| Choose a column below
|
| |
15 May, 2004
Learning to Ride a Bike |
10 April, 2004
Responsible Computing |
13 March, 2004
The "Low-carb" Fad |
5
February, 2004
A day at the beach |
10
January, 2004
Are you a slave to your television? |
13
December, 2003
Multi-level Marketing |
15
November, 2003
Hollywood's Anti-Piracy Campaign |
October,
2003
The Friendly Canadian Prairies |
September
2003
"How's Married Life Treating You?" |
23 August, 2003
Eastern Blackouts |
26 July, 2003
Canada's swell |
31 May, 2003
Canadian marijuana law |
3 May, 2003
Canadian Literature and Culture |
5 April, 2003
Truth in Mass Media |
8 March, 2003
Careers away from home |
8 February, 2003
Checking out Vegas |
11 January, 2003
40-hour bus ride to the desert |
14 December, 2002
Kyoto accord |
16 November, 2002
U of A becoming more selective |
19 October, 2002
Alberta's employment boom |
21 September, 2002
Thinking about marijuana |
24 August, 2002
Health care, or
Wealth care? |
27 July, 2002
The uniquely
Canadian summer |
29
June, 2002
Soldiers and freaks |
1 June,
2002
My puritannical
place of birth |
1
May, 2002
Why activism? |
6 April, 2002
Child porn or
extreme art? |
2 March, 2002
The Olympics are a farce |
2
February, 2002
Information Control |
5
January, 2002
Disintegration
of language |
8 December, 2001
Why do we live so far north? |
3
November, 2001
Brand name America |
13
October, 2001
Teachers' Pay |
1 September, 2001
Consumption: Disease Old and New |
4 August, 2001
Paying the Global Costs of Automobiles |
7
July, 2001
Whyte Avenue Riot |
9 May, 2001
Good fences make good neighbours |
14 April,
2001
A healthy relationship with parents |
14 March,
2001
Sheep's clothing
wolves' reputations |
17 February,
2001
American universities
in Canada |
3 February,
2001
Love just the
way you want to |
6 January, 2001
Alberta's barren future |
23 December, 2000
What is Christmas, anyway? |
25 November, 2000
Learning on the job |
28
October, 2000
Family-oriented community? |
30
September, 2000
Freedom and happiness |
2
September, 2000
Consumerism in Bulgaria |
3
June, 2000
Visiting Ottawa |
29 April, 2000
School Shootings:
A Year Later |
8 April, 2000
A love shop in St. Albert |
18
March, 2000
Why reality TV? |
19
February, 2000
Raves |
5
February, 2000
Try listening on Valentine's Day |
8 January, 2000
The new millennium is for thinking |
4 December, 1999
The retail Christmas |
10 November, 1999
Young people and Remembrance Day |
16 October, 1999
Wayne Gretzky Drive |
18 September, 1999
High School students protest smoking ban |
21 August, 1999
Breast Enlargement |
26
June, 1999
Witchcraft |
5 June, 1999
School Uniforms |
30
May, 1999
Corrupt St. Albert RCMP |
22
May, 1999
Littleton and Taber
school shootings
|
1
May, 1999
Gay Marriage:
Less God, more love |
3 April, 1999
Drunken grad night |
March,
1999
All-consuming materialism |
20 February, 1999
What are you so proud of? |
30
January, 1999
Try a buy-nothing Valentine's Day |
9 January, 1999
The Real Value of Education |
December,
1998
New Year's Resolution |
24
October, 1998
On Faith |
September,
1998
The Starr Report |
2 September, 1998
High school hazing crimes |
1
August, 1998
Brand name clothing
|
15 July,
1998
Smoking is rude |
17
June, 1998
Sex and Violence |
20 May,
1998
Hockey Fever |
22
April, 1998
Religion is not Law |
11
March, 1998
Gay Bashing |
18
February, 1998
It's Only Hair |
17
January, 1998
"Riot" at a St. Albert heavy metal show
|
| |
| [top]
|
| |
| You may also enjoy: |
| Babe's Official Music Site |
| The
guestbook |
| The
Personal Pages |
| The
Audio Pages |
| Inside
the Matrix |
|
|
|
"Like
It Is"
28 October, 2000
Family-oriented community?
Headline printed by The St. Albert Gazette:
"Take a look at family values
St. Albert is not a gated community and we should take a really hard look at the
values we are teaching our children" |
St. Albert is a family-oriented community. It's a good place to raise children because it's free of the ghastly things that make big cities unsafe. In a large metropolis there's things like vandalism, drug use, racial tension, and people with all different sorts personal lifestyles from which one must protect the little ones. In highly urban areas, people are cold, callous, selfish, and petty. They're always trying to step on each other to get a bigger piece of the pie. The spirit of neighbourly community is replaced by blatant materialism.
Only occasionally do bored St. Albert youths deface large murals, destroy tombstones, break the skylights of elementary schools, beat and stab innocent pedestrians, terrorize vulnerable High School newcomers, and gang up to verbally abuse gifted students. It's good how there's so much emphasis on sports, on achievement, and on being better than other people. That really helps to quantize human worth. For impressionable youths, it gives structure and meaning to a world otherwise prone to uncontrolled openness and exchange.
In a big city a child could become confused about who is acceptable. With so much chaotic variety, a child would risk growing up to be different from their parents. That's why I'm glad to see so many people in St. Albert criticizing each other publicly. It's refreshing to see so much energy invested in the family-oriented activity of pointing out the shortcomings of others, in condemning their personal choices. We must all be perpetually vigilant about setting a good example for our kids.
If the people really work at it, they may even gain total control of the newspapers in St. Albert, thereby restricting the free flow of truth and reality through the minds of the citizenry. What better way to protect our mindless sheep teenagers from the possibility of knowing what the rest of the world is doing?
It gives me a strong, proud feeling when, after playing hockey against a St. Albert team, my young cousin says the athletes representing my hometown are cruel, savage, arrogant, and disrespectful. I wouldn't want other cities to be calling our sporting lads wimpy or weak. No, we're a tough town. We play to win, to beat the other team no matter the price! Down with silly, soft sportsmanship!
Our city engages in a healthy insistence on rigid conformity. Any deviance from the abstract set of choices we hold as "normal", and thus good, is ruthlessly and efficiently squashed. It's the ideal way to prevent new ideas from sprouting up and changing things. And it helps prevent irritations like variety and self-discovery.
We help give our children all the material decadence they deserve when we crusade against anyone who might lower the price of our luxuriously valuable property. Children learn to function well in the adult world when they are taught that the look of a neighbours' house is more important than their contributions to the community. We have to keep everything the same so that our children grow up refusing to live harmoniously with all the different cultures and races in the world.
St. Albert's emphasis on material possessions, salary size, and outward appearance help defend the next generation against things like human compassion, love, understanding, cooperation, and peace. We teach our children that what matters is where you end up in life, how successful you are. Our kids will be well-off, and their kids will be raised by televisions and daycare, alone and independent.
|
|
|
|
|