.

Don't Worry, Be Enviro-happy

Wasn’t Y2K supposed to bring down western economies and topple all the evil Zionist/Christian capitalist cesspools of greed and inequity? I remember reading that Nostradamus predicted that the end of the world would occur in 2000. Or maybe it was Osama Bin Laden or something. Whatever the case, Y2K turned out to be a dud, just like all the other doomsday predictions of all the other nutcase chicken littles that litter our historical landscape.

In the 1970s we were told by many concerned scientists that all the earth’s oil would be depleted in 25 years or so and if we didn’t stop driving and start turning down our thermostats we would all suffer a horrible fate. That was 40+ years ago. And to quote Mark Twain: it would seem that rumors of our deaths were greatly exaggerated. Huge new reserves of oil are being found every year all over the world.

And there was another false alarm in the 1970s. Newsweek ran an article on the pending global cooling crises. Honest. Back then, scientists from all over the world had joined together to warn us of a coming ice age. (Sound familiar?) Temperatures would plummit, crops would die and, then, so would we - alone and freezing in the dark. 

Scientists, it would seem, are not at all infallible.

These days the angst-ridden, socialist scare-mongers have invented a new demon to trot out and terrify us with – global warming. Oh, excuse me, I meant “climate change”. Hell, it’s only been a few years since the capitalist-hating, white-guilt troupe first arrived on the scene with their latest scheme to bring down the west and already they’ve rebranded themselves. It’s no longer “global warming”. After all, that term actually appears to mean something and its purveyors might one day be called to task if “warming” doesn’t literally occur in the manner they predict. So, they concocted a new term that is so shifty – so oblique and shadowy in nature - that no one will ever be able to nail it or them down.

And they are clever. Unlike ‘global warming’, ‘climate change’ can’t be disproved. The climate is constantly changing. A term like “climate change” can mean something one day and something else the next. Is this year colder than last year? Run for the hills, it’s ‘climate change’. Has the temperature in the arctic been a few degrees warmer in the 1990s than in the 1980s? Egad, stock up on canned goods and dig a shelter. It’s ‘climate change’.

Yep. Climate change is the perfect concocted crisis for a liberal to hang his hat on. It can’t be proven now; and by the time it can be disproven, its purveyors will be dead of old age. They certainly won’t be dead because of non-existent global warming. Damn. There I go again. Sorry. I mean “climate change”.

Throughout its history, the earth has been going through a continuous cycle of so-called climate change. For awhile it was hot and dinosaurs roamed. For awhile it was cold, ice caps formed and mastodons trudged about. This stuff occurred naturally for millions of years before people even started burning fossil fuels. How do we know it’s not just occurring naturally now – if it’s occurring at all?

A while ago I saw some pictures on some website showing how ice formations on Mars are shrinking - just like our polar ice caps apparently are now. Wow. I never imagined that the emissions from Justin Trudeau' s limo could actually permeate earth’s atmosphere and travel hundreds of millions of miles to Mars where they could actually start a global warming (ooops, I mean climate change) phenomenon. Apparently, white Christian capitalist western democracies are not only the plague of mankind, they are also the plague of martiankind. Or, maybe solar activity has something to do with it. Naw. It’s got to be us evil white capitalists. After all, David Suzuki tells us so.

You better just believe it and buy into it 100%. If you don’t, you may just as well be a Christian in Stalinist Russia, a Jew in Nazi Germany, an epileptic in Salem, or a non-Muslim in Saudi Arabia. If you doubt the religion (or ideology) of climate change, you better just keep it your dirty little secret, else you will be vilified or worse.

Environmentalism is the new gay. All environmentalists are fabulous. It’s a wonderful way to be and no dissenting views will be tolerated. I predict that, pretty soon, a new word will be introduced to us. 'Envirophobia'. Enviromentalists will be a protected group under our Charter of Rights and freedoms and 'envirophobia' will be featured in a prominent slot on Wikepedia – right beside its brothers: homophobia and islamophobia. You will not be allowed to refute or even think badly of the beliefs of environmentalists.

Already, environmentalism has permeated our consciousness and dominated the media and our education systems in a manner that rivals the spread of AIDS in Africa. And like AIDS, it’s a disease that most of its victims expose themselves to voluntarily - despite of how bad it is for themselves and their society. It’s also a lot like socialism – a mental disease that has caused nothing but misery and hardship wherever it is imposed. No wonder so may rabid environmentalists are socialists. One serves the purpose of the other. Socialism wants to crush western success; and environmentalism WILL crush western success.

Yep, it's a mental disorder. Why else would it be called environMENTALism?

Look, we really need to wake up. If we allow the enviro-radicals to win the day, our society is doomed. Our entire civilization revolves around fossil fuels. Our food, clothing and everything else is transported by train and truck. And don’t forget, here in Canada, we live in a country that is cold much of the year. We need to burn stuff to keep warm and to power our industries.

And one more thing. Even if the purveyors of doom and gloom are right and C02 emissions are putting the planet in peril (and that’s a big if) Canada only produces 1.5% of the globe’s greenhouse gasses. So even if we closed half our electrical plants and factories, pulled half our vehicles off the road and cut our personal consumption in half, we would only reduce total global emissions by 1%. Meanwhile Russia, China and India, three of the biggest polluters, would continue to puff out their pollution at unchecked rates.

Maybe some Canadians would be willing to freeze in the dark while waiting for a solar powered bus to take their sorry unemployed asses to the soup kitchen, but I am not. Maybe I’ll consider it if Bill Gates, David Suzuki, Justin Trudeau and every enviro-happy movie star in Hollywood starts driving a tiny hybrid car, moves to a solar powered bungalow and starts leading by example. Till then, they can just take their pathetic, hypocritical rhetoric and bite me.

Lazy is as Lazy does

I’m a lazy SOB. You are too. Don’t deny it. OK. Maybe on a relative scale, based on the current reality, you probably aren’t any better or any worse than any of the other lazy SOBs out there. But, compared to someone who lived a few generations ago, you’re definitely a lazy, slothful SOB.

You wake up in the morning. You don’t have to bother yourself with trying to read a complicated dial to tell what time it is. Just read the numbers. 7:00. And if you want to nod off for another few minutes, just hit the snooze. 7:09. And again. 7:18. And again 7:27. Oops, it’s getting late, better get up. And don’t even try and figure out why every snooze feature on every freakin’ clock radio in the bloody world is set at 9-minute intervals instead of, say, 5, 10 or even 15. The world’s greatest scientists have been trying for decades to solve that little mystery. The truth is, no one really knows. So just put it out of your mind and get up, hit the button on the coffee maker, turn on the TV to see what the weather will be like, check your I-phone for urgent messages and head for the hot shower. It all seems so natural and right. These are not luxuries at all. They are simply essential tools to help your sorry ass survive in this stressful, challenging world. If your ancestors were still alive, however, they might disagree. They were up at dawn, lighting the coal stove, drawing water from the pump and emptying the chamber pots.

None of this nonsense for us though. We have evolved. No exertion necessary. All we need to know how to do to survive today can be done with one button pushing finger or one knob-twirling fist. And I mean everything.

We don’t get up to change the channel. We sit inert and push a button. We don’t light a fire to cook, we twirl a knob on the stove or push a button on the microwave. We don’t use elbow grease to wash our clothes or dishes. We lean over and push a button. Argh. Be careful. All that leaning is going to wreak havoc on your fragile back. We don’t need to hold a pen and move our arm to write or do a calculation. We just rest our elbows on the desk and push a few buttons on a computer or calculator. OK, technically they’re called keys, but they’re really densely compacted square buttons. Even erasing takes less energy. And there’s no rubber debris to sweep off the desk. That, in itself, probably saves thousands of people a year from dying from exertion.

It is virtually unfathomable for me to grasp that years ago accountants, bookkeepers and clerks did all their calculations by hand and kept everything meticulously organized in paper files. And what about the great prose and poetry classics? All were written by hand on paper with a quill or pen loaded manually with ink. And no spell check. How did they do it? I would be sorely challenged to organize my thoughts and compose anything that way without pages full of strikeouts and erase marks. And I can’t even imagine having to walk to the bookcase or, heaven forbid, the library, to look up words or research anything. Not when the internet is right there with any bit of information I need.

And don’t forget music. It used to be that we actually had to get up and turn over a record in order to listen to an entire album. Now we just hit a button on our CD players or phones and furgedaboutit. Oddly, we don’t seem to enjoy music as much as we used to. Maybe it's because most of today’s music is substandard crap. Or maybe it’s because the effort required to actually do something is directly proportional to the amount of enjoyment derived from the experience. Hey, call me crazy.

Even our cars are made to save us the pesky responsibility of working too hard. No more window-elbow from rolling down the windows. We just press a button. No more changing gears. Just put the car in D and drive. No annoying clutch to work. (My left leg is so grateful.) Power steering alleviates the need to work too hard turning corners. And I’m sure those digital presets on the radio have saved a million lives. And then there’s the intermittent wipers which save us from the interminable agony of having to turn them on and off when precipitation becomes unpredictable.

Buttons, keys, knobs, levers and switches; silicon chips and circuit boards; on board computers and electronic sensors; voice activated computer and cellular technology; remote controlled doors and ignitions; stuff that turns on and off by itself. What more could a lazy SOB possibly ask for. Surely we have attained utopia.

And the absolute best is when our stuff talks to us. Don’t bother running for the phone. Good heavens, you could break a sweat. Just let the answering machine take it. And don’t worry about missing your email. Your computer will tell you when an urgent message comes in. Sorry about the spam. Our bathroom scales talk, the appliances talk, the cars talk, the machines that answer the phone when you call the service center to complain about a broken talking machine talk. Our educators tell us that we should listen to our kids more. Hell, who’s got the energy after wading through the labyrinth of voice prompts when we call the school board.

And God almighty, even the elevators talk. Where I work, a soft feminine voice emanates from the elevator walls sweetly announcing every floor when the car stops. She even lets us know whether we are “going up” or going down” when the door closes. I don’t expect that I will ever go postal, but, hey, you never know. And if I do, I won’t arrive at work with a shotgun and go after my coworkers. Oh no. I’ll march straight into the elevator and send that nice, automated voice straight to techno-hell.

Then I’ll sit in the lobby, call the elevator company and wait for their voice mail to finally connect me with a real person. The way I figure it, if I attentively follow the automated instructions and press the buttons like I’m told, I'll be out on bail before I get to talk to a real person. 

Being Both a Man and a Dad - Not Easy These Days

There’s a fine line between genius and insanity. The line’s also pretty fine between pleasure and pain. I’m no authority on genius - and even less of one on insanity (although some would differ with me on the latter). I am, however, an expert on pleasure and pain and the thin grey line that divides them. You see, I’m a dad. I walk that line every second of every day that I’m around my kids. One moment I’m stepping on the pleasure side of the line. And the next, I’m stumbling around on the pain side. Back and forth; back and forth. Good; bad – Happy; sad – Pleased; mad.

I live in a world that is not of my own making. A world where kids rule and parents crawl. It was not supposed to be this way. It’s unnatural to have the world revolve around children. They’re supposed to be seen and not heard. They aren’t deserving of our endless attention. They shouldn’t be allowed to disrupt our lives and be so demanding. But they do, and they are. And we let them. Boy do we let them.

I figure its all about supply and demand. Years ago families were large and there was a big supply of kids, so they and their demands meant less. Their input was unnecessary for survival. They knew little of any importance. They didn’t incessantly demand to be heard like they do today because they knew that they had little of any value to add to any discussion. And, when they did interact with adults, it was mostly to listen and learn; not to spout off as though they were equals. Because they were not equals. Most of the time, they lived in their child’s world and adults lived in their adult world. It was natural, and it was right.

These days, families are not just small, they are microscopic. One child families are common. And what value do you suppose parents place on only child, compared with the value parents place on one out of 6 or 10 children? A helluvalot more. An unhealthy amount more.

Kids are treated like gold. They are pandered to and made to feel as though their views are as important as their parents. Parents don’t tell their children what to do any more – they engage them in discussions so that a “mutually beneficial outcome can be achieved”. Oddly, in doing this, parents are not elevating their children to their level; rather, they are reducing themselves to a child’s level and diminishing themselves and their authority in their children’s eyes.

The world was not designed to revolve around our children. And men were not designed to tolerate children who believe that the world revolves around them. It’s unnerving; it’s unnatural; and it’s positively unhealthy to a man’s ego and sanity.

Men were not designed to subjugate themselves to their offspring. To even entertain the idea that a child should have the right to question their authority runs counter to every Y chromosome in a man’s body. Personally, I am not genetically capable of calmly discussing options with a whining or screaming child. Nor am I inclined to look favorably upon a long drawn out discussion with a petulant child when I already know the outcome will be the same as I have already decreed.

It is no accident that past generations of children were better behaved. They knew when dad said no, he meant no. They didn’t enter into debates with their dad because they knew it would be folly. And, as a positive result, dad didn’t have to waste his valuable time debating with a mere child. When disagreements started they were often circumvented by a quick, efficient smack on the bum, or the threat of one.

Men only live once and his lifespan is considerably shorter than a woman’s. Why on earth would any sane dad waste so much of his valuable, irreplaceable time engaged in fruitless circular arguments with his children when other, more efficient and effective methods are available to successfully modify their behavior.

When my children make demands or put up a fuss when I tell them to do something, it humiliates me to have to pander to them. Sure, I'm human, and sometimes I make the mistake of lowering myself to their level. But I hate myself afterward. All I can think as my daughters resist my authority is “I gave you life, you ungrateful brat. I feed you and clothe you. Everything you have you owe to me. I sacrifice everyday for you. Everything I do, I do in your best interest. I would die for you. You have no right to show me such disrespect”. And they don’t. They have absolutely no right whatsoever.

A few weeks ago I was standing at the side of an outdoor public skating rink watching my kids skate around. I overheard a father talking to his son. He was pointing out the correct way to skate. His son, in a petulant voice, said: “ You can’t tell me what to do”. The father immediately assumed a humble stance and, in a pleading tone said: “I’m not telling you what to do, I’m just trying to help you. If you want to learn, you should listen to me.” The boy, about nine, didn’t look impressed. No wonder. There was nothing to be impressed about. And I wondered, if a father doesn’t have the right to tell his nine year old son what to do, who does? Do we live in a society where no one has the right to tell children what to do without entering into a lengthy debate about it? And if a child refuses to respect his fathers guidance and knowledge in such simple matters without coming back with a smart-ass rebuttal, what chance will the father have later on when it comes to more important things?

And day by day, it gets worse. Dads and parents in general continue to lose ground. They lose it to their children, who become increasingly more demanding and less obedient. They lose it to their children’s schools, who demand that parents teach their children grammar at home so they can concentrate on teaching them personal values. They lose it to the media, who sexualize children and expose them to violent, obscene and suggestive imagery at every turn. We lose it to busy body, left wing social activists who continually come up with new ways to transfer parental authority to the state, like when they launch court challenges to criminalize parents who give their children a few slaps on the bum or advocate for mandatory helmets for all kids who go tobogganing.

Years ago, when children knew their place, the family was big and it was inviolable. (‘Inviolable’ is defined as “unbreakable, sacred, firm, unchallengeable”) back in those days, the family came before teachers and government. There were no self righteous socialists or radical feminists marching around trying to dismantle and disempower it. And the media celebrated the human qualities that were good and admirable, rather than celebrating our most shameful decadent desires like it does today.

Nowadays, the family comes before practically nothing. And it's about as unbreakable, sacred, firm and unchallengeable as the marriage contract around which it is formed. That is to say, not very. Families have become so insignificant and unimportant, in fact, that many people choose to have none. And those who do choose to have one, have one so small that it is practically meaningless in terms of perpetuating the species.

I have only two children so I guess I shouldn’t talk. After all, I too am a qualified runner in the family extinction race’. I guess I should be deferring to my children more and caving in to their demands like most new age parents do. I guess I should be more tolerant when they are obstinate and adopt a humble, pleading stance. But I’m not and I won’t. And I am appalled and astounded how alone I am in my sentiments – how separate and different I am from all the soft, tolerant, sensitive, new-age dads out there.

But I am not ashamed that I am different from them. I am proud. I look at them and I feel sympathy. They can’t be enjoying themselves.

You’ll Be Wrapped Around My Finger

“I will turn your face to alabaster; when you find your servant is your master.”

When Sting wrote those words back in the 80s, I bet he didn’t have Canada’s health care system in mind. And yet, these many years later, it could very well be used as our health care theme song.

And there’s a twist. The Canadian version of the song has a surprising role reversal. Playing the role of the master is: the health care system. And, playing the role of the servant is: me, you and all other middle class Canadians. Yep it’s the faces of Canadians that have turned to alabaster, after finding out their health care Servant has become their Master.

Hmm, just a minute. “Servant” may not be a strong enough word to describe Canadians’ relationship with their health care system. Rather, it’s more like “slave”. After all, like slaves, we Canadians are not permitted to obtain any medical treatments except what is provided under the whip of our communistic state health-care master.

The whole situation is completely and utterly perverse.

Think about it. Canadian doctors routinely turn away new patients because they have too many patients already. Statistics Canada reports that many Canadians have no family doctor. Here in Canada, it is the doctors who are in demand, not the patients. Tell me, what service provider actually tells customers to go away? What business has clients competing for its services rather than the other way around?

A while back, I read an article in the newspaper about a Canadian doctor who was telling all his smoking patients that he would not be their doctor anymore. It was his way of sending a message to them about their smoking, I guess. Well, the message was received alright – and it was a message saying that he was the master and his smoking patients were his servants – excuse me, slaves – to be disposed of at his discretion, with, apparently, no adverse affects on him or his income. Such is the reprehensible world of Canadian communist medicine. A world where doctors hold all the cards and citizens beg to get into the game.

Here in Canada there are hundreds of thousands of people waiting for surgery at any given moment. Some wait months, some wait years. Some die or get irreversibly worse waiting in the queue. Such is your lot in life when you are a slave and have no control over your medical destiny except what little is allowed you by your master.

We supposedly live in a free and democratic society. At least that’s what we are told. Not so free, though, when it comes to seeking our own medical treatment. This has always puzzled me. How did Canadians become so stupid and naive – so narrow mindedly socialist – so as to buy this damaged bill of goods? We walk around with our chests pumped up and our noses in the air, relishing the sensitivity and compassion we show to our poorest people, all of whom have complete medical coverage. Unfortunately, in providing them with this coverage, we haven’t raised them up to the level a middle class person should receive. We’ve dragged the middle class down to the same level of service a poor person would receive. (Making everyone equally miserable is what socialism does best, or didn’t you get the Memo?)

Yep, the middle class can, apparently, just go to hell and wait months for cancer treatment and heart surgery; just as long as the poor can go to our hospital emergency rooms with the sniffles and have their treatment paid for by the terminally sick and dying middle class through their taxes. It is so uplifting to be an enlightened socialist. Have we attained health care utopia or what? Pinch me. It’s all so perfect I must be dreaming

We are so free here in Canada. We have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion. But, oddly, we have no freedom of health – arguably the only freedom where life literally hangs in the balance.

We are free alright. Free to lie for days on stretchers in hospital corridors. Free to wait months for cancer treatment. Free to live in pain and become hopelessly addicted to opioids. Free to lick the boots of our almighty health care master while we die like dogs waiting for permission to be treated. Ahhhhh, It’s good to be a free Canadian.

Look, it is one thing to want to give everyone, especially those who cannot afford it, adequate health care. We all want to do that. But, it is another thing entirely to pass laws making it illegal for anyone to seek their own treatment when the public system is failing them. It is, in fact, not just perverse, it is downright fascist.

And anyway, despite the agonized protestations of those who would deny us our freedom of health and keep us powerless and enslaved, there is really no proof that allowing additional access would destroy the public system. In fact, the opposite is true. Many enlightened nations such as Finland, Sweden and France have public health care for everyone while allowing citizens to buy additional insurance or pay for their own treatment if they desire. Please note that I used the word “allowing”. Imagine, we actually live in a world where the dying and the suffering have to be ‘allowed’ to take measures to extend their own lives. Shouldn’t such freedom simply be seen as a human right rather than a gift to be given or taken away by the state? What the hell is the matter with us? Have we become so pathetically used to crawling to government, that we need its permission to save our own lives?

Who Wants to Live Forever Anyway?

I’m getting old too darn fast. There are more years behind me now than in front of me.

I used to think that being immortal would be pretty cool. Imagine - never dying; never growing old. It’s the ultimate dream, isn’t it? The unattainable prize that everyone thinks about at some moment in their lives.

When I was younger I WAS immortal, or at least I acted like it. Sometimes, between bursts of youthful exuberance and flurries of foolhardy risks I would experience rare moments of introspection. Sometimes I would think about mortality and wonder whether older people worry about death and wish for immortality more than younger people. It seemed sensible that death and mortality would weigh more heavily on the mind of an older person than a younger one. One would think that mortality would become more and more an issue as a person’s remaining time became less and less.

But now that I’m *ahem* getting up there, I have come to realize that, for me, quite the opposite is true. The older I get, the less attractive immortality looks. I see the changing world around me and realize that I really don’t want to live forever. Not on this planet, anyway. With each passing day I am becoming a creature of a different time; a different era. A different world. Day by passing day, I become less and less comfortable with what our society is becoming and my place in it. Vague feelings of disconnect grow stronger. Sometimes I feel as though I no longer belong here.

Sure, it would be wonderful to be able to witness what the distant future holds for my family. To walk my great-great-great-great-granddaughter down the aisle at her wedding ceremony; to hold her first born in my hands; to be there down the road to offer support, comfort and love during those times when my family needs it.

But, there’s more to life than family. In order to live, one must interact with the world. To be there with my family down the road, I would also have to be there in all other respects - in their time and in their world. Yikes. I can barely tolerate the thought of what the world would be like in 25 years, let alone in one-hundred or two-hundred years Hell, sometimes I can barely tolerate the thought of what it is like today.

Whatever the case, as you can probably tell, I’ve pretty well come to terms with my mortality. In fact, in a weird way, I almost appreciate, rather than resent, the limited time I have on this planet. Whether by default or design, our natural lifespan seems, to me, to be just perfect. Not too short to be fleeting and not too long to be tiresome. And the knowledge that it’s all going to come to an end someday certainly makes every experience that much more precious. In fact, I would venture to guess that if we weren’t mortal, nothing at all would be precious.

So, in celebration of this precious life, from this mortal, middle-aged man to you, a gift. Three suggestions for making the most out of your all too finite life

1. Have your children before you get too old. If you do, you may very well get to meet your great-grandchild, just as my great-grandmother did with me. It's a mistake to artificially postpone parenthood just to acquire more stuff. And don’t wait for the right time. It may never come. And anyway, when is it ever the wrong time to give life? Just do it. And, may I add - speaking as a man who will be in his sixties when his last child is in University - do it early, get it over with and then you and your spouse can enjoy your later years free from the little blighters.

2. Do not – I repeat – DO NOT change with the times. Respect the generation that spawned you and try to act your age. Sure, movie, TV and music stars are always reinventing themselves. But that’s because they are shallow, narcisstic idiots, desperately clinging to the illusion of youth. They have no sense of self-worth beyond what they see in, or snort off, the mirror. The reason they need to constantly “evolve” is to sucker new generations into buying their crap so they can stay rich and famous. So, they whore themselves out to every new trend that comes along. Trust me – this only works when you have a good plastic surgeon and publicist. 

3. Finally – when your time finally comes – die well. Unless you go suddenly, you’ll likely have some time to come to terms with your pending demise. So, remember, people are watching. You are only as good as your last gig. Go out like a whimpering sobbing bag of jelly and that’s the way you’ll be remembered. Despite what they say about taxes; death is really the only inevitable thing about life. If you have to face it, face it with all the dignity, strength and resolve you can muster. If you are going to teach your children or family anything, let it be how to die. It will not be a lesson wasted.

For now though, if you are still reading this, I hope that last suggestion can be deferred for a long, long time.