jules.ca

telecom, technology and the occasional floobergeist

I’ve got an abundance of bits and pieces of canadian telecom and internet experience, and I am thrilled to be in a place in time when all is changing, technology is developing, and the status quo is being disrupted. 

Floobergeist is a word that is beginning to defy definition.  The more I roll that smooth pebble around, the more it becomes to mean. Floobergeist started out as the magic dust that turns dreams into ideas.  And then it began to encompass the zing that happens when you have conversations about those ideas. And now, it’s the whole evolution from dream to conversation, with each step improving the later and the former along the way.

Everyone aspires to good conversations. They can lead you to adventures you’ve never imagined, and to people you can twig with.

Let’s have a good conversation…

welcome.

Uber Sensitivity in the Military

May 27, 2006  /  jules kivell

It is as a soldier that we know her now, Canada’s first female combat casualty since World War II, killed — in an ambush — dying instantly on the field during a protracted firefight in Kandahar.

TheStar.com - So much more than a soldier

 

I’ve been following the story of Captain Nichola Goddard, who was slain in combat on May 17.  The canadian people lowered flags last weekend, there’s been nary a day in the past week that her name or images haven’t been on the front page of all daily publications in canada…  and it reminds me of a michael moore film, of mothers crying over lost children. And my brow furrows.  SO much outrage, so much sadness, so much surprise - “how could something like this happen?” “He/she was such a good person”….

Um….. I have one question - what the heck did you think was going to happen?  You decide to become a soldier, you go to war, you get shot, perhaps you are injured seriously and then you die.   It shouldn’t be a surprise ending. There shouldn’t be shock and disbelief. If you or your child make the conscious decision to take up arms and shoot people, then logically, the obvious and reasonable outcome is that you will in all liklihood become a casualty as well.  There cannot be any shred of naivity in this.  It’s quite cut and dried.

I have reasonable respect for folks who can make that decision; to join the military; but don’t come crying when the ending is so very obvious. Everyone is accountable for their decisions.  I understand why governments go to war, to protect their assets and investments.  I don’t understand why people go to war.  Did you really think you were going to get your college degree in electronics for free?  Not a good trade off, if you aren’t areound to enjoy your degree.  Might as well go to vegas to get your scholarship - the odds of surviving are better.

[end rant] 

Imagine, if people decided to STOP enlisting. All around the world, no more people for governments to pour into areas that they wanted to “conquer” under the guise of “humanitarianism”.  I’m now to the point that I have no confidence in any government in the world that they can be responsible with a military, that they are accountable for the lives that they sacrifice in the name of “freedom and peace”.

Imagine, if everyone decided to stop “fighting for peace”.  And don’t even get me started on the idiocy of Tim Horton’s going to Kandahar.  Simple bullshit.

If there is ONE casualty from those gas-mask toting coffee dollies, I don’t want to hear about it.   Although it would be a tragedy, it will NOT be a surprise, or a shock.  It’s a greater shock and tragedy, when a homeless person freezes to death; anonymously, and every day.

 

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