Jak's View From Vancouver

The Social Security Mess

There is endless chatter amongst the mindless classes these days that the US Social Security Fund is going to run out.  That God of all things suspect, Alan Greenspan has declared that people in the future must accept that the current rate of payments cannot be maintained.

On the other side, we have the Bushies decrying the fact that inaction over the Fund will hurt our childsren and their children unto the utmost generation.

But don't worry -- I have a solution.

Current Social Security recipients and everyone over the age of 35 should be cut off from all Social Security payments immediately and forever.  In this way, we can save the Fund at the cost of those who have actually caused the problem AND protect our children (and their children, etc etc) from the dire consequences of having the Fund go dry.

God and Trailer Trash

"If life were at all fair, Britney Spears would be working boat shows and bachelor parties in a half-hearted attempt to pay for a house that has wheels and a car that doesn’t. But God has a pretty weird sense of humor."

Brilliant stuff from The Superficial

Vancouver Today

International Women's Day

On My Way To Work on International Women’s Day, 2001

my true love,
my fino naked amontillado woman
waving goodbye with a promise on her face

At the bus stop seven women
three young
one old
four Oriental
wearing early morning faces

On the bus, a score or more
all different
pale blue anorak, red button earrings
long flowing flowering skirt
green duffel coat with a brown and cream scarf
grey baggy jeans

a Japanese girl,
matte black hair, matte black jacket, matte black jeans and shoes,
china white face

no hats

In rainsplashed grey, the homeless beggar girl
curled coldly in the bank entrance mouths
her need
her face pierced and tattooed
she’ll be easy to spot when the vigilantes ride

On the train it is too early
in the day to see the women
bowed down
dragged down
by bunches of plastic-bagged groceries
but there are plenty of
handbags
purses
backpacks
umbrellas
the occasional briefcase

One woman works through the newspaper crossword
One woman reads a soft cover novel with a lurid colour scheme
One woman intently studies a thick textbook in an unknown subject

Black stockings
grey stockings
flesh-coloured stockings
black shoes (mainly) but also
a white-rimmed runner
a blue suede shoe
and a dark brown number with tall wooden heels

no hats

and at the next bus stop there is Karen,
my special friend
calls me “sweet man”
the special needs transit pass her necklace which she wears as proudly as a duchess wears a diamond
we share my umbrella, discuss her work

I sleep on the bus
surrounded by women I wouldn’t get to sleep with in any other circumstances

Deaths Bring Wrong Reasoning

Yesterday, in a terrible tragedy, four RCMP officers were shot dead by a criminal psycopath during a raid on a marijuana grow-op on a farm in Alberta.  Immediately, there are calls for additional and harsher penalties for marijuana cultivation.  One politician at least said that harsh sentences were the "only possible response" to such a tragedy.

Totally wrong.

The officers were killed not because marijuana was being grown, but because growing marijuana is illegal.  If marijuana cultivation had been legal, there would have been no reason for the police to be raiding the farm, and the killings would have been avoided.

There is no rational reason for marijuana to be illegal (especially while other far more dangerous drugs such as tobacco and alcohol are both legal and encouraged).  It is this irrationality that killed the RCMP officers.  It is about time we recognized that and ended this sham of a War on Some Drugs that kills so many people.