I could probably find more, but we'll start with these three: Alberta Healthcare, The Police HQ or any of the affiliated Justice Buildings, and anywhere east of the Deerfoot Trail in Calgary. Any of these and you know you're life has taken a turn for the worst.
Our sous-chef, a 50 year old Filipino, perhaps 5 feet tall, fit, but you couldn't find anyone of a more peaceable disposition. And he's managed to hit all 3. Really, he stinks of good Karma. A more timid and gentle soul you couldn't find. But like a lot of new immigrants he's landed somewhere east of the Deerfoot trail, getting home after work involves him taking a bus downtown, then back up to Rundle on the C Train.
It's a bit of a journey, but he needs the job.
On Monday night after work he's walking from the Train station when some young men in a car beckon him over. He doesn't know better, doesn't know Calgary, he's naive and uses his own good nature to appraise others.
Remember, he's 50 years old. And 5 feet tall.
And so he walks over to the car and before he knows it one of the occupants has smashed him across the face with a coke bottle. A funny joke, another drunk night out for a bunch of Hero Calgarians.
His cheekbone's broken, he can't see out of one eye, he's off work for a week and needs surgery. After this he runs - nonstop - a full kilometer home. He's in shock, he's a naturally timid and peaceable person, this is outside his experience.
The next day he goes to the Police station. He files a report, they want the report, these reports, they're gold when you're asking for more funding from the city. But they tell him not to get his hopes up, they probably won't catch the guys that did this (probably they won't even investigate), they get these reports every night. Really, violent crime isn't something the police are into, unless they're instigating things like at the G20 summit in Toronto.
No, the police are more into donuts and issuing traffic tickets, preferably by photo radar. They don't think they'll catch the culprits, but they'll take the complaint, their budget depends on it.
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Enough is enough.
The laptop is old, true enough, but it's failing in software related ways, not in any physical sense. Every day, 10, 20 times, Word crashes - even when it hasn't been opened, and I'm confronted with the prompt to send an error report to Microsoft and recover my documents. The documents I didn't open. There are the countless attempted overwrites of the normal.dot file, detect and repair demands I track down my installation disc (I have, somewhere, but these seems like a lengthy solution to what should be a simple enough problem...).
The hundreds of error reports I've already submitted have not resulted in any helpful Microsoft tips to fix it.
Should I actually attempt to use Word I find myself with time for a coffee and a cigarette while it launches - Photoshop launches quicker.
So I've switched platforms, downloaded Open Office, and while I've only had time to browse the GUI it's looking very promising.
It launches when I click on the icon.
It's easy and intuitive to figure out, and formatting tricks that took forever and seemed impossible in Word are proving surprisingly easy. My fear of learning has been quickly dismissed by how little there is to learn.
So, goodbye Word, I wish I could say it's been nice, but, really, it's been a load of shit.
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The discontent grows. First the London Riots, then the Americans occupying Wall Street. The police, despite being paid by the people, are not answerable to the people and do as they please, whether it be arresting under age protesters or macing peaceable demonstrators.
This is foreseeable, entirely, as people generally discover that the system is rigged against them, there's that vague discontent that comes from misgovernment and the realization that capitalism by it's nature is evil, that a 2 party democracy is no democracy at all, that corporations have all of the rights of individuals without any of the responsibilities or expectations, that through every crisis that crushes a hundred, a thousand families there are those at the top who still get richer.
It's the French revolution all over again, with the only qualifier being that the difference between the haves and the have-nots in the French revolution was no where near what the difference is now. The rich with their contempt for the mules who've carried them to where they are now, the powerful who make the policies that favour the rich, the police who enforce with cruel zeal and immunity their long held fantasies of policing, and the disquiet grows.
The deficit is overwhelming, this "money as debt" is not working out, the debt will never be paid. It could be paid tomorrow, the wealthiest in the country could pay it down immediately without any impact or notice to their day to day lives, it is, after all, only numbers somewhere held in a computer, but to do so would be to relinquish some measure of control or power, would be to acknowledge guilt or accountability, would be give up what they've so hard won or inherited.
They'll resist, who wouldn't? But this gross inequality could be easily remedied, and people are beginning to sense the injustice of it all.
This diet of candy bars and television, it's made the people weak, it is what, after all, it was formulated to do, education is no longer education - to be educated is to be worried, no, it's all trade-school and employment, keep the wheels of this juggernaut turning, it must be fed. more oil, gas, hours at work, with savings and due diligence you can still get ahead....
The day will come when we lift their heads upon pikes, the rich and the powerful, their money and power, numbers held in a computer, so vast as to be mere abstractions, will vanish, it was after all only an illusion and when this is done we'll be free.
Meanwhile the people are occupying wall street, burning London, and the people are restless, there is that vague, undefinable sense of having been cheated, swindled, but the machinery has grown so large and complex that no one can put a finger on where it all went so terribly wrong....
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And they've been and painted the deck today, in the process trampling and laying waste to all the flowers I've carefully planted and nurtured these past several months.
The condo board.
The deck, or front porch, a dull, flat, uniform grey, exactly like every one of the other neighbors. I tried ornamenting it with brightly coloured Tibetan Prayer Flags, but received notice to take them down, and so now it's just like every one else's. And the flower garden, well, we'll give it a few days and see, the neighbors dandelions and weeds have been carefully trod around, mine own have been crushed and trammeled underfoot.
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