Locals, newbies, and weekenders.

 

Locals, newbies, and weekenders.

Soon I will pass 25 years of involvement in the Crowsnest Pass. I was a weekender, later purchased a place and as soon as I could, moved here full time. The mountains are majestic, but the wonderful people attracted me the most. When I first arrived, half of the place was for sale, if not more. I remember ads selling homes for $16,000 and gigantic signs, “lots for sale” and “cheap acreages.” I walked into a store and was asked if I wanted to buy a business.

I have seen this trend in the city. A neighbourhood gets old and transforms. Inglewood, Calgary for example, used to be where all the CPR workers lived. The railway privatized its repair shop, and the area became poor. First, when the local industry moves or changes it seems as if it will kill part of the city but it doesn’t. Artists move in, builders get involved and the “last become first.” We saw it again when the armed forces left Calgary. Now their old area is beautiful.

That same trend happens with pretty tiny mountain towns. The economy changes and the worker’s old neighbourhoods go through a rebuilding phase. The old people always talk about the “good old days” often remembering the shiny highlights and forgetting the rest.

Now when I am witnessing a conflict brewing between “pro-mining” people and others, it worries me. Already the fight is extending to be between “weekenders” and “locals.” I saw a “local” crying and saying, all those people are moving here and changing “our” place, why don’t they go back where they came from. A hundred-plus years ago the people who lived here before mining and ranching felt the same. We named a mountain after them and moved them away.

Now the rage is around reopening coal mines. There is a popular story about the ranchers blocking the mines wanting to use the area for free grazing on public lands. It’s possible, but how many are we talking about? I see another popular story circling about the possible Selenium contamination of the water in the lower lands. The mining companies “guarantee” to block it but the question is for how long? Mines come and go but agriculture, (that also pollutes,) remains.

I need steel and also need food. My feeling is that we must work to have both. Mind you, there is research going on for ways to replace steel but it’s far from completion. Whose side should I support? Do I have to take sides? The most excitable people are pushing for all of us to take sides.

I asked some old people here about the good old days of mining. Stories emerged. A woman told me about the days when folks in Coleman had to stay indoors and couldn’t dry their laundry since it got black. Another told me that her dad, a miner, spent years waiting every day to hear a whistle to see if his labour was needed the next day, which often wasn’t. He had to work for a farmer in Beaver Mines for potatoes to feed the family. Miners died early and their widows and kids lived poorly. Another zeroed in on the great strikes, fights with coal barons, scabs, and police.

Some old-timers remember “good old days” but they were not miners. They had stores, theatres, medical clinics, barbershops, and other services. Apparently, mining companies lured people to mining towns with great promises and were not as great when it was time to pay. Similar stories are told by the farmers and ranchers about their history. I am a working man, so I will take the side of miners, ranchers, farmers, and those who serve them.

Since I was young, there were two competing stories that we all learned. One was that God created all that there is in a few days around six thousand years ago, and another was about evolution. Again, I like to not take sides. I simply wasn’t here. However, over my lifetime, the evolution story beat the creation story and churches lost attendance. Evolution based on competition took center stage and was declared as scientific truth. Recently the story began to change.

To my surprise, we realized we don’t live in a “dog eat dog” world. Some places in the world dropped the idea that the world belongs to the fittest who will survive and started a new social experiment. The “new” idea is that we do best when we exercise cooperation and bring the least of our brothers up. Sharing and caring seem to work better than winning. Perhaps it is simply the next step in our social evolution.

As the debate about what is more important, mining or farming heats up, some of us are veering in a new direction. It is possible to have both if we pay the price. There will be less profit from the mines if they don’t pollute so much water and food prices will rise if farmers will have to desalinate the water they use.

All humans need steel and all need food that grows with water. If people are not yet ready to pay higher prices for steel and food, soon they will. In the meantime, both prairie and mountain towns are finding ways to survive.

I see many new homes being built in the Pass and new businesses opening up. I asked the mayor if those are people moving in because of the mines and he said no. Those are people who want to move in and be a part of our community. I was delighted. Folks like me are retiring here and others are moving in since they can work from home.

Possibly we can take it easy, try one mine, reach a friendly hand to our neighbours, the ranchers and farmers and grow naturally. We discover new solutions for every problem every day. Possibly we could be a part of the solution.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

Alberta’s future in a Crystal ball.

 

Alberta’s future in a Crystal ball.

A hundred and twenty years ago Alberta was the promised land and a new Canada was investing to develop it. There was farmland, ranch land, minerals, and coal. The aboriginal population didn’t fight as their relatives in the US did, and the only problem was getting people to move here. Train lines were built, and governments and churches got together in an effort to bring people who are tough enough to survive and build a province.

When I first saw Alberta it was a dreamland or heaven on earth. Farms and ranches dotted fertile fields, little coal mining towns with churches, and cities with industries and services. The population was comprised of a lot of optimistic people who enjoyed life and were looking forward to an even better future. During the Lougheed years, we built universities and hospitals, new infrastructure appeared everywhere and rural Alberta was booming. People from everywhere were waiting in line to move here, and in 1988 Alberta became a world-famous destination.

Sadly, later on, the leadership changed, and we focused the Alberta economy on oil alone, letting all else recede and decline. Foreign interests moved in, intending to make quick money and ignoring the well-being of the province and its people.

Imagine Alberta without the rural population. Miles and miles of export-grade farm commodities undisturbed by farms, villages, hamlets, towns, and small cities. Some areas are fully devoted to mining and others systematically stripped of forests. Seasonal workers in camps using large machines to harvest and mine, supply cheap labour, and are sent back to their home countries when the work is done. No need for schools, hospitals, and other infrastructure, only what is needed to make profits remains.

Alberta without rural communities wouldn’t have to worry about how rural people vote or about what will happen to older farmers when their working life is done. No school buses on the roads, few restaurants or religious communities, and no call for services. The whole rich province could be run from a central location in the most efficient way with one aim; make most money for the investors who financed the venture.

The cities would have the human resources but competition for jobs would eliminate the need to pay high wages or provide incentives other than pay. People would work and fly to other places to live, as they do now in Fort McMurray. Without the rural population, the cities would not need to serve so many people and would be focused on profit-making from the sales of resources. No need for the RCMP and no call for art. Only efficiency and austerity.

How would one go about creating such a utopian business? It could be easier than expected. Alberta is rich in resources and extracting or profiting from them is now no longer very labour intensive. Those who wish to cash in have a problem with large rural communities demanding services, having environmental concerns, and influencing politics away from easy profit-making. What would be an easy way to speed up the slow trickle of people moving away from the country? A solution is obvious. Life in the country could be made less attractive or even impossible. Corporations can use a sizeable amount of money to elect governments more loyal to revenues and less to the voting public. A government devoted to austerity will naturally lean towards spending less where the population is not dense.

Avoid developing labour-intensive industries in rural communities. Discourage health care professionals from serving in the countryside by removing incentives and reducing pay. Close hospitals and other medical facilities. Reduce the quality of education so the young generation will look for opportunities in cities. Reduce the number of teachers and support staff. Short change Seniors care or not support places for them to live. Reduce government services forcing people to go further for their needs. Reduce the quality of policing by forcing small communities to pay for it and offering cheaper less qualified options. Welcome temporary workers from poor countries at peak seasons and send them back at slow times. We had regulations that enhanced life in rural places and governments can remove them.

Next, a government can remember the empire’s motto of divide and rule. A simple change in regulations can divide the rural population and set them up against each other. Remove a rule that protected water for farms and wave a couple of hundred short-lived jobs in front of declining towns folks and you have them fighting each other. Farmers can’t give up fresh water and mines can promise to keep the water clean “if possible” knowing that it’s not. After all, they will be long gone when the problems they caused will show up. Just like cleaning “Orphaned wells” the socialist solution of “the public will pay” will be the only one.

I saw on the news a woman on the floor of emergency in a hospital (In Ontario) where all the beds were taken. She died shortly after. I don’t want this to happen here in rural Alberta, but it will if we don’t fight for our rights now while we can. I am afraid government policies or removal of such could end the way of life we enjoyed for over a hundred years. We built the province and we want to keep it for ourselves, not for “international corporations” that come and go.

People around me are confused, thinking that fighting for freedom means fighting not to wear masks. I wish it was that easy. The actual fight is the fight for our way of life. We look across the border and see millions of bankruptcies related to medical expenses. People working eighty hours a week to keep food on the table. We drive through barren lands viewing poor farms and see cities crumbling back to the ground. The people can’t trust their electoral system and many of them envy our way of life. What we have in Alberta is worth fighting for.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

 

Converting to dollars.

 

Converting to dollars.

A young man wanted to follow a certain Rabbi from Nazareth. First, he needed to bury his father. Another did the same, but needed to do something with his fields. Another had a similar story. They were all told by the Rabbi to rid themselves of the money concerns and just come and they all couldn’t. Poor fishermen and a few women joined.

In my life, I faced similar situations a few times. I thought that working in recreation, a job designed to help people mentally and physically, I could safely follow my Christian morality and make a living, but I couldn’t. My boss during my annual performance review gently told me that I must consider what is a moral decision and what is a business decision. At work, they paid me with money funnelled from a political party and I had to make business decisions.

Later in my career, I found myself involved in committees that dealt with the gentrification of parts of the City. Our mission was to clean up areas and get rid of humans considered undesirable. It was tied to property values and corporate investments. Definitely a business decision. When you have a clear mission, you do the job and we all did.

Where did the undesirables go? They were chased around, always landing in a new older neighbourhood where crime soon soared and they moved to another place. To fix the problem permanently would have taken a lot more than what we could do. We would have had to change what society values.

A few people in every group have no pride and are willing to live on charity or beg for sustenance. Some fake it and enrich themselves with donations. Most are keen to be useful. Given an opportunity, most people will work, learn, and seek recognition. Olympic athletes will try to be the best even if the crowd is not there to cheer.  

Humans excel by working together. We admire stars, heroes, or even beautiful people, but our biggest achievements result from many people working together. For that, we need to know the right stories.

We have been telling ourselves stories that are the opposite of what the Nazarene told us. Even the churches do. Governments are completely sold on the idea that material success is supreme. We could classify all the countries that used to colonize parts of the world as antichristian, even those who didn’t send crusaders to exterminate the opposing religions. I am not surprised that so many folks left the churches and don’t have faith in governments.

People measure their personal success by how much money they have or control. They make sure that money is in short supply so they alone will have most, or inflation takes over and the economy crashes. The competition is fierce and the victims are many.

A good example of how the system works we will see in the immediate future. The country of Lebanon, which used to be known as the jewel of the Middle East, is now on the verge of bankruptcy. Bank owners and corporate high rollers drained its resources and millions are facing starvation.

Another sign of bad stories are the rich or famous men. Their nature drives them to try their best to impregnate as many females as they can and leave them to raise the young on their own. There are stories about a past president of the USA spreading his oats and it does not deter his so-called Christian followers at all. People are mesmerized by his success instead.

We name ourselves “Christian” countries but we are only two hundred years removed from selling and buying human beings. In our countries, we still practice trafficking girls for sex. All our actions are assigned a monetary value and we gear all our efforts in life towards increasing and hoarding more value.

People consider time that is not spent to produce wealth or its equivalent as a wasted life. You have to make something, socially advance yourself or travel, or you haven’t lived. If you go walking you brag about the trails you walked or the mountains you climbed, or you don’t do it.

I propose a new story told long ago. In that story, people measure success by loving and making life more enjoyable for all living things, including the planet we inhabit. A planet that provides us with our existence and gives life to all the creatures upon it, free of charge. A place in the vast universe that can be the heaven people die to be in, in exchange for minimal well-directed effort.

I don’t think that we must give all our possessions and experiences away, only need to work together for reducing suffering and helping those less capable. When we don’t compete to dominate and hoard, we have enough leftovers to feed all who are created.

If I will have time to reflect on my life before I die, what will I think about? Will I say I produced something in great quantities? Will I brag about the size of my home? Will I show a map of the places I travelled to? Will I tell those around me how much money I amassed by denying others basic comforts?

I think I will remember tender moments. My first interaction with my wife, the first time I held my child and attending her/his graduation, or being around a dying friend providing comfort. I will think about speaking up against the kids bullying a poor child in school or picking up a stray cat feeding it. I will remember the smell of the pines in the early morning when the fog blurs the mountains.

Life is not about the zeros in our bank accounts or the bling surrounding us, it is about the simple things that we exchange with the rest of God’s creation. If we must fight, let it be a fight for justice, not for power and money. That is when He blesses our sword.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.

The Church should apologize.

 

The Church should apologize.

If you are anything like me you probably feel like spreading your arms wide and shouting to the sky, “what’s going on?”

It was a short time ago when we were sharing the pain of so many seniors who were dying alone in their under-funded Care facilities. Canada, one of the richest nations in the world, found out that our parents and grandparents received a lower level of care than most industrial nations offer. When things got rough, the most vulnerable amongst us paid the price.

Our dilapidated health care system that has been robbed of resources for years by austerity cuts didn’t hold and needed surgeries were delayed for a long time. We pay but the service we should expect is no longer there.

When a vaccine was discovered, we found out that our research facilities, experts, and factories capable of manufacturing vaccines were long gone leaving us at the mercy of the “markets” far behind other countries.

As we were reeling, trying to absorb the fact that Canada is behind, a new news item hit us hard. We who feel comfortable telling other countries to observe human rights discovered a new historical reality. When countries like China tell us to straighten our own mess, they have a provable case. Canada jailed children for the crime of being Native and hired churches of white people to “take the Indian out of the child” in Residential schools.

Now using ground-penetrating x-ray technology, we are seeing how many of those children died and were buried without ever seeing their families. Like our seniors recently, they died alone with strangers around who didn’t have enough resources to comfort them or even give them proper human burial. Social media spread the news fast and the official news soon caught up. No hiding the facts.

The Prime Minister, eager to protect the government, jumped on the opportunity to blame the churches, particularly the Catholic church, demanding that the Pope will apologize and an apology could lead to demands of money that simply is not there. It could force me to pay for what a past government caused. Soon after, church buildings were burning on and around Indian Reserves.

 

I am all in favour of saying sorry when I am guilty or paying if I knowingly do wrong. I wasn’t even born when the Canadian government designed an evil way to rid itself of the past owners of the land. I would like the church to apologize for participating in what they were ill-equipped to handle but I don’t think it will bring the expected solution.

If the biggest church on earth is going to do some soul searching and initiate action to make amends there are issues bigger than the role it played in the Residential Schools fiasco. The church in one form or another existed now for two thousand years and other churches sprang from it. When it started it was a new religion but it was based on a much older religion.

Until Christianity religious faiths were competing on different grounds. It was a test between whose God is more powerful. The people who worshipped Gods didn’t think in theological or philosophical ways. They “feared” God not “believed” in God. Often religions won or lost by torturing people, starving them to submission, or chasing them out of their countries.

The Catholic church was one of the pioneers of bringing health and education as a tool for conversion but failed miserably to notice the biggest drawback. Based on the Jewish faith, it adopted a patriarchal system that set half of humanity against the other half. It failed to follow Christ in treating males and females equally, and all others followed suit. In the process gospels and teachings were destroyed or went missing, only to be rediscovered recently. That is the bigger problem that must be corrected ahead of all others and the hierarchy is not ready to reconsider.

The Israelites in biblical times treated women as property belonging to a father, husband, or another family. Women were looked after, not independent equals. Pope Gregory the Great declared Marie Magdalene a harlot and remained so with no proof until 1969 when the Church clarified that the theory lacked any basis.

In 1945 we discovered the Gnostic gospels revealing that early Christians believed that women, especially Marie Magdalene, were treated as equal by Christ. Magdalene started the Christian faith by being the first witness to the resurrection. Compare that to Paul, who only saw Christ in a dream.

There are people around the world claiming to be the lost tribes of Israel, most notable the people of Afghanistan today. It seems as if the Church adopted their view of women instead of the teachings of Christ. This historical mistake formed modern human social order and is still at play today.

We have formed woman's nature not as the half of humanity that is able to produce new humans but as humans who need special consideration from the males. We see it clearly in our fight for males to have the right to use women and control what they wear and do with their bodies. We see it evident in trials about sexual abuse and it affected First Nations women most severely.

The aboriginal nations in North America often had costumes that allowed women better consideration than Europeans had. The European migrants assumed that technological superiority was equal to moral and religious superiority which led us to today’s problems.

In my humble opinion, the biggest church in the world should consider updating its information and seriously entertaining sweeping changes. There is no shame in learning new things and changing behaviours accordingly. Each of us has done so many times.

If we are going to ask for apologies, I would go for the big one first. If a Pope is going to apologize, I would ask for an apology to the 52% of humans who are females.

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and comment.