Aneurysm in 3...2...

Did I miss something? While I was in Texas last week, my absence apparently threw the left into revolt. First, Ann Coulter got jumped at the University of Ottawa. I mean, I have no love for her. And picking a university in a liberal country to speak at certainly doesn't say anything about her ability to use common sense. But seriously? Setting off fire alarms and trying to break in? Passing ridiculous resolutions such as, and I quote:

"Whereas Ann Coulter is a hateful woman;

"Whereas she has made hateful comments against GLBTQ, Muslims, Jews and women;

"Whereas she violates an unwritten code of 'positive-space';

"Be it resolved that the SFUO express its disapproval of having Ann Coulter speak at the University of Ottawa."

Idiots. So, I laugh it off, knowing that universities only acknowledge free speech when it falls into line with their twisted views of the world. Alright. So I'm cruising Teh Interwebz when this pops up:

Professors slam scholarships for children of dead soldiers

Let me get this straight: these soldiers, the best people Canada has to offer, volunteer to go to Douchebaggistan to try and help people who don't have pots to piss in, don't have the technological base to create pots to piss in, and try to maintain a fragile peace, right? They're behaving in the same ways that the troops who fought their way up Juno beach did, the same way your precious peacekeepers have for generations...and you essentially want to punish their kids. Lord knows the military life is pretty rough. You move around a lot, lots of unstable schedules and long absences, lousy pay and mediocre benefits. The government decides to make a fund to pay for the schooling of its honoured dead's children, and you object? Why?

“We think this program is a glorification of Canadian imperialism in Afghanistan,” said Jeffrey Webber, one of 16 professors who drafted an open letter to university president Vianne Timmons.

Let's break this down. Imperialism implies that we're getting something out of this war. So, what are we getting? I haven't got a crate of heroin yet. No one's selling that shit to me. Oil? Doesn't have any, despite the idiot protester's slogans. Land? Shit, you couldn't pay the average Canadian to visit, much less colonize the damn place. No metal, no decent farmland. Control or authority? Over what, a small part of a Central Asian country where the literacy rate is 10% that exports nothing but terrorists? Oh, and if IS that, we share it with the rest of NATO.

Do these people think we invaded to dump money and lives into the country for profit? It's a monster loss just building basic infrastructure like ROADS! To call the war imperialism shows either a dangerous lack of understanding of the term, or a dangerous schism with reality.

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Reactions

So, I spent last week in Texas, home of awesome. I was in Houston near the tail end of my trip, and we were walking through a mall talking politics. Things eventually got around to knives. I said I no longer carried a pocket knife, because I've had people jump when I pulled it for a mundane task (specifically, removing packaging). My buddy Chuck suddenly pulls a knife out of his pocket, displaying it to me. It's a nice knife, to boot.

I react.

I don't react with horror. I don't react with alarm. I like Chuck. I know Chuck wouldn't cut me. What did I say?

"Shit, man."

I looked around, and I expected people to be scrambling, staring at him with horror for openly displaying a pocket knife. No one so much as spared a second glance. I expected security to lob themselves bodily at him, cops to come running. None did. I didn't fear the knife, I feared the reactions of the people around him. It came as an honest and genuine surprise to me that we didn't attract a single glance askew.

Man, that socialist shit is ingrained in me deeper than I thought.

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Decisions, Decisions

It's getting to the end of the school year, so I'm gearing up my resume to be sent off to various organizations. The vultures are circling, seeing who's prime for recruitment, and who's not. Now, due to my habit of speaking my mind, telling the truth, and being competent, I'm pretty sure that BOMA and the other corporate slugs have no interest in me. So I've been trying to penetrate the Old Boy's club and get into public sector work.

There's three attitudes however towards emergency management and preparedness, however"

1. Do the bare minimum, because the government says so.

2. Fake up to or beyond the bare minimum.

3. Drag your feet and actually get yourselves squared away.

There are exceptions to this, of course. Most companies or departments dealing with hazardous materials are pretty good about safety, emergency preparedness and such. Then there are associations who will go unnamed, as they take the least-dim-witted security guard, give him a 5$/hr raise, and put him in charge of all their programs. Now, I'm not saying security guards are all dim. I was once one, for example. But it takes a special kind of stupid to take a small raise in order to take on that amount of responsibility.

At any rate, I'm preparing my shabby-seeming resume for applications to the Canadian federal government, provincial emergency management authority, and to FEMA and the Public Safety departments of both Washington and Texas. While I sort of want to move to someplace where I can defend myself without being charged with manslaughter, or someplace where I can own a firearm without everyone looking at me like I'm wearing a necklace of human eyes, ears, and fingers, I'm pretty nerved up about the idea. I have friends and family here. I like the snow. And quite frankly, living someplace new scares the ever-living fuck out of me. Anyone ever moved cross-country or anything like that? Any advice?

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