Onwards and downwards

More age discrimination. About ten months ago after my career ending injury, I looked around for another opportunity. I always wanted to be an Editor.

I applied everywhere. Shut out. Its the old story. Its not who you know, its who you Lewinsky. I've given up trying to find anything in that line of werk.



_

Hair Craft

Oh the cheers.

This morning I took a look at my long hair in the mirror. Its hard finding a part in long hair. Yecch.

I can't afford a haircut. The right one is twenty bucks. The wrong one is free. I used to look good.

Now its getting attached. Hey women just love this stuff. When I kept my hair short I couldn't get close without the look of initial fear. Now. "Oh, Its just an old hippie... cool."

Amazingly I'm in my mid 50's. All my other friends my age have money and can afford a haircut. But are mostly bald. Its indeed a twisted world.

Exasperations

Phoned home. The skills of age cause depression. Of this I am convinced. I speak as a person whose wandered in and out of light depression ever since early teen age. About this, I am an expert.

I can honestly say I haven't had a truely good day abandoned from the grey clouds of depression. No matter how bright and sunny a day there was always a small black thundery rain cloud sitting over Signal Hill going "Okay Dunc, make my day!"

A phrase "the Age of Spin" was said to cover the last twenty years. Hell it began a lot longer than that. The selling of the dream began in the 1950's. A great dream of personal wealth and intellectual peak was sold to a couple of generations.

By the time you reached. Exasperation means that these individuals and good friends of mine appear to be impacting the wall of mental depression. Each individual had excellent high paying jobs. The careers though weren't part of the great dream.

The people that cope appear to have suffered from depression for years. The new person seems shocked by the impact of this disease. We veterans do sympathize. How do the vets cope?

Well like any one go get help. Second, and this is important, realize that you are not alone nor

Getting help. Thats the problem. Many of the counselors seem not to have ever suffered from severe or mild depression. They smile cheerily and say "So! You are depressed!"

Grrrrrrrrr

Then these "expert" counselors do the referral game. Hello has any one suffering from depression ever gone through the referral game and lived to tell the tale? It used to be counselors would be possessive. Nowadays the counselors get paid extra to refer.

Plus they don't have to expose themselves to reverse assessment. I practice reverse assessment. They assess me, it is only fair to assess back. Experts don't like this. It is far more difficult to continue with a program of treatment than to refer. Its sluffing off.

They have the Ryerson Hungarian degrees pasted on the wall saying they know everything. But I never seen them in the Salvation Army or soup kitchens where sufferers of mental health congregate and live out their lives in the bleakness of impoverished disillusion. Its the place to learn what mental illness truly is.

There are counselors who do work in that environment. Many only have good hearts but the government only pays for "good" school degrees. They play the referral game. Ever wonder why so many mentally ill live homeless or in shelters? Its because like the society at large they like to sluff off ill patients.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

The game rules. Basic chicken and egg stuff. Well to get help you must be referred to a doctor. You cannot get into the system without a family doctor. On the other hand you cannot get help without getting a referral to a doctor from a mental health worker.

Doctors make so much money that depression caused by poverty or money problems staggers them to disbelief. Solution, hand out drugs.

Worse, all doctors seem to think they know how to treat depression. I guess the ten years in medical school seems to have given them the right to understand everything or think they know everything. I caught one poor bipolar soul undergoing a crisis because the doctor prescribed Zoloft. On every leaflet about Zoloft it clearly states that one must not give it to a sufferer of bi-polar depression. She couldn't quit this doctor because her treatment hinged upon having a family doctor. I've yet to meet a General Practitioner who knew anything about mental illness of any sort. Its an ego thing.

How do the veterans of depression cope? One of the most important things is to realize that you are not alone. You are not the only sufferer of depression. This takes practice. Initially all depression like an illicit drug consumes the user. It makes the sufferer believe that they are the only ones to suffer from this, that there is no treatment, that no one understands.

It is important to realize that this is completely false. Yes, it literally puts the person into a state of constant pain. You must completely overcome this emotion often by sheer will power. If you do not want the grey life caused by drugs, the sufferer can use the option of self realization that this is the way it is and this is the way it always be.

Embrace it. To defeat something like this it must be stared in the face.

Why are all these guys suffering from depression. Well they all are males. Oh a couple of females. The males are in their fifties.

They have work and are either retired or nearing retirement. A large part of the depression stems from that "Dream." Causes.

1. Drugs or booze. Even quitting them doesn't guarantee the elimination of mental depression. Narcotics Anonymous (NA) recognize that often drug dependency stems from depression and people self medicate. They succeed because they make an effort to deal with dependency, the depression and socialized alienation of depressive behaviour.

If you are depressed avoid drinking or drugs... or if not don't get too high or buzzed. The high you feel is false.

2. Age. Perpetual youth was part of the old dream. The dream was to reach retirement age, cash in, ditch the old spouse, lie on a caribbean beach, drink a lot of beer and boink a lot of babes or hunks. Well aint that the life. Well by the time most are fifty the babes have wrinkles. And even if you could do anything, do it once then you gotta take three days rest.

Age. Even as late as the 1950's an aged person was revered as a source of wisdom and leadership. Well hasn't that idea gone to the dark side. Age the curse. Age the new leprosy.

The only thing is to mutter. "Okay you young little jerk, someday sooner than later you're going to be a broken down, fat, old flatulating, snoring, whiskered useless piece of shit. I can hardly wait to see it... If I don't die first. Hell thats a good reason to try to live."

3. Sports. Upon retirement you can play any sport. Now all your physical impairments disqualify you physically from major things like referring a checkers championship. And Hey doesn't anyone ever play Checkers anymore?

4. Personal goals. Hey I wanted to be a horse jockey. That really depressed me when I was disqualified because at the time there were no horses around Marathon. Now they tell me I'm too old. I am a victim of discrimination. Things like that cause depression.

Well thats just a few things. I just want those guys to know that I am thinking of them. Hoping for the best. Hope to see you sometime.

Shorter story

Having an extra loonie around. I ambled passed the corner restaurant. The owners are East Indian likely Pakistani or Islamic Indians. No matter. The lady there makes an excellent tea.

Normally mid-asian foods curry no flavour with me. However... What? That hurt you a lot more than it hurt me. My story. My bad jokes.

On with the tea. Its really good. I don't dare take it a couple of days before a doctor's appointment. The blood pressure soars. Well I drifted in wearing a shirt, no coat, no jacket. Its only minus three or four and the rest of the city dwellers are wrapped like real weinies. I live just across the street. Its not like going to the south pole. No big deal.

Anyway the tea is wonderful. Grade AAA. Spicy. Medium for only a buck.

So this Chinese guy pipes up while I exit the establishment. How tall are you?

"5'2" I said.

"No" he replied laughing.

"Ya true." says I. "I was born before 1970. The government brought in metric. Now I'm shorter."

Technical Imperium

One should know. The imperialism of technology. I know I must recharge the cordless shaver. Its the only time I cannot find the recharging cord.

More imperial technology. My ad hoc wireless connection to the internet will be tested tomorrow morning. Its going to get warmer apparently. I believe its also temperature dependent. I love the cold. Too bad.

Oven pans

Time is aborting. I improved the signal reception of this internet station by the use of a strategically bent oven pan. It cost two bucks but it works a little.

I also found the correct distance about 10.5 inches to the reflector surface. My apologies to the metric people. My ruler was in inches. I do measure my dick metrically. I comes to a better number. Numbers impress.

But I can dispose of the old antenna. This is a good thing since I was running out of food and the last antenna is about to be used.

It doesn't work... unless

It must the day of the soldier. I support our troops. However I do not support the clowns in Ottawa who run the show. Good soldiers obey orders. No matter how stupid those orders may be.

One of the most important lessons of the Viet Nam War was the fact that rotation of active combat troops doesn't work. In that war the rotation for troops was one year duty.

Now on the eve of a Taliban spring offensive General Hillier is rotating out veteran troops and is sending in green or raw troops. Even if those troops have been there before, it takes a bit of work to get back into the non routine of being shot at. This is the critical point in the war. The decisive moment. The Taliban will certainly throw everything they got.

The Taliban now know that the Canadians rotation is coming about. Notice they haven't picked a fight with Canadians in the last couple of months. But last spring when the Royal Canadians showed up for the first time they waited till the Pats went back to the Edmonton barracks.

Most of those 44 Canadian casualties were suffered on a fresh rotation. This is a no brainer. The smart move would be to rotate the Princess Pats back into action sooner than later. Then keep them on station as a regiment until next year in the autumn of 2008. But Hillier is Harper's lap dog now.

An all out attack by the Taliban against fresh raw Canadian troops may cause another 200 casualties under the worst scenario. But keeping the present troops on station then supplementing them with Princess Pat vet volunteers would enable the field commanders in Afghanistan to have the best available human resource for countering the new Taliban offensive.

_

Travelling brains

Where are those people? Thinking. Peculiar.

Head honcho soldier Hillier complained about the Liberal record regarding the military. This despite the fact they were the ones who assigned him the top job.

Hillier is the same general who went for a field visit about. This event is documented by embedded reporters. A roadside bomb went off a few yards ahead of his personal column. Instantly he abruptly turned tail and headed directly for Ottawa. And didn't stop until he got behind his nice safe desk.

He's like the dog who bravely barks knowing that his master and the rest of the pack is dealing with the threat. The instant the threat looks at him, he hides in his master's legs.

I will not call him a coward although I may believe him to be.

No general worthy of the rank would ever want to put his troops, in this case Canadian troops into such an untenable situation as they find themselves. He's a soldier who knows nothing about the art of war. Any smart leading commander would have fought tooth and nail to avoid the situation in Afghanistan. He's the Andrew McNaughton of this generation.

This country and the armed services need a new Harry Crerar.

Garbage bags

Ever notice that no matter how tough the name of the garbage bag. You know tough names like "Tough," or "Nobust" or "Wall". They still rip.

I once bought a very tough sounding bag that ripped in a wind. There is a lesson in this.

The toughest garbage bag I ever got was non of them names. It had only Professional Garbage Bags 7 mil. I still use them. They don't wear out. They don't rip. I am avoiding buying tough things.