Reflections of an Old Man

Alberta’s Premier Jason Kenney has a blind spot and it might lead to his political undoing. He sailed onto the political scene here in Alberta some time ago after enjoying some years in the sun in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s federal cabinet in Ottawa. As a seasoned political operator, he had little difficulty in managing to rally Albertan conservatives around himself with a promise of unseating the then Premier of Alberta, Rachel Notley, and her NDP government. Following the formation of the United Conservative Party of Alberta and a dirty leadership campaign, the UCP won government in the 2019 election and Kenney was installed as Premier. Ever since then, his fortunes as leader have been flagging, within his own party and in the population at large. The problem is that Kenney does not really fit into the conservative Albertan political framework. He is viewed with suspicion by the party base as a closet liberal and by people at large as someone with federal focus and ambitions, tr

There is a saying in our culture: “barking up the wrong tree”. It comes from the observation that squirrels like to play games with dogs. They run up one tree with dogs in hot pursuit, then jump to another one and yet another one, all the while laughing at the dog(s) excitedly barking at the empty space in the original tree. And so it is with the conspiracy theorists: They dream up all kinds of fancy schemes for how they are being manipulated and controlled by evil politicians and other front stage operators like Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci, the UN etc. Meanwhile, large private corporations and individuals are hoarding data on our behaviours to point where we can be easily manipulated without even being aware of what is happening. This information is sold on the open market to the highest bidders who will use it to their own advantage, at our cost. This squirrel is not just laughing at us, he is screwing us as well.

Waves of all kinds are a universal feature of Nature. The most obvious ones are seen in water surfaces here on Earth, as water moves up and down in distinct patterns. Pressure waves in the air cause our eardrums to move accordingly, transmitting audible information to our brains, as do electromagnetic light waves as they enter our eyes. There is also another set of waves that affect humanity in profound ways. Let’s call them collective emotional waves. A recent example would be the “Yellow Vest” movement that had its origins in France a few years ago, and spread across parts of the world. The “Trump wave” would qualify as well. As would the “George Floyd wave”. What they have in common is that people get out in the street where person-to-person physical connectivity increase wave intensity significantly. And augmenting that phenomenon at this time is electronic connectivity, facilitated by Facebook, twitter, etc. A general term for these kinds of phenomena could be “mindscape waves” th

Remnants of empires of the past across the world can be found in the stone structures they leave behind for us to ponder about. The Egyptians, Incas and a host of others created monuments and fortifications to be proud of. How do empires grow and subsequently fall apart? Once established, why don’t they just persist for the benefit of inhabitants? The growth phase is fairly easy to understand: As a consequence of several factors coming together, such as skilled leadership, natural resources and adventurism, a group of people can subjugate other groups and incorporate them into an ever growing organization of conquest and dominance, mostly for the benefit of the conquerors and their collaborators. So, why do these arrangements invariably break up over time? Some quickly and others over several hundred years? A great example of how this can happen quickly is described in Hugh Thomas’s book “The Conquest of Mexico” that I obtained for $1 at a charitable thrift store some years ago. It is

Many years ago I had conversation with my father in law about what it was like to be a young farm boy during the Great Depression in Alberta. Not very exiting, as it turned out, just farm chores and getting into trouble on free time. There was no money around so you couldn’t do much of anything apart from the routine stuff. Then, all of a sudden, things changed in 1938-9: The bankers just about hauled you in through their doors, offering loans and credit for farm improvements like livestock, machinery, etc. Farmers became the golden boys. Why? Because the War was coming and banks were authorized by the government to make sure that food production was ramped up to support the war effort. So, the Big Hand behind money in a modern economy is the state that can simply authorize the creation of money on its books by an act of its ruling body, in our case the Canadian Parliament, using the Bank of Canada which opened its doors for business in March, 1935. Commercial banks, that make credit a