Category Archives: Hmmm

Hmmm

QUOTE

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Any profound view of the world is mysticism. It has, of course, to deal with life and the world, both of which are nonrational entities. Albert Schweitzer

Creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting point and its rich environment. Albert Einstein

One can travel this world and see nothing. To achieve understanding it is necessary not to see many things, but to look hard at what you do see. GIORGIO MORANDI

Hmmm, Municipal, Provincial

a Strange look

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I fell into a discussion about ‘bait’ cars the other evening. How to recognize a bait car, precautions to take just in case you judged wrong and the car you stole turned out to be a bait car and you needed to be able to escape the car.

It was a simple straightforward and interesting discussion I was having with a fellow homeless person. Now I was not, nor do I believe was my conversational partner, planning to run out and steal a car. It was just an interesting conversation on a wet night, taking place where a local church was providing food and clothing to the homeless – as they do every week on that evening. One of their newer members was sitting where he could listen and when I glanced his way he had a rather strange look on his face. I suppose it sounded like we were planning to go out and steal cars. His look suggested he could not quite believe what he was hearing, that the thought that people who needed money for food and/or shelter would consider stealing had never occurred to him. It did give me a chuckle at the time.

It also made me wonder what politicians or the public are thinking sometimes. OK – I concede that getting politicians to think is probably a forlorn hope, but I still have hopes the public can think on this subject if one can get in front of them information such as this blog. Just recently a rumour (true or not I cannot say) had the government planning to start to kick a large number of people off the welfare rolls. Which I suppose they spin to get public applause and in hopes that by pulling out this old tattered ploy they could get voters to forget all the idiocy the current government is and has embraced.

I have had some cold hungry days and it is still early winter. I know that get me cold, hungry and desperate enough – morals and honesty be damned. Even a warm cell and 3 meals a day beats cold starvation “free” on the streets. Could that be the provincial government plan? Starve the homeless and the poor enough to commit crimes, arrest them, lock them in jail and voila! The streets are free of homeless. Well until government policy causes more unfortunates to fall into the clutches of the system. Or those in jail are freed for lack of jail space or the end of their sentences. Then you have more homeless than you started with. But, the government does gain a bogeyman to spook the electorate with at the next election (and avoid running on what they actually did). It is an extremely expensive course of action and when you look at what it would accomplish – NOTHING – it is a huge waste of taxpayer dollars. But as recent news reminds us, this is a government that has no hesitation in wasting tax dollars gain political advantage or in pursuit of their ideology.

Hmmm

Quotes

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As our planet sails its’ orbit upon the solar seas,
At the old years’ waning, the new years’ dawning,
Words to contemplate,
Setting goals to aspire to in 2006

A man should look for what is, and not what he thinks should be.
Albert Einstein

If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it
Anthony D’Angelo

We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one that we preach, but do not practice, and another that we practice, but seldom preach.
Bertrand Russell

The welfare of each is bound up in the welfare of all.
Helen Keller

If you think that you are where you are just because you worked hard, it is easy to become self-righteous and make classist moral judgments about others.
Charlotte Bunch

Man becomes great exactly in the degree in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.
Mohandas Gandhi

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
P. J. O’Rourke

It is partly to avoid consciousness of greed that we prefer to associate with those who are at least as greedy as we ourselves. Those who consume much less are a reproach.
Charles Horton Cooley

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Jiddu Krishnamurti

Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.
Georg C. Lichtenberg

Hmmm

I am Thinking Therefore I Exist

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René Descartes aside, lately I have taken to looking into mirrors and other reflective surfaces to make sure I have a reflection, as a check that I actually exist. The mayor, city council and city bureaucracy deny my existence ‘Abbotsford does not have a homeless problem it needs to address’ their attitudes, words and actions proclaim. As someone in need of assistance who works hard at the struggle to find employment, the BC Liberals deny my existence ‘They are all bums who do not want to work’. So some days I need to see my reflection to assure myself that yes, I am, no matter how hard the politicians attempt to deny my existence … and the help that would get me back on my feet.