Thursday, December 9, 2021

Alternate Sources of Information


Our modern culture is informed by mass media and as a result we have been conditioned to accept a certain standard. We take our cues from award shows and are taught what is good, bad, or ugly by the ratings and what is renewed or cancelled at the end of each season. I was never a big TV watcher but I was always one who would enjoy watching the news at least once a day. When you get used to the bright lights of a fancy studio, well groomed anchors, slickly edited video, and high quality audio, you begin to take it for granted and when a piece comes on with less than stellar quality you grimace and almost wonder if it is trust worthy.


And that is the problem with alternative sources of information. In order to hear something about COVID that did not follow the standard narrative, one had to resort to podcasts, smart phone videos, and interviews taking place in someone's home or in a doctor's office between patients. Upstart news services did not have the big dollars and big sponsors to compete with the mainstream so they often looked hokey, home made, and slapped together. But did that make any of the information untrue? And so, one had to sort through the various sources and try to make a determination as to who was trustworthy and who was not. Of course, anyone addicted to the mainstream immediately would say, "that is an unreliable source. If it was true I would have seen it on CNN or CBC or ....." (fill in the blank). 

 

It would eventually get to the point where a piece from some obscure journalist would quote statistics and data from a very reliable source and because the reporting was not from mainstream media, the piece would be debunked. Had the very same information been presented on the mainstream, people everywhere would have sat up and taken notice. 

And then, to protect the masses from false information, the censorship and fact checking started in earnest. The first time I was aware of censorship on the internet was when Prager U put out a series of videos on the 10 commandments. Prager U is a conservative organization that is dedicated to espousing traditional, conservative views in an age of socialism and deteriorating social mores. What was censored? The video on the commandment "Thou shalt not kill". Apparently it incited violence. Yes, that is how silly censorship and fact checking became, and that was in the early days. 


I recall another example where a blogger claimed that the NIH got more than 50% of its funding from  big pharma. He was fact checked and then taken off his internet platform. I mean, this is pretty big news and would explain why the vaccine was given a green light before proper testing. The fact checker stated unequivocally that only 40% of the funding of NIH came from big pharma. Still a problem, no? So the blogger struck back and fact checked the fact checker and it was true that the arm of the NIH which gives approval to drugs, whether final approval or emergency use approval, did indeed get most of its funding from big pharma. Was there a retraction from the fact checkers? Not to my knowledge. 

All this to say that an information war was beginning to take shape and blatant lies, misinformation, and withholding information was taking place on both sides, and it was becoming confusing. Those who watched only mainstream were getting only one side of the story while those who were digging for truth were getting the missing pieces that would fill in the story. And what we were discovering was shocking to say the least.

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Made in China

 I will not review the events of late 2019 to early 2020 except to say that it was the beginning of a most unprecedented time in the history of our world. From the first video of body bags, and health care workers in PPE's (one of the first of many new medical terms we learned) in Wuhan China, to the daily pronouncements by the WHO on the state and progression of the virus, we were bracing ourselves for some bad news, hoping it was all a big exaggeration. Looking back on it, there was a lot of exaggeration going on, and also the beginning of many lies, like arrows shooting  fear into the global population.


The USA was in a transition of leadership with Trump  still president but on his way out. Despite the Democrats winning the election, they still could not leave Trump alone and tried at every opportunity to discredit him, even impeach him for a second time. When he labeled  the newly minted COVID 19 virus "The Wuhan Flu" he was called a racist, even though the virus did originate in China and was even later proven to come from one of their labs where 'gain of function' research was being carried out. Even today, Dr. Tony Fauci is lying about it even though it has been proven that he knew about America's involvement and funding by his own NIH of such research. 


And then something interesting happened. Suddenly, out of the blue, along comes a vaccine created under the auspices of  'Operation Warp Speed'. An untried and untested vaccine was about to arrive on the scene but needed approval. A new drug or vaccine cannot get FDA approval without proper testing, which includes long term time trials to determine long term safety. In fact, the current vaccine trials are not over until 2023. However, if there is a dire need,  an emergency, and THERE IS NO TREATMENT FOR THE DISEASE, temporary approval can be given. 


There was one little glitch however. There WERE treatments. Trump contracted COVID and was treated with Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine, and amazingly, recovered in a few days when his age and physical condition were not in his favor. The press and the US health authorities dismissed the treatments as unproven and even unsafe. At first I thought this was just another attempt to embarrass or make Trump look bad. But now I realize that as long as there was no treatment the vaccines could go to market. It was not about Trump, but about the fantastic opportunity for the drug companies to make literally billions of dollars. The strategy was so successful that even today, in Dec. of 2021, those proven treatments are still being put down so the vaccines do not lose their emergency approval permission. And the money rolls in.


To make matters worse, the new Pfizer drug to treat COVID disease has received emergency approval just recently and again, only because there is 'no known effective treatment available'.  This is blatant corruption at the highest level. As each day went by I saw the scene unfolding and I became more suspicious of the media who seemed to be the mouthpiece for the Pfizers and Modernas of the world. I asked myself, 'If they are lying about the treatments, are they lying about the vaccines too. And so I started finding alternate sources of information so I could make an informed decision when the vaccines arrived in Canada, in BC, and in my hometown. Something told me that accepting or not accepting the vaccine was going to be a rather important decision. 

Saturday, December 4, 2021

Media Bias

 American politics never really interested me until I began to see the polarization that began to take place when Donald Trump got the nod from the Republicans to run for President. It fascinated me to see how the two parties, who were similar in so many ways, would suddenly take on different personas and lay out two entirely different visions for the country. 

I realized from the beginning that Trump was not a career politician and that could work either for or against him in the presidential race. It became apparent that he was going to upset the apple cart and I soon realized that there was a systemic problem in the Washington DC world and Trump was not coming to play by the rules. Feathers would be ruffled and it would not be business as usual. 

Of course, this made him a lot of enemies and the way the press would cover his campaign as compared to Hillary Clinton's was going to make a difference. There has always been immense power in the press. Who would they side with? The media's hand was played early and if there was ever any doubt as to who they were backing, it was made so very evident on election night when beyond all odds and against the pollster's predictions, Trump won and the talking heads were on the verge of nervous breakdowns realizing that Hillary had actually lost the election.  

The world of politics in the USA was upset forever and the efforts to take the presidency away from the outsider was unprecedented.  Obama and Clinton cooked up a scheme to discredit Trump with the big Russian collusion accusations, which lasted for three years, and ended up in an impeachment, but in the end was proven to be a hoax. The media played a huge roll in the deception, and the coverup when the deception was being discredited. Trump was being bashed on the nightly news, relentlessly, all the while, doing some good things for the country and gaining a solid following. 

Then, for me, what was the ultimate dirty trick by the mainstream media, began to play out. A laptop belonging to Joe Biden's son, Hunter, was discovered, and contained some pretty damning evidence that Joe and son were up to no good. After the FBI sat on this evidence for almost a year, Rudy Giuliani, Trump's lawyer,  finally went public with it but there was not a word of it in the mainstream media. Basically, millions of Americans went to the polls in 2020 not knowing. A few weeks later, polls were taken and fully 30% of those who had voted for Biden would not have done so had they known about the laptop. Meaning that whether by election fraud, or withholding information, the election had more or less been stolen. 

By now, I was disgusted by the media and knew they could not be trusted. The bias was not limited to the USA media. Here in Canada, the Liberals set up a fund of more than $500 million for "trusted media". It is called buying the media. Who would bite the hand that feeds them? According to some sources, more than 95% of journalist in Canada and the US are 'left leaning' so it only stands to reason that they would support Liberals in Canada and Democrats in the USA. The media has always been biased but being so blatantly obvious about it is unprecedented. 

All of this forced my hand to begin searching for alternative news and viewpoints because I certainly was not getting them from any of my TV channels, newspapers, or radio stations. 

And then came the "pandemic". 

Thursday, December 2, 2021

Attacked by My Own Government

 If I was ever under the illusion that the government of my country was for me and had my best interests at heart, I would get a rude awakening in the mid 80's. 

Our Amway business was going really well, and I was envisioning going full time and not having to worry about money for the foreseeable future. We had won trips and awards and our organization was growing, as was our business volume and our profits. A local aspiring Conservative politician approached me about being on his election committee for his attempt to gain the Conservative nomination for our Fraser Valley riding in the upcoming federal election.  

I was flattered and certainly my interest and love of politics was a factor in me accepting the position. One of the reasons I was chosen was because the candidate thought I could deliver the 'Amway vote'. We would stack the meeting with our free enterprise loving business partners and vote as a block. We did get a block together but our opponent  had a huge 'church block' and won the nomination handily. In the process I learned a lot. I began to understand how the Amway vote in the USA was electing people at all levels of government. There were literally millions of Amway distributors across the USA and they were certainly conservative (Republican) in their political leanings.  

Our Prime Minister at the time, PET, was not blind to this fact and he eventually got wind that the same thing could happen in Canada. So, he developed a plan and was able to put it into place rather quickly. We had a prominent Conservative MP attending our weekly meetings in Surrey and he and I had a discussion about what was going on in Ottawa. 

Apparently the CRA (Canadian  Revenue Agency) does audit projects, which is actually a very efficient and effective way to catch misdemeanors in the area of income taxes. The teams of auditors will educate themselves in all things to do with fishing, for example, learning all the ins and outs and the little tricks that fishermen will employ in order to avoid taxes. Then they will go out and audit only fishermen for the next month or so. 

PET called an Amway Project. We were taught in our Saturday morning seminars, how to run a small business, keep accurate paperwork, and file taxes for self-employed business. We were 'above board'. So the devious Prime Minister had to make this audit work. How he did it was by creating retroactive rules. For example, instead of saying that all expenses relating to sales convention outside of our sales territories were no longer tax deductible, he said that those conventions were not eligible for tax writ-offs as of three years ago. You, reader, may find this hard to believe, but this is what he did. Then, every distributor making more than $500.00 a month was audited. Those are the same ones who would go on the conventions to Hawaii, LA, and Phoenix. They were expensive but were made more affordable because of the write-offs. Previously, there were specific instruction from CRA as to how to make sure the conventions would qualify as a business write-off, which we followed to the 'T'. It suddenly made no difference. 

So all the expenses of all those audited partners of ours were disallowed, making their income greater, and taxes payable higher. The taxes payable for the expenses from the previous years were in arrears so there was penalty and interest to pay. Interest rates at that time were in high teens. The audit happened over the next few months and our business literally fell apart due to discouragement and financial hardship. We went from close to $1 million in gross revenue the prior three years to mere thousands. We too quit after all our hard work went up in flames and discouragement. The Amway business in Canada was never a force ever again. The prime ministerial objective was achieved. 

I would be suspicious of all government from that day forward, realizing that they do what they have to do for the sake of power and keeping their position, for status and a big pension payoff at the end of their tenure. 

If I have been long winded, it is so you can understand the mindset of someone who, especially today, with mounting evidence, will never trust the government. 

In the next post, I will fast forward to the 2016 - 2020 term of the US president. Things will start to warm up. 

Manipulation by Media

 My mistrust of media grew into a mistrust of government and its institutions. Under the guise of saving jobs and helping people, Ocean Falls was purchased by the NDP in 1972 (It had been privately owned and operated by Crown Zellerbach since its inception in the early1900's) but they soon discovered that it was a lost cause. While spinning the production numbers, they were losing money by the truckloads, until, finally, even they knew it was a lost cause. The town was abandoned and instead of exploiting the existing town and its infrastructure for some other purpose (tourism for example), it was demolished. 

We moved on in our lives and when I returned to civilization, I was having difficulty finding work. I had paid into what was known at that time as UI, unemployment insurance. After 6 months of jumping through hoops and filing job seeking reports etc., I was still stonewalled and never did receive a dime. At that point I decided that I would strike out on my own with anything that I thought I was capable of doing. I was done with unions and unemployment insurance. 

The paint contracting business I started was slow getting off the ground so we started another business, as a supplement to our income, that involved sales of a product line and recruitment of other sales associates. It was known as multi-level marketing and the company was Amway. There was a lot of inflation and unemployment at that time and people were looking for additional streams of income, and although it was not easy, the business grew into a modest success. 

I began to notice that multi-level marketing, and Amway in particular, was getting some bad press. I was puzzled by this as it was a positive thing and those who joined the ranks were, as a rule, quite thrilled with the opportunity. The meetings and rallies were happy, positive, and energetic affairs, a bright light in the midst of hard economic times. This type of business was being labeled as a pyramid scheme. A pyramid scheme had a legal definition and Amway in no way fit the description. In fact, MLM, as it was known as, was being taught in business schools and universities as a legitimate business model and indeed, since that time there have been many very successful national and international companies that worked that business model. 

My political interests were being awakened and I began to realize what was happening. I was gradually getting a sense of what was meant by left wing and right wing politics. I was learning that the left is no friend of free enterprise, but rather leans to socialism, which puts people under the care and control of government instead of personal responsibility. So I gathered that the media was 'left' as they supported the left leaning socialist NDP government and as such, would help to discourage people starting their own business. Thus, the bad press for Amway. 

This proclivity to left leaning by the press was particularly evident when the NDP were replaced by the ultimate free enterpriser, Bill VanderZalm as premier of the province, under the Social Credit banner. (Not to be mistaken with the present day social credit system used to control and manipulate people in Communist China). He was pursued relentlessly with trumped up wrongdoings, and although he was great for our province and the economy performed well under him, the pressure got to him. He was good, honest, and a hard working man, and it was not until I read his autobiography that I realized the animosity of the press towards him and how they continuously colluded against him, to discredit him and sully his name.   

In the next post, I show how this left leaning philosophy of government destroyed our business. Literally and deliberately. 

Journey Through a Pandemic

 Everyone has their own journey, and I use the present tense deliberately. And, everyone has their own lens though which to observe, assess, and analyze what has happened and what is happening during this very unique time in History. 

How do we come to the point where we simply submit, cautiously question, or outright buck the system and the narrative? Our journeys have similarities and yet each one is in some way unique. My perspective on COVID actually starts in 1972. 

It began after working in a paper mill in Ocean Falls for three years. To get the full story on the incident that began my journey, refer to my blog post under the tag 'Ocean Falls' with a post titled  'A Bold Move'.

To summarize, I witnessed a government outright lie with the help of the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Province, the two major newspapers in our province. It was not hearsay, for I was on the ground and I witnessed the deception. What does this incident out of my formative years have to do with COVID you may ask? 

It began a realization for me that 1. Government is not beyond lying to control the narrative and to hold onto power.  2. When the media is on the side of the ruling party, they hold immense power for that party. 3. Newspaper stories are written with a predetermined focus and never mind that in the process some contrary information might arise. Why make it complicated by telling both sides. It is lazy and unethical on the part of the newspaper editor and his reporters to conduct themselves thusly and call themselves objective. Of course, if it is deliberate because the newspaper has an agenda to aid and abet the ruling party, then it is indeed not lazy, but clever and devious, and of course, still unethical. 

Mind you, this was in a time when there were still real reporters and the objective of news outlets was to report the news and not opinions. That, of course, would mean that all the information is presented and the viewer or listener could then make his or her own conclusions. Fast forward to today, and it is painfully obvious that reporting is biased and almost always seems to come from a main feed somewhere because no matter the talking head, no matter the channel, no matter the network or outlet, the same words come out. If one listens to the reporting carefully, it is easy to detect the editorializing in the script, swaying the listener to one viewpoint or another. 

The incident to which I am referring was not isolated as I will point out. Had it been, I would have forgotten it and moved on, thinking it was a one off, perhaps some enthusiastic reporters just looking for a great story.  In the next post, I will point out how in later years this observation was confirmed, for me,  many times, fostering in me, what I consider a justified skeptical attitude toward the media.

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

From Crows to Meadowlarks

     With a final grunting thrust, the pole pushed up through the bottom. The debris rained down as we jumped back, not wanting our hair and shirts to be filled with twigs, leaves, dust, and debris, but mostly, not with the ugly little bodies of the newly hatched crows. This was not easy work, but was great entertainment for a Saturday afternoon. The low bush of the Saskatchewan prairie made sure the nests of the hated birds were not so high that we could not reach them with a downed sapling. There was a bounty on crows and that was all the justification we needed.

     We sifted through the underbrush and the remains of the nest to find the young while the frantic parents were screeching at us from the tree tops. Not hatched more than a day or two before, they were ugly pink/blue creatures, with bulging eyes, not yet open, and only hair where there should have been a covering of black feathers. Grabbed by their tiny feet, we collected them and wondered how we would kill them. Killing nature was natural in those days. Killing for killing’s sake. The bounty on a set of crow’s feet was secondary. It hardened us, made us man/boys, tough, and a force to be reckoned with. They call it macho.
    
     We were near an abandoned farm house, a skeleton from days of old, the chimney having fallen in a heap near the back door. The bricks would do just fine, as we placed each hatchling on a brick and smashed another brick onto it. “Crow Sandwich” we chortled.
    
     Hayward’s pasture was perfect. The cattle had cropped the grass short enough and there was a ready source of water in the middle of it. But the best thing was the proliferation of gophers. There were holes everywhere and movement around them was abundant. Armed with pails, clubs, and .22’s, we marched onto the killing field. Where a hapless creature would dart down his hole, a full pail of water followed and the back entrance, a few feet away, would soon produce a slick, wet gopher, looking for dry safety. We would be ready, and soon, another tail was in the collection sack. I remember being relieved that although they were cute dry, they were ugly wet, like small rats, and that was justification enough. The bounty was secondary.

     There was a slough behind my friend Vern’s house. With spring run-off waters to sustain them, it was home to toads, frogs, lizards, salamanders, newts, and other horrible amphibians that were loathed by all and most likely transmitted warts. It seemed incumbent upon us, as young boys, to rid the slough of these creatures. Vern was particularly adept when it came to capturing these crawling creatures.
    

     It was a hot early summer evening when I was wandering down the alley behind Vern’s house when the flames caught my attention. The fire was built in the middle of the lane between two rows of poplars, where his dirty deeds would be hidden from the eyes of civilized folks. It was a small fire, maybe a foot across at the base. “Watch this” he called out when he saw me coming. Vern had an evil streak in him, regardless of, or maybe because of, his strict upbringing. He had cooked up a successful scheme to steal chocolate chips from my dad’s grocery store, and did it right under my eyes. I had witnessed him doing several unmentionable things in the few years I had known him, and so the “Watch this” should have been a clear warning for me to walk away. I didn’t. As I approached his back, which was turned to me and hunched over, I thought he was having a wiener roast in the lane, but it did not look like a wiener, that thing on the stick. As I got nearer, I saw with great clarity that the ‘thing’ was a live salamander writhing and twisting in agony as it was being roasted alive. The silent scream of that creature has haunted me since. I pushed Vern away from the fire and yelled at him that what he was doing was cruel and God was going “get him”.
     Moments from having uttered those words, one of those freak prairie storms roiled in from the west. The lightening flashed and thunder rolled across the slough. Without warning, the flames, sparks, and burning brands of the sacrificial fire were swirling in the air and down the lane as wind that came out of nowhere, gusted and eddied. It was too late for the dead salamander, but as for me, I ran home as fast as my legs would carry me. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw the silhouette of Vern against the dying light of the day, shoulders shaking, whether from crying or laughing I do not know.

     Lying prone in the bush, only a few feet away from an established rabbit trail, sprinkled with fresh droppings, I wait. Had I not read books about snipers and deer hunters, I would not have realised that patience was the key to success. My Cooey .22 was loaded with a single shot ‘long’, the bolt pulled back, and my finger was tickling the trigger. There it was, that slight movement in the grass, and then the rabbit was in plain view. Had I been farther away I would just shot for a ‘hit’, but I was close enough to target the heart. I did, and I was surprised at the way the animal leapt straight up in the air and fell back down, lifeless. I was at once exhilarated and sorrowful. I cut the feet off and left the carcass. It would have been nice to have my buddies there to cheer me on with a slap on the back or a called out “Good shot”. Clutching the rifle and my rabbit’s feet on the way home, I felt a change coming over me.

     It was one of those warm bright summer days, where the blue in the sky would almost hurt your eyes, had it not been for the isolated cumulous clouds, brilliant white in their upward billowing. The word was out that there was a Wood Duck’s nest near the little grove of Willow trees on the corner where the road to Gunther’s farm turns off the highway. The Mallards of the lakes and sloughs were familiar to us but a Wood Duck? Now that is worth an adventure. To what end, I did not know. We slowly approached the Willows, watching carefully to see where the duck would be flushed. It would be the key to finding the nest.

     On a weathered and split fencepost nearby, there sat a Meadowlark. His melody had always been my favourite, and I could not help but stop and listen. A low wind was pushing the grass to the earth in waves, making a hissing sound. The notes of the bird came in waves as the heat and the wind distorted a clear hearing of it. My friends were ahead of me, and I was glad for it, as a sudden flutter in the grass drew my attention and there was the mate of the singing bird, floundering in the high grass, making distressing calls, and convincing me that her wing was broken. Naturally, I began to follow, hoping I could capture one of these beautiful birds. She led me away. Away from where? It suddenly dawned on me that I was being suckered and at that point I tried to recollect where I had first seen her fluttering deceit. It was near the cluster of Brown eyed Susans, I was sure of it. I walked, carefully, in that direction, and by the hysterics of both Meadow Larks now, I knew I was on the right path. And then I found it. The ingenious structure of the nest, the way the grass was pulled over in a teepee like manner, the camouflage of it, the deception of the mother, the clutch of tiny speckled eggs, the blue sky, the soft wind, the cotton clouds, everything, hit me hard.

     Having failed in the search for the Wood Ducks, my friends wandered to my place of reverence and soon discovered what I was marvelling at. I defended that nest despite protestations. I loved Meadowlarks from that moment on and if I defended the nest, there would be more Meadow Larks, and that would be an excellent thing, an enduring goodness.

     I have since thought often of how that incident changed the mindset of a prairie boy raised in a culture of exploitation and destruction of so many beautiful things. It changed my perspective, in a lasting way. The appreciation of beauty in nature requires only a moment of sincere and maybe intense observation, and a thinking and enquiring mind.

Tuesday, May 2, 2017

Sensory Overload


The annual spring Tulip Festivals are well under way in the Fraser Valley. There are two of them this year. The Tulips were very late in coming and they are reluctant to leave. They love the cooler temperatures and that is what we are having.
The owner of the land on which this field of Tulips was grown is a good friend of mine and I was thrilled to get his permission to enter the field 'after hours'. The hours of operation are right when the light is at its harshest, and because the view is to the south, the camera more or less points into the sun, with the Tulips in the foreground. At sunset, the light is coming from the side and it makes all the difference when composing a good photo. I was thrilled to have a dramatic sky as a backdrop to the vast flood of red. There really is nothing like standing in a large field of brightly coloured Tulips in their peak.

Friday, April 14, 2017

Odds and Ends


Not since the late 80's have I wallpapered an entire room. This one had been papered and when we stripped the old paper there was a lot of damage on the walls so the customer decided to do the whole room.



It was a huge improvement over the old, dingy, tired, and faded paper from the past.  



This was a makeover where the customer wanted to do the minimum of preparation for the new wallpaper. We covered a multitude of sins that day.




Back to a dramatic black wallcovering. This pattern made a very bold statement in this master bedroom.




This was a curved stairwell and the wallpaper was Anaglypta, a paintable wallcovering.


The height at any given step was 9' so I had to drag my mini scaffold up and down, back and forth about 50 times by the time I got to the bottom of the stairs.


The curve was consistent all the way down, a rarity, so I never lost pattern or a tight seam the whole way. I never got to see the finished product. I wonder how she painted this texture down along the carpet where we tucked it deep below the nap.


At least our part was done well and properly. I was thankful that I did not have to paint it too. I always love the variety in my work but some things that I have done lots of, I do not like to do anymore.