What do you get when you replace reality with BS?

We have a yearly health and safety meeting at our place of work each spring. They invite different guests each year give out awards and basically dot the I’s cross the tees when it comes to displaying due diligence if shit every hits the fan. It’s always on the most beautiful of spring days and it ends up being more sad than informative for me.

If there ever was an exercise on covering your ass our annual meeting along with thousands of others in the province of Ontario would be award worthy.

This year we discussed our harassment policy, certainly one should always be fair and just certainly being a foreman. Trouble is there are always truths to be told, faced and adhered to. Heavy construction doesn’t get done passing out roses, hugs , and political correct BS. Guys stand in mud,water and sometimes human shit up to their crotch and get stuff done. They don’t stand at the top of the trench and say ewww . The best jump in put a smile on their face and give it all they got. They swear , loose their temper, smile and tell it like it is. In a good man there is truth in almost everything he has to say even if he’s having a bad day and like that old dog your grand dad had on the farm ; gets a little snarly.

While I sat and listed to our safety rep massage our brains with our new harassment policy, no one got mad even though they know it’s a bunch of crap. All the men in that room who are the best workers never got hugs and admiration because they stood and watched someone else from the top of the trench. Their sweat and swear words stained the air and soil around every inch of road , every inch of sewer line, they have constructed . You haven’t seen an honest smile till you’ve seen a man smile covered in mud, cement dust, or human shit smile while earning your heartfelt respect.

They are men after all and so many before them worked so hard ,wore out and died without an harassment policy, the bureaucracy of safety, or a trail of paper saying they walked with righteousness and that their ass was now covered. I would imagine most of them would have said they lived a good but hard honest imperfect life.

That’s changing at light speed and now real men fill out reports, stay clean. Give out hugs before work and coddle those that can easily place their responsibility on others. Fueling the need for more safety regulations, safety inspectors, and instructors ;its becoming quite an industry, on the journey to a perfect world where no one ever gets hurt or dies, feels hurt or ever has a bad day,and if your a foreman you sure as hell don't rock any boats.

As I raised my hand in defiance of political correctness and asked sarcastically when our sensitivity training was starting I knew then it’s the beginning of the end. An adherence to an illusion has been fostered by government bureaucracies and we seem only to happy to follow. It has taken hold, and reality is no longer hostage it's about to have a bullet put in its head.


"A viler evil than to murder a man, is to sell him suicide as an act of virtue. A viler evil than to throw a man into a sacrificial furnace, is to demand that he leap in, of his own will, and that he build the furnace, besides."

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged. Part2, III
US (Russian-born) novelist (1905 - 1982)

Just Another Friggin Shame

Sixteen years ago working on a cleaning crew for a large turkey grower, I ran into a pleasant older man who worked on one of the farms. He was for the most part always smiling coming up to you and placing his hand on your shoulder striking up a jovial conversation, and showing genuine concern for who ever he was talking to. This too many wouldn’t be much of a feat, but Gupta lost his only child a daughter to boot in the Air India crash.

I remember the tone of his voice the day we where talking about it, most of the conversation is a vague memory, but I do remember him talking of his daughter, how sad his wife had become, and hearing how it was all hard for such a warm uplifting man to bear, not by his words but by how his tone of voice changed and the look on his face when he talked about the incident and the changes it brought to his life.

I was twenty four at the time and certainly felt for the man. Today forty years old and having two daughters of my own, and over time realizing that genuine inspirations that manifest themselves in the form of good men are such a rarity. I certainly hoped justice would be served or at least finally sought out by our government. Instead it has been stifled by a group of ragtag legends in their own minds, who deserve a righteous kick in the behind. Some it has to be said ,never showed up for the vote (they may or may not have a backbone) and one even had the decency to vote with others in favor of the legislation against his parties wishes staying true to what he believed.

If the current news is correct and legislation was struck down pandering to votes garnered at the recent liberal convention, we really need a set of gallows on parliament hill.

I’m no fan of the definition of terrorist combined with sweeping powers when it comes to determining whose suspect and their detention. However if it gets that bad that they have to collect disgruntled Canadians that are choking on values parroted by talking baby seals that Canadian socialists resemble, the government of the day will just think something up to make it seem on the up and up anyway.

We have sunk that far that a good men striving for integrity and selflessly projecting value onto the people they meet, even while they are under conditions of loss brought on by terrorism, can’t even be given even a genuine scrap containing some sort of closure let alone justice. Instead victims of terror are referred to as a side show.

If you find yourself asking what is happening to society, just look onto those in government that always pander to imaginary victims, and ignore the real victims too proud strong and free to raise a stink but sometimes they politely ask for some genuine concern. More times than not they are never really heard but purposely ignored along with common sense and doing the right thing.

Gupta deserved better, the time I spent with him where occasions of lightness and inspiration. I never thanked him for that I guess I was wishing the government finally would.

God only knows how brightly his daughter could have shined.