SAINTS PRESERVE US

Mysteries to Me

I’m not an officially recognized behavioural psychologist. I’ve no certificates, diplomas nor any other papers of frameable importance. While working in retail and advertising I actively manipulated human behaviour. As a scribbler I observe human behaviour; make notes, take what I need. Ergo, ipso facto, in vino veritas, I consider myself highly qualified to be utterly confounded by recent events in Alberta. Man, I can’t make it up anymore, let alone embellish it (I understand Harvard University is headhunting a new president? I digress).

Here's an example. CKUA is an Alberta public radio station whose existence predates the creation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation by five years or so. Its programming ranges from fantastic to annoying. Such is the nature of a traditional medium. It is donor supported. Engaged listeners can “subscribe” with monthly donations, kick in to the station’s two annual fundraising events or just give what they can when they can. Any donation in excess of $10 warrants an income tax receipt. A significant portion of any donation to a registered charity is tax deductible, but it’s math and I’m vague on the subject. Still, donate $100 to CKUA and maybe half is applied toward what you owe the government come tax time, or maybe even increases your refund. Everybody wins.

Lately CKUA has been staging 50/50 raffles, a popular method of fundraising. The ticket seller keeps half the jackpot and the winning ticket holder gets the other. It’s a game, a lottery, a form gambling. The odds of winning, which vary slightly depending on the number of tickets sold and the number you bought, aren’t good. But the hook is it could happen. It really could happen to you. The more you spend the more you get to play. It won’t, but it could. Really (When I was in Joshua Tree National Park last May I spritzed myself with Axe perfume and waited by the side of the highway under the big hot sun for the convertible muscle car crammed with supermodels, beer and cigarettes to approach out of the shimmering desert heat, pull over and offer me a ride. It didn’t happen, but it could’ve. I digress). It makes more financial sense to donate money to CKUA instead of buying their raffle tickets. Just does. Alas, dreams can’t come true as a modest entry on a tax form schedule.

The final week of January which lingered for a fortnight zapped the Capital Region, Edmonton and environs, with record low temperatures. People of a certain age didn’t have to bother converting Celsius to Fahrenheit. The electrical grid felt the strain because one generating station was offline for scheduled maintenance. Alternative and sustainable power sources were unreliable: wind turbines don’t rotate when they’re frozen solid and solar panels are useless in the freezing dark. This unnerving news was quickly followed by emergency water restrictions come February. A filtration plant went offline for unscheduled maintenance. The utility in both cases asked Albertans to change their usage habits, their behaviour, so as to prevent catastrophe. The people pitched in, they complied.

These are the same people who believe that suggested public health measures such as vaccinations are an affront to personal liberty, the God-given right (albeit a human construct) to “body autonomy.” Vaccines are prophylactics. Jabs go a long way in stymieing the transmission of pathogens which can disfigure, cripple or kill you and those you sneeze at. The uptake in this province is low. With the onset of winter Alberta Health Services prepared its annual public service campaign, simply reminding citizens to get their shots. The United Conservative (UCP) government’s ministry of health dialed back the message for something more innocuous: nothing, silence, omerta. The butchered creative may’ve been posted on Facebook for maybe an hour.

Mumps, measles, polio, chicken pox, influenza, pneumonia, covid variants and fuck knows what else are other people’s raffle tickets. In a sense, this form of self-harm or neglect, has become something of a right-wing partisan, ideological affirmation UCP policy; an article of faith, similar to Jesus drying the supper dishes in my house. Overwhelmed hospital emergency rooms have become cuckoo nests, there are lunatics on gurneys in the corridors. Alberta’s health care system is the same as its criminal justice system, best not to be involved. Premier Danielle Smith, the Banshee of Invermectin, panders to her populist base by espousing non-scientific alternative therapies. She’s even mused about enshrining the right to be infected in Alberta’s Human Rights Act although it has proved tricky deciding which disease is a scourge and which is a privilege.

Body autonomy is not a universal principle in Alberta. It does not apply to all. Since the UCP government was reelected last May, it has floated some radically counter-intuitive policies conveniently omitted from its campaign platform. Plans for a potential Alberta Pension Plan surprised everybody. Proposed legislation intended to suppress the rights and privileges of sexual minorities in the province’s K-12 school system was next.

Gender identity politics is a minefield in the culture wars that taint contemporary civics. Growing up is hard enough without being dragged in to that mire, especially when you have no say on election day. Anatomy and faith mix like electricity and water. I can’t imagine what it must be like standing in front of the bathroom mirror and wondering if somehow a mistake was made in the cosmic nursery or whether it’s meant to be. Sometimes kids need someone else to talk to; a caring, objective adult, an expert or teacher – not mom or dad, not a religious figure - outside of their homes. And those conversations demand the confidentially of a journalist protecting her source or a lawyer acting on behalf of her client. In the UCP world, body autonomy is only superseded by imagined “parental rights” which pretty much align with the beliefs of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children or themselves.

Nothing makes sense to me in Alberta. And I should know better than to buy raffle tickets.

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. My companion site www.megeoff.com is awake and alive. Watch and listen to some of the songs I co-wrote with The Muster Point Project or buy 5 KG, the complete EP. Of course, you can still purchase my latest book Of Course You Did in your preferred format from your preferred e-retailer.