MONDAY 4:30 PM

Labour Day Weekend – the end of summer, not hockey season yet, so it must be CFL football season. The Blue Jays are out and the Flames are heading to China for pre-season? And today, the Stampeders managed to squeak out a win over the Eskimos. Now that the business of a holiday Monday is taken care of – a few opinionated comments from your favourite scribe:

SATURDAY 3 PM

Please note the Canadian spelling of “labour.” That may play into my attempt at wisdom this weekend. I am addicted! Yes, addicted to news, information, press releases by people, or events that I am interested in, and Flipboard feeds. I am also incredibly skeptical – no surprise to those who are close to me, I’m sure. So, I just finished reading yet another editorial about the NAFTA negotiations that are currently going on, or not going on, between Mexico, Canada and the US. Trump, as usual is being an asshole, Trudeau is trying to be all things to all people, and the Mexican president is only in office a few more months and his successor is a left wing, free trade skeptic. What a crew! How did we ever get to this situation where it appears that the 3 stooges would have more credibility in this very important negotiation for all 3 countries. I am starting to think that if the other parties are not interested in a win-win-win deal (and we know Trump isn’t) then maybe we should have the balls to walk away and wait until sanity returns to the white house (no it sure isn’t in caps anymore).

SUNDAY 6 AM

Funny how time changes things. The rage that I felt yesterday about all things political seems to have calmed down this morning. Perhaps that is because it is still dark outside. I’m not sure how much longer the rage free zone will last but for now I can enjoy reading a new novel by Wilbur Smith, ASSEIGAI. If you like BIG adventure, he’s your guy. I’ve been an avid fan for more than 35 years.

We watched a movie last night, that was recommended by our friends G and N, on Netflix called, “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.” It was quite good and much more enjoyable with the closed captioning on, which I mentioned in a recent post. 

MONDAY 4 AM

We now get to what is really keeping me awake this night – pipelines. It is naive to think that we can somehow clean up the planet by locking in the world’s second largest deposit of oil. The human race is still totally reliant on oil for everything from transportation, to food, to clothing, to heating, and most things technological including the device you are reading this on. I agree that environmental assessments are appropriate as we determine the feasibility of any large scale project but why does this seem to only apply to the oil industry? How about the impact made by wind farms, solar panel arrays, housing, tourism, agriculture, manufacturing, medicine and more.

The fact is, oil production in Canada is one of the most ethical, environmentally safe, human rights responsible, regulated, wealth sharing, democratically controlled operations in the world. Every single corner and every single resident of Canada shares in the benefits created by the oil industry through corporate and personal taxes and reinvested profits. If we are going to research and experiment with alternative sources of energy, where will the money come from to finance it if we shut down one of the country’s biggest wealth generators?

In addition to studying and revealing the negative impacts of various energy projects, we need to bring some balance to the process. Why are we not looking at the positive social and economic aspects and making these part of the process. This would allow us to look at a balanced discussion and reach a decision with all of the risks factored in including the cost of NOT going forward.

In the meantime, we still need oil to make our world work so why do we continue to buy it from regimes that are misogynistic, corrupt, terror sponsoring and totalitarian instead of accessing it from our own back yard? The court’s rejection of the Kinder Morgan pipeline project made me angry at first but I wonder if this could be a gift horse in disguise. Perhaps Alberta and Saskatchewan should begin to build some world class refineries and begin shipping higher value product instead of raw materials.

TECH LOVE

In my never ending battle with technology, I have done something stupid again. Amazon is transitioning the availability and management of hard copy books from Create Space to Kindle Direct Publishing and I thought I would get a jump start on the process. In the act of changing, I also decided to change the cover on my West Coast Trail book and discovered that I needed to change the book size and have the cover rejigged, etc. Needless to say, my book is not available until I have done a whole bunch of things and that won’t happen until next month. So, for you fans who insist on buying another copy of that bestseller in paperback, sorry. I should mention however, that it is still available in digital format everywhere.

FINALLY

A bit of an update for you: I am taking a self-imposed break from social media for a week or two and will not be accessing Facebook, Instagram, my website, et al. While in hiding I will be celebrating, yet another, birthday. Yes, that’s right, I am turning 35 again. Now 35 is my mental age, not to be confused with my maturity level which still hovers around 14. In case you feel so declined or obligated to now wish me a Happy Birthday on Facebook, I’m afraid I won’t be responding, so thank you in advance. Gifts of cash in small unmarked bills are always appreciated – see, I told you – 14!

Now, if I haven’t completely turned you off and you would like to get notified of future musings, then please feel free to fill in your email address and should wisdom strike me, you will receive notification to your inbox. Cheers.