To thine own self be true

Lord, what fools these UCP mortals be!
As the health care and education system apocalypse/implosion nears, let’s pay homage to those Four UCP Horsewo/men:

(Thanks to my IT guy Jason for the graphic.)

Too little, too late. It does not excuse her words which convinced the less careful among us who went out and had a very risky summer, believing the pandemic was over in Alberta.
Many people got sick and died because of her words, that blatant misinformation, those lies. Smiling and saying ‘sorry’ does not change the fact that she misled the province and has blood on her hands like Kenney and Shandro (lest we forget). It is time to make a giant bonfire of all those heroic Hinshaw shirts.

many will see this as the last straw and quit or retire under these crazy, impossible conditions.

The health care system is imploding in Alberta. The nurses crisis is already here (how many import nurses did the government actually hire?) and next these disturbers will be attacking pharmacies and injection sites. The whole shebang is poised to fall apart if there is no pushback against these lawbreakers who don’t realize they are 11x more likely to develop Covid, clog up the hospitals, and die.

The hospitals will soon be full with no one to look after patients. I predict the overflow facilities will fill up fast and there will be patients dying alone and unattended (possibly in nursing homes, too, when things go off the map). Also potentially problematic will be What to do with the many bodies relative to funerals and burials.

A day in the life of room 42, grade 12, 1967, John Suszko’s rogues gallery. RD, left, beyond the mayhem, chatting music with Wayne Fraser.

After graduation, June 1967 to age 72:

-went to University of Winnipeg for 3 years where I met the Love of My Life: Karen Reade from Westwood Collegiate;

eventually married her–we celebrated our 50th anniversary this spring; had a boy and girl–he works for U of A, she for Govt. of AB. (2 grandsons via the boy).

-at university, was able to follow my bliss–literature and books, and completed my BA and 2 grad diplomas at U of A, enabling me to teach high school English which I did for 30 years before retiring early in 2002.

-left Winnipeg in 1970 for Edmonton, settling there, teaching there.
-but did have a whole other fun career as a singer-songwriter-musician-band leader on the side from 1973 until 2003, playing for thousands publicly, including many gigs for students and staffs.

-and a whole other career on the side from 1980 to 2010 as a major Canadian English senior high textbook author producing over 50 texts and guides (selling over a million), many which were authorized and widely used across Canada (which also led to a long career as a workshop presenter at many teacher conventions). I would eventually give some of my books to my gr. 11 teacher Brian Kells and to my 12 teacher George Brown, who both inspired me to become an English teacher.

-I also worked as a film classifier for the province of Alberta and acted in and directed some plays.

-I started writing and reading poetry in 1980 and self-published several chapbooks. I created the only illustrated blog on the history of Canadian literature (Canlitbooks.ca) and a personal consciousness blog (Tothineownselfbetrue.ca) which is entering its 9th year and features my main writing since 2010.

-Along the way, I became a rare book collector,

a movie collector, a Classics Illustrated comic collector,

and a music collector and seller. My favorite trips were 2 to New England visiting the haunts of famous authors in the 5 states in September-October (including Dickinson, Frost, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Wharton, Melville, Twain, Emerson, and Eliot)

)

-It’s a long way from Silver Heights Collegiate (1965-67), but I maintain my contacts with Winnipeg’s Hugh Hanson (who runs one alumni group), David Cherrett, Wayne Fraser (my long-time music connection, now living in Calgary), and long-retired Brian Kells. 

(Richard.Davies@shaw.ca)

-collapse of health care system
-collapse of hospitals
-collapse of nursing support and adequate supply
-collapse of ambulance system
-collapse of opioid crisis support
-collapse of education system
-collapse of support for Alberta children
-collapse of universities via underfunding
-collapse of progressive education in Alberta
-collapse of Alberta curriculum
-collapse of city and town funding and supports

-collapse of responsible government with response to societal and emergency needs

who are addressing the Covid and opioid crises, not the do-nothing redneck UCP government who are quite comfortable watching Albertans die especially if they’re old since that’s nothing to be concerned about (recalling Kenney’s opinions). These callous buggers are only interested in power and their high salaries not the lives of Albertans.

The bleeding obvious is the vaccine passport issue since passports would force the unvaxxers to get vaccinated. Also there needs to be a masking policy for kids across the province until their vaccines get here in 2022. UCP is not only ignoring these crises, they are abandoning the people totally. Kenney’s dumb-ass, cynical $100 bribe is a total abject failure. Albertans lack leadership and government right across the board. We have a government that is, unconscionably, ‘getting away with murder’ in front of public eyes.

Remember “Hats off to Larry” by Del Shannon?

Justin ‘hurt-looking’ and unable to grasp many people’s feelings about him and his previous two do-nothing terms with blackfacing, dressing up ‘Indian’, giving the shaft to several females, ignoring the military sex crises, etc.

Don McLean had the perfect song on his first album about this:

“You see, everybody loves me, baby
What’s the matter with you?
Won’tcha tell me what did I do
To offend you?”

…………………………

That said, it is childish to throw stones at others as some of us were taught long ago in a much happier world.

needs universities, bricks and mortar schools, education, serious learning, books, science, and the arts when we’ve got beer, bars, lotteries (shades of 1984), rodeos, and stampedes? Alberta is in serious jeopardy of being the most dumbed-down province in Canada. A home for rednecks, gun-toters, antivaxxers, and a government which does absolutely nothing for its people and totally abandons them.

are essential services in Alberta?

Do you see a problem with Kenney bringing in nurses from other provinces and paying them $25 more while cutting local nurses who have already proven themselves and are being insulted by his government’s 3% cut?

Do you feel insulted that Kenney is paying antivaxxer rednecks $100 to get their shots after you stepped up and got yours long ago? And how come people who voted for him are getting this bribe?

If you truly had your say, would you vote him out immediately without much thought? Exactly what good has he done potentially wasting $20 million on this $100 bribe, personally blowing 1.3 billion on a pipeline, and wasting another 2 million already on vaccination lotteries paid out to 2 Calgarians?

And where’s the data, Deena? From January and June? What she offered Friday was not credible research data and terribly unconvincing and incomplete. She should have her license taken away. What a fraud!