Congress - or the Senate - or Parliament

Freedom of expression is an inaliable right, so they say, offensive or not. In the western world we take that to mean we can say what we feel about what offends us. In the middle east, they have a different perspective. They just blow up whoever offends them. Freedom of expression - it's a matter of how you look at it.

Congress – or the Senate – or Parliament

Who’d a thought I’d learn something new at my age? Whether I’ll remember or not is another matter. That’s why I write these things down. Frank sent me an email this morning outlining the names of various animal groups – you know – like a chicken flock, a herd of cows, a pride of lions, and so on. I knew most of these already except for the last one. It’s called a Congress – of baboons. Actually, Frank called it a Parliament of baboons. I guess in a sense, it’s the same thing.

I suppose congress and/or parliament might be insulted at such a reference, especially if they saw the pictures that accompanied the email. But perhaps with a bit of honest soul searching and even a consultation with the senate – ironically called “The House of Sober Second Thought” they might find that the definition is not too far off the mark.

The baboons on the other hand may well be offended at being compared to a bunch of greasy, spineless cheaters of their own species. Baboons after all, have a code of honor to defend and these sub-standard humans just don’t measure up. Is it any wonder that they’re all yellin’ and screamin’ and actin’ up? The thing is that this has serious implications. To cite the author of this information, I can only refer to his tirade here: http://rense.com/general94/congff.htm . Have a look at it. It’s a frightening thought. I didn’t check to see if the author is a human representative of the baboon species, or perhaps a real baboon with a pseudonym. But it points up the seriousness of it. If the American Congress keeps acting the way it does (or Canadian Parliament for that matter) historians will be writing a sad tale very soon. Well we’re their neighbors after all and there’s bound to be a spill over effect on us as well – sort of like acid rain.

As I write this, there is a story on the TV about some real estate developer in the U.S. making an inflammatory film about the prophet Mohammed. The Moslems in Egypt and Libya took offence and burned down the American Consulate in Libya, killing the Ambassador and two others. And the film’s author - he’s in hiding somewhere, presumably in the U.S. You’d think that this was one of those unfortunate things that nobody could control – until you hear that the Consulate had been warned that trouble could be expected over the trailer.

At the same time here in Canada we’re expelling the Iranian Ambassador and his crew for undisclosed reasons. They remain undisclosed if you take old man Toews’ explanation of things. The Iranians however saw it coming and were all packed and ready to go before they even got notice.

Obviously we are too lazy or apathetic to do anything about it, so I had a marvelous idea as to how to rectify the problem. How many baboons are in zoos and otherwise in captivity around the world? They are literally prisoners of the particular state they’re in. Supposing we released them all into the various houses of congress and/or parliament. They would after all be in their natural environment. We wouldn’t even have to elect them. They could just go in there and straighten the whole mess out. It’s like chicken soup – Vouldn’t hoit. Well at least that’s the way it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.

The Banking System

The Banking System

The bank earnings are out again and by God, they’re doing well – sailed right through the recession without missing a beat. Profits are up there in the hundreds of millions, even topping a billion in a couple of cases. That’s good news for shareholders.

Shareholders – these are the people who buy shares or bank stocks and are paid dividends based on the number of shares they buy. I had a friend who used to do that and he did pretty well at it too.

I looked to see what these people get paid to earn that kind of money. Ha! Four, five, six million dollars for CEO’s. That’s a pretty good salary. At the other end of the spectrum, clerks, tellers and the like get ten bucks an hour – a fair spread between top and bottom, typical big business. It kind of looks like the only way to make money in the banking business is either to buy and sell shares depending on the market, or to be in upper management in the bank itself. Everything else just sucks.

That’s about where everything takes a left turn. Here’s how I see the picture. We the depositors give our money over to the banks to look after on our behalf. They charge us for that and it’s not unreasonable in concept. After all, the banks should get paid for work that they do. Mind you, some say that the service charges border on gouging. Be that as it may, we the depositors, by way of our deposits provide the banks with the capital they need to invest in mortgages, business loans and so on. This then is their source of revenue over and above the service charges. That’s what they make their billion dollar profits on after paying their top executives millions in salaries and bonuses.

The banks then get to keep the profits they make and we get to keep our money in the banks for them to use to make more profits and line the pockets of their upper management. The shareholders get “dividends” amounting to a hill of beans. The depositors get “high interest rates” of about one to three percent.

Well, the banks got all these profits just sitting there collecting dust. I don’t know what they use them for, but we still keep on depositing and contributing to their profits. Oh, we can get our money back at par, less the service charges any time we want. And maybe that’s what we should just do – get our money back. The banks don’t really need it anymore with all the profits they’ve accumulated. They should really be self-sustainable by now. That would be an interesting exercise – to discover what the banks are investing in and do the same thing, of course on a smaller scale. Still, we could pay ourselves the big bucks the same way the banks do. In the words of Woody Allen in one of his skits, they should go forth, be fruitful and multiply – but not in those words. A friend of mine was lecturing his son one day about money saying; ‘Why are you working for your money? It should be working for you’. Sound advice, I’d say.

But, too lazy to do our homework, we continue to deposit money into banks and let our money work for them. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’. 

The Great White North Fiasco

The Great White North Fiasco

Look at that! We’ve got a Great White North! And our prime minister has discovered it! Just imagine, of all the prime ministers we’ve had, he’s the first to become aware of this magnificent land of opportunity. Not only are there diamonds oil and gas up there, but also the cost of living is ten times that of southern Canada. What an opportunity for the merchants of Toronto! There’d be something there for everyone, if only someone was living there.

Did you take note of how we are serving notice of our presence in the area? We’re not saber rattling or making loud noises about our military prowess to warn off foreign interests. No we’re not doing that at all. We are after all, a civilized, peaceful nation. No, we’re just searching for the remains of Lord Franklin’s ships lying at the bottom of Davey Jones’s Locker up there. The icebreaker Sir Wilfred Laurier needs to be commissioned to facilitate the peaceful search (it’s not for patrolling the arctic ocean). Well and the robotic submarine that must go down to find these wrecks also just happens to have the ability to map the whole ocean floor (which is just an incidental byproduct of this archaeological exercise). What a smooth move, Harper! Nobody will ever suspect your real intent. At least the politicians won’t. Well, what do you expect? They’re politicians. But somebody must have noticed, judging by all the other icebreakers in the area.

Aha! Now we know why Canada is dragging its ass on global warming. They’ve got to get the Northwest Passage opened up to get at all that oil and gas you know, in order to ship it to Asia and to Russia. Oops! Maybe somebody spilled the beans. The icebreaker traffic is getting heavy out there. The thing is that China already owns half the oil business in Alberta and who knows what else. And Russia has a number of flags planted on the Arctic Ocean floor, and maybe even a nuclear submarine or two. That leaves Denmark sailing around claiming everything that pokes its head out of the ocean on the horizon.

Its kind of looking like Canada is turning into a giant Winnipeg. Now them critters in Toronto and Ottawa will get to know what it feels like to be the world’s warehouse while head office (Beijing) moves all its (our) products around.

And Lord Franklin - well he was only an excuse to make a lot of noise up north. It’s a good thing we have California orange juice we can sell to the Inuit for eighteen bucks a liter. That’ll give us an income in case we get short changed by head office. Now if only we could figure out how to populate the north, we could chalk up some pretty good sales. At least that’s the way it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.

Mene, Mene, Tekel, u Pharsin

Mene, Mene, Tekel, u Pharsin

Twenty-five hundred years ago, Daniel knew what these words written by a dismembered hand on the wall of King Belshazzar’s castle meant. The king abruptly found out when he lost his life that very night. Babylon found out when the Persians sacked the city.

Even if this had only been a parable to illustrate what happens when you disregard the conventions of decent living, it would have been a powerful one. Unfortunately for the Babylonians, it was not. It was reality.

The Manitoba jackrabbit has a grazing territory of about a square mile, which it patrols against intruders. As the population increases which, given the prolificacy of rabbits, it does, the job of protecting its territory becomes more and more stressful. The poor rabbit runs his proverbial tail off to keep intruders out, and ultimately has a heart attack and dies. That too is a telling lesson. No less the Manitoba Swamp Shrew runs itself into fatal exhaustion protecting its property.

And what have we learned from these factual examples? Nothing, it seems. There is an obvious flaw in the human inner eye. It’s been clouded over by civilization. Our obsessive-compulsive drive for profits overrides any human consideration. The miners’ strike in South Africa is a prime example. The miners are demanding a fair wage and they know they’re in for trouble so they arm themselves for protection. The mine owners call the cops who mow the miners down with automatic weapons. Then the mine CEO tells the miners they’d better be back to work by Monday or risk being fired. I suppose he figures it’s better to be fired than be fired upon. He obviously hasn’t assessed the mindset of his miners.

Then there’s the Enbridge fiasco in Canada and the U.S. They want to cut a strip through Sioux Territory and continue on to the Gulf of Mexico. The Sioux say ‘Get off our land!’ But it’s perfectly safe say Enbridge who in the mean time have a couple of big pipe ruptures and resultant oil spills. Well then says Enbridge along with the Canadian Government; we’ll take it up to Kitimat. ‘Get off our land!’ say the native tribes in B.C. But it’s perfectly safe insist Enbridge who in the meantime have another pipe rupture. Suddenly China, which has a massive investment in the Alberta Oil Sands, shows up in the north with an icebreaker. Look at that – a Chinese icebreaker. What a coincidence! So you know where the pipeline is going next. I mean, how many Inuit are up there to stop it? Haha! Did you ever see a bunch of white guys get harpooned? Do they really think the Inuit are so stupid as to not notice what’s going on in their homeland?

But they keep trying. They don’t seem to notice the dissention their machinations are causing. Have they not seen what is happening in the Middle East? Have they not noticed the rumblings in their own nations? Have they not noticed that people have lost the fear of authority and are willing to take a bullet for the sake of their beliefs?

Mene, Mene, Tekel, u Pharsin. That is what is written on the walls of the rich and powerful. And it won’t be long before they are popping off like the jackrabbit or the Manitoba swamp shrew. At least that’s how it seems from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.

Mamamamamamammary Glands

Mamamamamamammary Glands

Who’da thought I would be discussing mammary glands in this blog? Well not me, and that’s for sure. But somebody on facebook opened up the topic as a serious discussion and – well – I had to put in my two cents worth, along with everybody else. Seems it was a hot topic.

The piece on facebook featured two photographs, one of a woman feeding her baby, and the other of three well endowed bikini clad women. The argument was why was the woman in the act of feeding her baby considered socially unacceptable while the other three are considered desirable. Good question. It must be a guy thing.

In the first instance, just think of what would happen to people like Carnation Evaporated Milk if all these darned mothers started breast-feeding their babies. And what would happen to the health care business if our babies started growing up healthy? God forbid. And another thing, while we’re on the subject, the act of a small child suckling at it’s mother’s breast is reported to be a highly erotic feeling for the mother, perhaps a reward for the stretch marks the little buggers put all over her belly during her pregnancy. Probably puts a damper on those big hairy hands and faces trying to emulate what a baby does.

If I were a woman, I’d tell the men to kiss my ass and continue doing what comes naturally. Of course, that could be taken seriously and prompt a whole new fashion design reminiscent of Nick the Plumber. The women could put a little red beauty spot on each cheek like the Hindus do on their foreheads. Wouldn’t that be a hoot?

To address the picture of the three buxom bikini babes, this is another example of the misinterpretation of the laws of physics. I mean the fact that thirty – forty pounds of womanhood can stick straight out horizontally for any length of time is a miracle in itself. But just ask any big-busted granny how long that lasts! The only way to fix that is with Styrofoam. And on top of that, the added weight impacts directly on the woman’s back, encouraging a stooped posture. Well just check out the number of breast reductions being performed. That’ll tell you a thing or two.

See, the mistake we humans made goes back thousands of years when we were first emerging out of the trees. Human nature being what it is, we had to get into the savannahs to see what was there. The problem was that the grass was so tall, we couldn’t see what was in there, especially lions and tigers and other predators and creatures that liked to have us for lunch. Instead of being smart and retreating back to the trees, we stood up on our hind legs in order to see better. That still wasn’t good enough so we grew our legs longer. Well, that served well enough to evolve us into the hunters we became. The only problem was that we became unbalanced physically. So now, in order for the female breasts to hang down the way nature intended, they ended up in conflict with physics.

Mind you, if we’d gone back to four legged walking, women’s asses would have become the prominent feature, and we would now have the fashion issue I alluded to earlier. And the statement: ‘kiss my ass’ would have a whole new meaning. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.

Let the Games End

Let the Games End

Whew! I was getting to figure these games would never come to an end! The whole business is getting a trifle tiresome. Overkill, I guess. Now for heaven’s sake, they’re even agonizing over who will be the flag-bearer at the closing ceremonies.

I have a real problem with Canada’s whole position on the Olympics. Sure, there is some government funding available, but it falls far short of what’s needed to do the job properly. Each of the disciplines has to fight tooth and nail for every penny it can get its hands on and make do. And then, everything each athlete does is for the glory of Canada? That’s just so much malarkey. Do you really think these athletes would go through four years of the kind of grueling training they do just to distinguish Canada on behalf of their sport, especially given their pay scale? That’s just plain silly.

Let’s get a little bit real here. In the first place, these athletes love their particular sport. They go through all that training in order to be the best there is at it. In other words, its for the glory of the 1) athlete, and 2) the sport. They owe Canada or Canadians nothing. Canada and Canadians can be supportive by all means, and encouraging, without exacting a piece of the glory from the particular athlete, or even worse, punishing or disgracing him or her for failure.

Remember Ben Johnson in Seoul? He was the world’s fastest man AND HE WAS A CANADIAN! Then the shit hit the fan when he was disqualified in that doping scandal. Well – it turns out he wasn’t really Canadian after all. He was really a Jamaican. Shame on him. If that didn’t come back to bite us in the ass later, I don’t know what. We now find that the Jamaicans own the track. Had we, instead of pooh-poohing the whole Jamaican thing, had a look at how this has happened, we would know that in order to take ownership of athletics, we must give a little more. The Jamaicans have a different outlook on athletics than we do. By the time their children reach kindergarten or grade one at school, they already have propellers for legs. They are encouraged all through school by their teachers and have plenty of opportunity to compete. Not only that, but its nothing to fill a fifty thousand seat stadium to see these students perform. Moms, dads, brothers and sisters, grandparents are all there to see these athletes compete.

When’s the last time anything like that ever happened here in Canada? Probably when the Cree battled the Mohawks at lacrosse before any white man ever showed up. So you see, it isn’t the athletes who are or aren’t performing. They’re doing their job to the best of their ability. And if we want to ride on their backs, we’d better start to pony up and put our backs into it. Otherwise the glory should all go to the athletes. At least that’s how it looks from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.

First Lady of the Olympics

The First Lady

A Tribute to Clara Hughes

What is the measure of man – or in this case - woman? It certainly isn’t the destination. That is only the goal. Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant. The real measure is how you undertake the journey to get to it. In that, Clara Hughes is a true champion, truly the first lady of the Olympics.

In the last Winter Olympics, I think Clara was skating in the 5,000-meter event when she won a silver medal. At the end of the race, she totally collapsed from exhaustion – I mean really collapsed. She arose, as in a dream and her victory shone all over her face. But it was not the victory you might think of. I mean, the silver medal was nice but that wasn’t it at all. It was the fact that she had commanded her mind, her spirit and her body to deliver up everything within her, leaving nothing behind – and had achieved it – that was the pinnacle of her achievement. ‘I am alive,’ she said, almost surprised.

Later, when she stood on the podium with Cindy Klassen, an equally accomplished and younger skater, the euphoria spread and Cindy, somewhat confused at first, couldn’t help but be swallowed up by it.

Then, just yesterday, after her cycling time trials ended in a fifth place finish; she had accomplished the same thing. She said with simple candor that she had given it her all, had emptied herself of everything she had, and was now satisfied. I take it to be the truth.

My children are all older than Clara, but I’ll tell you, she is a hero and role model for me. Every chance I get; I talk about her amazing spirit to my grandchildren as they pursue their dreams. Mind you, that doesn’t get me very far, but I try.

One of my grandsons plays football that way. When he was in high school I said to him, he should attack his school assignments the way he plays ball. Politely said, he just kind of laughed at me. Therein lies the rub. It’s the difference between doing what you love and loving what you do. There needn’t be a dividing line between the two.

Certainly Clara provides a model for us to demonstrate to our children of what they can accomplish, and the incredible rewards of the journey. We should pay attention, listen and learn from the first lady of life itself. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.