I grew up on television. Starting with Romper Room, Captain Kangaroo, The Flintstones, and Mr. Rogers, by far my favourite childhood shows were Sesame Street and The Electric Company. Our television programming came into our home from an antenna mounted on a mast that ran up alongside the house, and came into a black and white television set. Eventually we did get a second television, a Zenith colour set, which I attribute to the peer pressure from our neighbours and friends. We never had Cable TV growing up, but as I grew up, my most favourite shows were Polka dot door, Gilligans Island, Happy Days, Threes Company, Laverne and Shirley, the Six Million Dollar Man, Dr. Who (in particular the Tom Baker years), The Twilight Zone, all of the Saturday Morning and after school cartoons ( GI Joe, Smurfs, Transformers, Thundercats, Voltron, The Mighty Hercules ), the Greatest American Hero, Knight Rider, and Family Ties to name but a few. Due to the nature of the antenna signal and the geography of our location, the American content was the weakest, though PBS put out a fairly strong signal. I tended to favour shows like Vision On, but shows that I really connected with and engaged my thinking were so rare and I never really understood why back then. Today, I understand completely.

The Canadian government has released new guidelines when it comes to alcohol consumption: No more than two drinks per week, and preferably none. Some argue this is an example of the government behaving too much like a “Nanny,” but I see this as the government protecting itself from potential litigation. If you are a Canadian who enjoys drinking alcoholic beverages, this should concern you.

According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, alcohol is a group 1 carcinogen. This puts it in the same group as Benzene, Asbestos, and Vinyl chloride, among a number of other nasty substances such as radioactive material. I believe the reason why our government is making this announcement now is because our government is responsible for both the distribution and sale of all alcoholic beverages, as well as for our taxpayer funded healthcare system.

Go anywhere you want, any time you want, with whomever you want. This is the promise the automobile industry has been selling since the 1950’s. But does anyone really question this? After all, the automobile industry only exists to make money for themselves; do they really care about our freedoms? Or are they trying to appeal to our emotions in order to enrich themselves at our expense? But the real question we should be asking is, does the car take away more freedom than it gives?

‘Tis the season for the automobile industry sellouts to attack bicycle infrastructure in our Canadian cities once again. Usually, they lay in wait until the coldest days of winter when ridership dips. Inevitably, there is always someone who brings up the issue of bicycle licensing. Here’s a screenshot of something that showed up in my news feed the other day.

First of all, I would like to express my appreciation for the transparency of the Edmonton Journal for covering half of my screen with an advertisement that shows me precisely who they have sold their charter right of freedom of the press to; the automobile industry. It’s not every day a conservative leaning media sellout is this blatantly transparent about their motivations for publishing a letter. This letter, written by Rick Neen, is surprisingly well penned; I suspect the editors at the Journal edited the letter to bring it up to this standard, because it’s quite rare for someone to achieve this level of penmanship while remaining uncritical in repeating automobile industry lies and propaganda. However, no amount of penmanship can cover up the cognitive dissonance of someone who starts out by stating, “I am not against promoting bike use” in the first sentence, then in the very next sentence states, “I think the city should justify their insane planned expenditure on bike lanes in these times.” Seriously, if you’re not against promoting bike use, then how would the expenditure on bike lanes be considered insane? Of course the city should justify any expenditure, as this is a cornerstone of good governance, but to consider it insane without first understanding the justification tells us straight away that Rick is not being very honest when he tells us he is not against promoting bike use, fortunately making him as transparant as the paper that published his letter.

Why this site exists #

When I was a child, I learned in our public school system what it meant to be a Canadian citizen. It had nothing to do with snow, maple syrup, or back bacon; it had to do with our Charter of Rights and Freedoms . This Charter is the very foundation of our democracy that keeps us free from tyranny and corruption, but this freedom isn’t free; it comes at a price: Each of us must do our part to exercise our rights each and every day, or else we could lose them, and along with them our freedoms. The Charter starts out with our fundamental freedoms, and section two states: