Loading ...silverrider
Ha it smacks of Chi Town politics to the highest level..Haa my gut hurts ..talk about an uplifting post haaaa
Hey we are doing good tonight shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…..quiet now
Subject: How to Teach Children about Modern Government
Email from a friend:
http://www.losthorizons.com/Newsletter.htm#PageOne
I think it is very important that we teach our children about the true nature of government. Now, at last, there is a way to give your children a basic course right in your own home!
In my own experience as a father, I have discovered several simple devices that can illustrate to a child’s mind the principles on which the modern state deals with its citizens. You may find them helpful too.
For example, I used to play the simple card game WAR with my son. After a while, when he thoroughly understood that the higher ranking cards beat the lower ranking ones, I created a new game I called GOVERNMENT.
In this game, I was Government, and I won every trick, regardless of who had the better card. My boy soon lost interest in my new game, but I like to think it taught him a valuable lesson for later in life.
When your child is a little older, you can teach him about our tax system in a way that is easy to grasp and will allow him to understand the benefits.
Offer him, say, $10 to mow the lawn. When he has mowed it and asks to be paid, withhold $5 and explain that this is income tax. Give $1 of this to his younger brother, who has done nothing to deserve it, and tell him that this is “fair” because the younger brother ‘needs money too’.
Also, explain that you need the other $4 yourself to cover the administrative costs of dividing the money and for various other things you need.
Make him place his $5 in a savings account over which you have authority. Explain that if he is ever naughty, you will remove the money from the account without asking him. Also explain how you will be taking most of the interest he earns on that money, without his permission. Mention that if he tries to hide the money, this, in itself, will be evidence of wrongdoing and will result in you automatically taking the money from him.
Conduct random searches of his room in the small hours of the morning. Burst in unannounced. Go through all of his drawers and pockets. If he questions this, tell him you are acting on a tip-off from a mate of his who casually mentioned that you had both earned a bit of spare cash last week. If you find it, confiscate all of that money and also take his stereo and television. Tell him you are selling these and keeping the money to compensate you for having to make the raid. Also lock him in his room for a month as further punishment.
When he cries at the injustice of this, tell him he is being “selfish” and “greedy” and only interested in looking after his own happiness. Explain that he should learn to sacrifice his own happiness for other people and that since he cannot be relied upon or trusted to do this voluntarily, you will use force to ensure he complies. Later in life he will thank you.
Make as many rules as possible. Leave the reasons for them obscure. Enforce them arbitrarily. Accuse your child of breaking rules you have never told him about and carefully explain that ignorance of your rules is not an excuse for breaking them. Keep him anxious that he may be violating commands you haven’t yet issued. Instill in him the feeling that rules are utterly irrational. This will prepare him for living under a democratic government.
He is too young to understand the benefits of democracy, so explain this wonderful system as follows: You, your wife and his brother get together and vote that your son should have all privileges removed, be caned, and confined to his room for a week.
If he protests that you are violating his rights, patiently explain his error and tell him that the majority have voted for this punishment and nothing matters except the will of the majority.
When your child has matured sufficiently to understand how the judicial system works, set a bedtime for him of, say, 10 p.m. and then send him to bed at 9 p.m. When he tearfully accuses you of breaking the rules, explain that you made the rules and you can interpret them in any way that seems appropriate to you, according to changing conditions.
Promise often to take him to the movies or the zoo, and then, at the appointed hour, recline in an easy chair with a newspaper and tell him you have changed your plans. When he screams, “but you promised!”, explain to him that it was a campaign promise and hence meaningless.
Every now and then, without warning, slap your child. Then explain that this is self-defense. Tell him that you must be vigilant at all times to stop any potential enemy before he gets big enough to hurt you. This, too, your child will appreciate, not right at that moment, maybe, but later in life.
If he finds this hard to accept, you can further illustrate the point as follows. Take him on a trip across town with you, to a strange neighborhood. Walk into any random house you choose and start sorting out their domestic problems, using violence if that is what is required.
Make sure you use overwhelming force to crush the family into submission - this avoids a protracted visit and becoming involved for long periods of time. Explain to your son that only a coward stands idly by whilst injustice is happening across town. Tell him we are all brothers and problems left to fester will eventually spill over into your neighborhood. Use some of the $5 you took from your son as bus fare and to purchase a baseball bat.
Drink a bottle of whisky and then lecture him on the evils of smoking dope. If he points out your hypocrisy remind him that the majority of people drink and that, as already explained, the needs of the majority are the only moral standard.
Break up any meeting between him and more than three of his mates as being an ‘unlawful gathering’. If he strokes the cat without the cat giving its express permission, slap him hard for feline harassment.
Mark one designated spot in the yard where he can leave his bike. If he leaves it anywhere else, padlock it and demand $50 to release it. If he offends more than three times, confiscate the bike, sell it, and keep the money.
Install a CCTV system in your son’s bedroom and also record all his telephone conversations. If he protests, accuse him of having something to hide. Explain that only criminals seek privacy and that good, dutiful children relinquish their privacy in exchange for the advantages which protective parenthood offers. Remind him of the boy across town who was caught smoking dope in his bedroom by just such a CCTV system, and explain that this case justifies installing CCTV in all teenagers’ bedrooms.
Lie to your child constantly. Teach him that words mean nothing - or rather that the meanings of words are continually “evolving”, and may be tomorrow the opposite of what they are today.
Have a word with his teachers at school and ask them to share any merit marks your son achieves, with any ethnic minority or female students who did not get any merit marks. If he questions this policy, explain that these students deserve special treatment because long ago people like them didn’t get to go to school at all, and so it is only fair that he shares the merits around today to compensate for this.
This is also probably a good time to tell him that his energy, talent and enthusiasm will not secure him a job if the quota of such ‘abused’ people has not yet been filled. Tell him talent stands for nothing - it is fairness and sharing which are important. Remind him that his primary duty is the happiness and welfare of people he does not know, and will never meet.
Ban cutlery from your home and make your son eat with his fingers. If he asks why, remind him of the youth who stabbed a cat to death last week with a fork. Explain that if just one cat is saved by the banning of cutlery, then this prohibition will be worthwhile. If he protests, question him closely about why he is intending to kill innocent cats, or accuse him of being a cat hater.
Issue him a pass card which he must show before he can enter the house. Stand guard at the front door. When he comes home, politely but firmly take him into the spare room and question him about his movements.
Ask him how much cash he has on his person. If in excess of $50, confiscate the lot as it exceeds the house rule for maximum cash allowed. Then search his rucksack and pockets. To keep him guessing, do the occasional strip search. If he protests, detain him for longer and make the search more thorough. If he gets really angry at this, hold him in a locked room until he misses his next outing or party.
I know these methods are harsh, but I am only being cruel to be kind. I think it is very important for children to understand the true nature of the society in which we live today.
Ike @ 23:06 pm LOL - sounds like he ain’t changed much
I got to watch him in a couple of spiels out west here about 12 or 13 years ago. He was always very entertaining to watch.
Myself, well, “The Hack” was named after me 
Cannuck…..he sounds like one of us
But we still swept the ice and swamped the lousy inept Western Players.
= Brewskies were optional then…….
///////////////////////////
BEHIND THE GLASS, inside the warm, wood-panelled lounge, the consensus is that out on the ice, The Comeback is faltering. “Eddie doesn’t look like he belongs there,” exclaims one man. Folks in the peanut gallery at the Minden Curling Club murmur in agreement and go back to their caesars - it’s too early for rye, the weak winter sun having just crossed the yardarm. In the fourth end, Canada’s most infamous curler appears to be in deep trouble.
His attempt to draw a stone around a forest of guards has just failed miserably. The opposition skip adds insult, parking last rock in the house and scoring three for a 4-1 lead. Ed (the Wrench) Werenich mouths a silent obscenity @ Fully, stuffs his hands into his pockets, and push-slides his way down to the other end of the sheet, puffs of breath trailing behind him.
There are three other games going on at the same time at this eastern Ontario qualifying tournament in Minden.
It’s the last-gasp chance for teams hoping to move on to the Ontario championship and contend for the country’s top curling prize, the Nokia Brier. Which is a Potty Chamber with the winner’s names and year leafed in Gold Paint.
But the crowd in the lounge is really only interested in the match featuring the star attraction. At 56, the Wrench is easily the oldest guy on the ice, a couple of decades beyond most of his competitors. When he announced his retirement in 2000, his status as a legend in the sport was already cemented - remembered as much for his titanic scraps with the curling establishment as for his two world championships, two Canadian titles, 10 appearances at the Brier, and 18 trips to the provincial finals.
His unexpected return to competitive play last fall left a lot of people wondering what he was trying to prove.
Werenich’s new rink - fellow greybeards Neil Harrison and Lino Di Iorio, both 52, at vice and lead, and Ed’s 25-year-old son Ryan - started strong, making the semifinals in three of its first four tournaments, but quickly faded from view. Now, they’re on the bubble, the seniors’ tour beckoning in the wings.
Other skips on the ice huddle with teammates or scream instructions to sweepers.
Werenich does little beyond snapping his gum, tapping his old-fashioned corn broom where he wants the stones to land, and scowling. But in the fifth, he takes a point with last rock. In the sixth, he steals one.
When his rink ties the score in the seventh, he allows himself a discreet fist-pump. The gallery is ready to believe again.
“He hasn’t changed - just his hair is whiter,” says a woman with a golden wrench pinned to her cardigan.
The Wrench’s rink steals two in the eighth and cruises to victory.
In fact, he wins five straight in Minden to clinch a berth in this week’s provincial finals, his first since 1997.
After he’s made his way through a throng of well-wishers to buy the losing side a drink at the bar, Werenich plops down at a table and tries to explain why he’s back spending his weekends in chilly, small-town rinks. “I didn’t miss the game at all,” he says. “I thought I’d never curl again. I mean, I had to quit when I did. I was awful, I couldn’t make a shot.”
Last March, some old friends convinced him to make a one-off appearance at a Toronto bonspiel. He found the knee and back pain that had dogged him for years was gone. “I threw the rock like God. I made everything. It was unbelievable. I was never that good when I was good,” Werenich cackles. The chance to play on a team with his son made the idea of a comeback irresistible.
Fans may be rejoicing, but it’s hard to imagine many smiles in the offices of the provincial and national bodies that run the sport. By advancing to the “tankard” finals, their harshest critic is now back in the spotlight, gleefully throwing bombs, just like the old days. “The Brier curling is very weak,” says Werenich. “I always get in shit for saying this, but the teams from out East aren’t as strong as those from the West.”
This is supposed to be a hatchet-burying season. There’s a truce in the dispute between the Canadian Curling Association and the 12-year-old World Curling Tour cash-spiel circuit that kept most of the country’s top teams out of the Brier the last two years. But the Wrench is not in a forgiving mood. “What the CCA has done is destroy the history of the game by being stupid. It all came down to a little bit of money,” he says. “Now [Edmonton’s] Randy Ferbey has won three Briers in a row. He didn’t win anything. Look at who he played. There should be an asterisk in the record books.”
Werenich, a Toronto firefighter, has traded shots with the CCA for years. In 1987, during the team selection process for curling’s debut as a demonstration sport at the Calgary Winter Games, the CCA threatened to disqualify him if he didn’t shed some pounds from his portly frame, a public humiliation he has never forgotten. In 1990, when he won his second Canadian title, he took his revenge by suggesting he’d boycott the Worlds unless the CCA-appointed national team coach stayed at home. Now, with the 2006 Winter Games on the horizon, he’s incensed at what he sees as more attempts by the CCA to punish WCT players and manipulate who will get the chance to represent Canada in Turin, Italy. “They’ve already snuck in a rink from Halifax,” says Werenich (Mark Dacey’s team gets a guaranteed spot at the Olympic trials by virtue of having finished second at last year’s Brier). “I don’t know what the hell he’s going to do there - other than finish last, I guess.”
Dave Parkes, chief executive officer of the CCA, chuckles when asked if he has a strategy for dealing with the outspoken Werenich. “We’ll deal with Ed the same way we deal with any player out there,” he says. “People who want to learn the facts will do so. People who want to listen to this other stuff will do so.” Parkes says the demands of the WCT players - they want the right to wear uniforms with their own sponsors’ logos rather than the Brier sponsors’ - could cost the CCA hundreds of thousands of dollars, undercutting its ability to stage the costly event. The Olympic qualifying process remains largely unchanged from past years, he says.
George Karrys won a silver medal for Canada at the 1998 Nagano Games as part of Mike Harris’s rink. Now the publisher and editor of Canadian Curling News, Karrys says he’s not surprised Werenich has found a way to again get up the noses of curling’s pooh-bahs. “Eddie was always very aggressive, on and off the ice,” he says. “He’s the hero of the common man - the ultimate blue-collar curler.” Earlier this season, at a tournament in Gander, Nfld., some people travelled three or four hours just to watch the Wrench. Karrys expects a similar response at this week’s provincials in Owen Sound. “Eddie is the huge sentimental favourite to win,” he says.
Werenich says his expectations have already been surpassed this season. He figures he’s curling at about 75 per cent, something he couldn’t have accepted in the past but is untroubled by now. “I’m basically lazy. I should get on the treadmill, get on a program and work real hard. I could probably get three or four more good years, but I’m having fun,” he says, laughing again to prove it. It’s like the old days, growing up in Benito, Man., where kids made their own rocks by freezing barn hinges into jam jars, and played outside in the Prairie cold, gambling for comic books.
Part of The Comeback’s appeal is that it’s been like a reunion. “This year, I played Glenn Howard four or five times.” he says. “I played Al Hackner. I played Guy Hemmings. We’ve been battling each other for 30 years now. It’s like an old-folks home out there. There are no secrets - you play hard and go to the bar.” Werenich pushes his ball cap back on his head and looks around the lounge. The din is growing as the beer bottles pile up on the wood tabletops. Old friends and rivals are waiting to say hello. “This is the kind of place I feel comfortable in,” he says. “Once you get bitten by this game, it’s just unbelievable.”
Ike…. come one…
Kevin Martin or Eugene Hritzik would take down Ed “The Wrench ” Werenich anytime!!
Actually……….Curling is difficult
Sometimes I watch my wife try.
Curllng……I mean. Electrically.
Having lifted that 14 lb stone w/built in formed handle, and very carefully swooped it down the lane, while my compatriots swept all the little ice fleas and ice devils and un-melted granules away.
Right there !!
Who Hooooooooo.
Our East Division Team (formed from very Skilled Company Employees who were Field based from Ontario to the Maritimes) beat the crap out of the poorer unskilled Western Canadian Players.
We had a Toilet Bowl Potty Chamber Award that had to be prominently displayed in the winning Captain’s home on his mantle. Anyone visiting ’said’ captain of the winning team, and noticing that the ‘AWARD’ was NOT prominently displayed….(It did already have the requisite gold leaf award year and captain’s name prominently displayed on the side)……….quite an infraction of the rules.
Happened many times. Cowards………..failure to display their winning award.
So we purchase MORE Chamber Pots, and kept the stinky tradition going for years.
WOW
Gainesville coins is now offering one oz philharmonics at $780.00 and change !!
Starts shipping Dec 14.
A couple of quotes from Talib:
“Market analysts are worse than nothing”, “Early medicine killed more than it cured”
Positive news?
Floggings will continue until morale improves!
aggie
had smoked pheasant and nectar of the grape tonight. probably as close to culinary heaven as a redneck has the right to expect. sure beats the broasted sea gull so popular in belize. they sell it to americans as chicken.
rno