The Curmudgeon Rants

Schools and Learning

The North American School System seems to be more about regimentation and regurgitation than critical thinking and life-skills. Just look at the fuss over sex education and creationism, censorship and testing. Children are kept dependent and out of the workforce for twelve to sixteen years in a regime designed to prepare them for a 9-5 work experience that to a large degree no longer exists. Driven everywhere for their own safety they don't even learn how to navigate their own neighbourhoods without a GPS. Not allowed to walk to school where frills like phys ed, libraries, and music programs are dropped for economic reasons they are over-weight and culturally deprived.

Raised in a permissive system where self-discipline is lacking and self-expression trumps grammar and spelling recent generations use a calculator to do basic math and a hand-held device to communicate with the world. With the demise of newspapers social media sites spread fads such as Pokemon Go at the speed of light—or fibre optics if you will. Camera phones and social networks spread sensational events unfiltered instantly as they happen. Violent video games and America's preoccupation with guns and the false sense of security they feel they provide have led to a sense of unease and schools monitored by marshals where children pass through metal detectors.

The military establishment has trained killers and returned traumatized vets to a society with which they seem incapable of coping. The costs of all these guns in the hands of PTSD sufferers has become very evident of late. A history of racism and class struggle has impacted schools where parents have moved their homes to avoid the wrong neighbourhoods and forced racial integration—busing. The discontent, lack of critical thought, functional illiteracy, and dependence on social media for social interaction has enabled a Donald Trump to co-opt the primary system and present the RNC with a candidate few want but are powerless to resist. And we thought having a president who declared war on countries he couldn't find on a map was bad!!

 JulySoapbox

If the president's wife is the First Lady does that make her husband the First Man?

The Toronto Cop who pumped 6 bullets into the dead body of the disturbed teen his first 3 had already killed was sentenced to six years in prison. What is significant about this is that Canadian Law is so written that this makes it the first time a cop here has been convicted of murder while on duty. His ultimate trial will be surviving prison. If this makes police anywhere think twice about the use of excessive force.... Those who wear the uniform may have a different take on the matter. In Dallas, Moncton, Mayerthorpe.

Cross Country Checkup gets new host. I'm not generally a fan of the hoi poloi and talk shows which elicit the opinions of the great unwashed. Perhaps it's the kind of cranks that tend to be attracted to call-ins.

Healthy bacon is healthy because they removed all the flavour so no one would eat it.

Birthday Rhetoric

Is there a better time to stage a diet cheat day? I’m about to have cake, ice cream, and jam. Tomorrow morning bacon and eggs whenever it is I finally stagger out of bed. Many more birthdays and I’ll be an old curmudgeon, I already have the curmudgeon part down.

Visited Swiss Chalet today and will probably not be going back. In Canada a waiter should be fluent in at least one of our official languages. Cantonese is not one of them. Service was slow relieved by the fact that I was able to use Wi-Fi. My beer had set in the drum too long was foamy and on the way to getting skunky. My chips were remnants not fresh from the fryer.

At Longos I got a glimpse of my possible future. At the checkout the older gent in front of me took ten minutes to fumble with the credit card machine while four people checked out in the next line. While his Care Van Driver waited he fumbled for his grocery bags then left his cart blocking the lane. Almost out the door he remembered he came in with a walker that he couldn’t manage to place at this point having used the grocery cart to manoeuvre the aisles.

Later in August

Cost of a cheap pair of distance glasses to see me through the next year: $315.00.

Ahead, the hottest week in the GTA ever. Number of Days over 100 in Austin Texas in 2015: 5. Number below 100 this summer, about 5. Any connection with the amount of hot air Trump is spewing?

Poverty and ignorance are the greatest causes of the spread of disease. Because Moslems resist vaccination Polio was not wiped from the face of the earth. A false medical report led parents to refuse childhood vaccination. Childhood diseases such as Measles and Chickenpox have seen recent outbreaks.

Use of DDT may be banned in Canada but it is still the world's largest producer of that insecticide. Our songbirds over-winter in Central American countries where it is used to fight malaria. Hence birds further up the food chain are still exposed.