Thursday, December 21, 2017

The Delilah Saunders liver transplant case

The story of Delilah Saunders has been in the news lately. Ms. Saunders is seeking a liver transplant, but cannot get on the waiting list due to a "six-month clean" policy which Ms. Saunders is apparently not compliant with from the news reports.

Saunders supporters are expressing frustration with the policy. Some might think the six-month clean policy is unfair. The liver transplant policy is based on objective criteria, and it applies equally to all. Thus the policy is certainly fair.

Some supporters believe that the six-month clean rule is wrong. Well health care is the provinces responsibility under the constitution. It's for the Minister of Health to establish a liver transplant waiting list policy, and review or revise the policy as he sees fit. Thus the policy as it exists is right per the authority of the Minister of Health.

It would be unethical for the policy to be changed at this point in order to favour one individual, Ms. Saunders, and necessarily bump someone else further down, or effectively off the list (if they die before getting a live transplant). The thing is, erasing the six-month clean rule wouldn't particularly help Saunders. After all everyone else currently shut out of the liver transplant program under six-month clean, however many dozens or hundreds or whatever, would then immediately have precedence over Saunders. These other excludeds have been "waiting" outside the program earlier, perhaps attempting to comply with six-months clean, to become eligible to be on the transplant list.

So the only way waiving six-month clean would help Saunders would be if it was waived for Saunders only, telling the others currently on the outside to go home and get sober for six months while Saunders gets on the list now without having to meet the sobriety requirement. Is that fair or ethical?

One point made in the media by Saunders supporters is the "multiple traumas she has suffered in her life". So yes Saunders has a sympathetic hard-luck story. I will confidently believe that everyone on the liver transplant list, or around the list in six-months clean limbo, can tell a hard-luck story in addition to facing liver failure. So we don't know who, like Saunders, has the most hard-luck story to tell. There seems no obvious way to objectively measure it or use it to prioritize the waiting list.

Basically what Saunders supporters are seeking is for the policy to be set aside in this one case in order to favour a specific individual. Let's follow that through to its logical conclusion. Suppose the policy as it exists is struck entirely and there is no specific policy to get on the liver transplant list, or to move up or down in priority once on the list. What would happen is the list would become based on

  • political connections
  • money
  • bribes and corruption
  • access to mass media (Delilah Saunders)
  • ability to present a hard-luck story in the press, while ignoring other hard-luck stories (Saunders)
  • supporters being able to mobilize campaigns in social media, and public demonstrations (Saunders)

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Burma and Serbia

The situation with the Rohingya in Burma has been in the news lately. I haven't studied all of the details and backstory, but for the Buddhist in Myanmar to take this action is pretty unexpected. I mean from what I've always heard Buddhism is all about peace and love. So for the Buddhist who I'm told are so peaceful, to be pushed to taking this drastic action, it makes me wonder what must have happened.

So the Muslim Rohingya are being forcibly ejected from Burma into neighbouring Bangladesh. Now Bangladesh is an Islamic nation, an exporter of terrorism as we saw in New York just this week. So it was this accident of geography that gave Burma this option in dealing with the Rohingya issue, that is the option to force them out of their country into an adjacent Muslim zone.

Which brings to the parallels with Serbia. Also recently the old Balkan wars of a generation ago have been in the news. Serb and Croat leaders from back then still going through trials and sentencing. So back in those days Serbia also had Muslim problems in their nation. And Serbia in a way set the example by forcibly removing Bosnian Muslims out of Serbia and into Bosnia and Muslim dominated areas. Serbia, like Burma today, had the option with geography to push Muslim trouble off their land and onto an adjacent Muslim country.

It's interesting the changes in world opinion from a generation ago in the Yugoslav wars to today. Back then it was Serbia is bad, bomb Serbia, stop Serbia. There was no discussion at all about Serbia being Christian, or the threats Serbia was facing that led them to do what they did. Ah simpler times.

Now today with Burma and the Rohingya the outrage is more muted. World opinion is more nuanced. The situation with the Rohingya and Muslim violence is seen as difficult and complex. The actions taken by Burma are certainly harsh with a real human toll, and individual-level injustice. Yet its recognized that Islamic strife is a problem worldwide (Genesis 16:12). Also the world recognizes that it isn't sufficient to tell Burma that mass deporting the Rohingya is not an option, while offering no other solutions.

Saturday, December 02, 2017

The Books Everyone Read

I recently read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. It was a good book. It held my attention through the 800 pages. It makes you think. Set in the 19th century Imperial Russia, many of the themes are still relevant today.

I'd always meant to read that book. It was one of those books I grew up thinking everyone read. Well I thought everyone read them. So with Anna along with these other titles I've completed in recent years I have finally completed the task to read these books that everyone read.

Atlas Shrugged
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Anna Karenina

There are still some classic books that I've been meaning to read for a long time and perhaps I will get to them. So the reading and learning journey continues.

I have some ideas but I'm not entirely certain what to make of Anna. I'd be interested to hear the views of others who have read it and what they think it is about.

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Comment on The Church Virtuous Circle

In my previous post on virtuous circle life in the church, it was some things I'd been thinking about for some time. Writing it in a diagram helped me to visualize stuff I'd always known about and grew up with but never really thought about in that way.

I think the chain style is important, as it helps visualize where breaks in the chain can occur and how people can come be non-churchgoers.

It's well known that church attendance is in decline in Canada. Also at the church I grew up in, and still attend sometimes. Recently there was a fellow from Michigan speaking, a good speaker. He said at his home church they had 23 kids in their program for ages 3-7. It just struck me how healthy his home church was. I'm confident they will still be around a generation from now.

It was a bit painful too, the diagram made me examine my own life, choices I made along the way, and my kids relationship to church and religion such as it is.

From the bottom left I got though the first two links. I was born protestant and grew up going to church every week. However within a year of finishing high school I was basically done with church and effectively stopped going for many years. Now in modern times I've come back somewhat to around 1-2 a month on average for the last couple years or so. The same church I grew up in.

Also in the later links, I married outside my church. Nominally a catholic, like me very seldom actually attended church. In the years I was dating then married we never once got up on a regular Sunday morning that wasn't Christmas, Easter or some occasion and voluntarily went to church, any church.

If you read the Old Testament outmarriage was the downfall of Israel and Judah starting with King Solomon. We were warned in the church as kids that outmarriage was the major cause of people leaving the church, and they were right.

For my kids, well I did not do a good job with religion. They were baptized catholic but basically never went to church as children. So it wasn't a natural part of their routine growing up. Plus the failed marriage of their parents is hardly going to steer them to be churchgoers now or into independent adulthood. So more breaks in the chain from my own experiences and choices in life.

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

The Church Virtuous Circle

I will just post the diagram I drew of what occurred to me. Will comment more in later posts.

Church Virtuous Circle Diagram

Wednesday, October 04, 2017

Prime Minister substitute drama teacher

So what to make of Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada. At this point it's nearly two years in. Somehow it seems to have gone by quickly. Lots has changed during that time.

Trudeau is the affirmative action Prime Minister. He was elevated to the leadership of the Liberal party due to his ethnicity as the son of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Luckily he actually has his father's recognizable last name, which is a bit of a feat for where he comes from. To be fair to Justin he did win a federal election so he does get credit for accomplishing that.

Justin's background as a substitute drama teacher suggests he aspired to and came into this role of Prime Minister perhaps somewhat by accident, a bit later in his adult life after bouncing around some. Now during the election campaign the Liberal ads assured us that Justin was "ready" to be the leader of Canada. That old substitute teacher, ski bum, bouncing from school to school stuff, that's the past.

Based on the advertising, I think a lot of people expected Justin to "molt" from his early adult form into the form of a Prime Minister. The reality is that has not happened. Justin hasn't molted. He is still the sub drama teacher, always was and always will be.

His agenda since being elected seems at times like the musings of a sub teacher speculating what he would do as PM. Mandate an equal male-female balanced cabinet regardless of qualification. Thumb his nose at the Americans with cheeky Tweets about anyone in the world who can get here is welcome to come and stay in Canada. Renegotiate NAFTA with the emphasis being on social justice instead of trade.

Trudeau comes across as not especially interested in the job of Prime Minister. As far as I can tell his top priority, the only thing he's really motivated about, is criss crossing the country from Halifax to Vancouver to Toronto attending gay pride parades. And that's about it, Prime Minister gay pride. Is there anything else Justin seems really engaged with? Well establishing himself as the alpha male feminist too.

There's so much that he could and should care about and focus on. Each month thousands of primarily Haitian "refugees" from the USA flooding into Canada across an open border. Millions of jobs in Canada on the line in the NAFTA negotiations. Rising interest rates for better or for worse. Possibility of Canada being hit by an errant or intentional nuclear missile strike from North Korea. But he just doesn't seem to overly care about any of that stuff. Maybe it was unrealistic for Canadians to expect him to.

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Canada NAFTA negotiations

So there's another round of NAFTA negotiations ongoing. The original trade deal was the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and USA back in 1987, about a generation ago.

Much has changed in Canada in only a generation. I remember trade agreements used to be about increasing trade, creating jobs in Canada, preserving key industries like dairy farms and auto manufacturing. In 1987 Canada's negotiator was Simon Reisman, a well-known, respected, successful Jewish businessman. He got it. He understood we were negotiating a trade agreement and his job was to get the best trade agreement for Canada.


And then there's today.
Look at Canada's so called priorities of this "trade" negotiation. The environment, Indians, gender, outlaw right to work in USA, etc. No mention anywhere of trade, industry or jobs. We can assume none of those things matter to the Prime Minister Trudeau.

The whole thing seems to be about advancing the social justice warrior agenda. Reads like some tripe written by the Dalhousie student union.

Who is the negotiator? On the USA side the leader and face is unquestionably President Trump.

And on Canada's side we have Chrystia Freeland. What a comparison from Mr. Reisman in only a generation. Freeland comes to cabinet from a career in big media, and appears to have no experience in business or industry.

Freeland seems to be a feminist sjw, writer of books with titles like "Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else". The wiki page states "She is a proponent of personal asset seizures..."  No doubt. It's not clear how Mr. Trudeau saw her as the best Canada could find as the lead NAFTA trade negotiator, but the Prime Minister seems to have little interest in this matter.


Given that, best outcomes to Canada from this NAFTA negotiation are no change, or cancel the NAFTA agreement. No gain can come to Canada from an agreement negotiated between Trump with his priorities and Freeland with her priorities.

Saturday, July 08, 2017

The Atlantica Party of Nova Scotia

I discovered the party a bit by accident in the last provincial eletion cycle. I saw a couple banners around Halifax and visited the Atlantica website. I was a bit surprised and liked what I saw. Unfortunately they didn't have a candidate in my riding on the ballot or I might have voted for them.

A few thoughts on the Atlantica platform and website. First of all they should disable comments. Comments just attract trolls and it takes away their control of the narrative. Let the opponents expend their own time and energy to set up their own websites. Comments either undermine the message by opposing it, or even supporter comments can dilute the message without really adding value.

They should lead with the health care message. Health was the top issue in the election campaign. It is by far the largest provincial budget item. So lead with it. Their ideas for health care in Nova Scotia are quite interesting and innovative.

They make some good points about education too. So move that up to second on their website.

Everything else seems a bit w/e. Privatize the liquor commission? The LC is like meh, who cares one way or the other if it is private or crown. Maybe 30 years ago the way things were in the old days there was a case to privatize the LC. Today not so much. They have modernized, offering better hours and Sunday shopping. In-store service is good and friendly in my experience. There is also better customer experience with boutique outlets in grocery stores and rural corner stores.

I think the privatization of Nova Scotia Power was seen as a shot across the bow to the Liquor Commission. The LC got the message 25 years ago to act more like a business and less like a government department. Today I can't see a good case to make the change to private. Thus without a compelling case to privatize I'd say don't bother. Also we didn't gain anything from the NSPC privatization. A one-time $300 million of money to the province that was of course immediately spent with nothing to show for it.

MLA recall is a bad idea. In a multi-party first past the post system, riding winners will often pull less than 40% of the vote. Campaigns are often hard-fought and the margins of victory on election day thin. Recall would just be abused by sore losers trying to reopen and re-fight lost election campaigns. We already have recall, on election day.


On this site I've had some ideas about education and training and a proposal to reduce the burden of rules and restrictions which I will offer here as suggestions to Atlantica for future platform ideas.

--

I appreciate the discussion that only Atlantica is willing to have at this time. I guess a soft landing from the statism of the past generations, going back to the 1970s and earlier. Admit that what we have been doing the last decades is failing. Let's move forward in a sustainable way. It's better to have a controlled soft landing now than an uncontrolled sudden stop and crash later.

It takes courage to bring it up and discuss it so credit to Atlantica for that. Thanks for being the only party willing to have an honest conversation about where Nova Scotia is today and what the realistic alternatives are at this point.

Atlantica makes me think of the Ivany report [PDF]. I think Atlantica should try to seize Ivany and identify with it. Demonstrate their platform is to basically implement Ivany. That's what it feels like a bit from their site anyway.

--

I think Atlantica has more support than was reported. I think they ran a pretty good campaign with limited resources and exposure. I hope Atlantica continues and gains traction. It won't be easy, the status quo is deeply entrenched and will use their resources to very strongly resist any real change to the longstanding narrative of the past decades.

I think it was unfair of the media on election day to lump Atlantica and their darlings the Green party together as 0.4 % support "other". That was in my opinion basically appropriating Atlantica's votes to Green for reporting purposes which was wrong.

During the campaign the media basically tried to pretend Atlantica didn't exist, hoping Atlantica would go away if they just ignore them. Anyway that's stage 1, ignore and pretend it doesn't exist. Stage 2 which hasn't happened yet is ridicule, attack, and vilify. Stage 3, if they reach it, is when you win.

Wednesday, July 05, 2017

Gold Digging Salvatore DalĂ­

I noticed a story go by about the famous late artist Salvatore DalĂ­.

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/psychic-salvador-dali-body-exhumed-paternity-1005665
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/26/arts/design/salvador-dalis-corpse-exhumed-paternity-case.html
http://nypost.com/2017/06/26/judge-orders-body-of-painter-salvador-dali-to-be-exhumed/

So apparently a judge in Spain has ordered that DalĂ­'s body be exhumed for a DNA test from a lawsuit brought by one Pilar Abel. Ms. Abel claims that her mother was working as a maid in DalĂ­'s house in 1955 and DalĂ­ is her birth father. Salvatore DalĂ­ died in 1989 with no children.

This case makes no sense. First of all what evidence is there of this paternity claim? DalĂ­ is long dead. Abel seems to present some hearsay evidence which is inadmissible in court. There seems to be no physical or testimony of her claim. Why didn't Abel or her mother bring this case through all those years when DalĂ­ was alive and could have defended himself.

Also DalĂ­ left a will. So even if a DNA was established, since she isn't in the will what claim could she have to the DalĂ­ estate?

Talk about gold digging, sheesh. Trying to literally extract resources from men that her mother supposedly slept with. From the defenceless corpse of Mr. DalĂ­. So much for Rest in Peace.

So much for consent. How could the dead consent to this indignity against the human body. Idiot judge. Who is paying for this exhumation anyway?

Well as a hedge while you're there once the body is up, see if there are some gold fillings in his teeth. Since his dead body is being literally mined for resources at this point. Take the resource extraction and gold digging from DalĂ­'s corpse to its logical conclusion. Plus a hedge when the DNA test comes back negative, perhaps she can at least extract those resources off DalĂ­.

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Women and Men Fighting

I've noticed a trend recently in some popular culture. We see more women and men fighting.

For example in a recent Avengers movie, and in the show Vikings, we see women and men squaring up and direct one on one fighting. Historically this did not happen. Men fought men and women more rarely fought women. But never direct straight up woman v man fistfight/swordfight.

I noticed that in these fights the women always seemed to win the fight. Which seems unlikely. If everything is now equal, then in general the women should lose half these straight up fights and win half the time. So the women always winning is an interesting statement.

It's something new. Historically men and women never fought directly on screen. In general we also don't straight up fistfight in public. But maybe there is a trend of acceptability. I guess if everything is equal then "who you fight" can now be whoever you want.

--

Alas as we saw in Cologne on New Years Eve, life does not imitate art. When it came to it the fighting wasn't so equal. The German men that night either weren't around, or were too few, not strong enough, expecting the authorities to deal with it for them, or just not motivated to fight on behalf of their women.

I guess they aren't "their" women, and if fighting is equal now as the Avengers and Vikings tell us then the German ladies were free to defend themselves and their property.

--

There's this stat that surfaces from time to time. It's the concern about domestic violence in lesbian relationships. http://www.pandys.org/articles/lesbiandomesticviolence.html, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_lesbian_relationships for example.
so it exists. so what.

I will provide a theory that there's nothing "special" about the female abuse in lesbian relationships. I believe it's the same amount of abuse as men in heterosexual relationships experience. It's just in lesbian we're allowed to talk about it. After all, the women in many lesbian relationships such as Kathleen Wynne, Elizabeth Gilbert, Anne Heche, Lindsay Lohan come over or back from traditional relationships with men. So it's the largely the same women in lesbian relationships, committing the same abuse.

To a man in a relationship facing abuse. Here are two good options.

a) leave the abuser
b) hit back

Wednesday, June 07, 2017

The Grabher Case

There has been a news story about a fight in Nova Scotia about a personalized license plate.

Lorne Grabher had a license plate which read GRABHER for 26 years.

In response to one complaint, the Nova Scotia department of transportation revoked Mr. Grabher's license plate.

This is wrong on many levels

Grabher is his name This isn't some joke or attempt to skirt boundaries. His intent is obvious and the license plate is appropriate.
Precedent had been established There is a major difference between seeking a new custom plate and a plate that has been there for 26 years. Any common sense would say that there was no issue for 26 years, and the previous decision to allow the plate should stand. Even if you wouldn't issue that plate today for a new application, any application of common sense would be to let the longstanding decision to issue the plate to stand.

Too bad CTV wouldn't do their jobs as journalists and use freedom of information to expose the one person who got her panties in a bunch and originally complained about the license plate.

I see the Transportation Minister Geoff MacLellan was reelected. That is unfortunate. The voters should have booted him out of office. As minister he is ultimately responsible for the department. It's his job to overrule the bureaucracy when they make a mistake, as they did in this case. The civil service works for the minister, not the other way around. Very disappointing that MacLellan, faced with a choice of who to disappoint, would throw an honourable man like Lorne Grabher under the bus to instead accommodate troublemaker activists and busybodies.

Monday, April 17, 2017

Venn diagrams and the meaning of English sentences



I was looking some English language materials recently and came across these two sentences. The basic question from the standpoint of understanding English was around the effects of commas and the meaning of similar statements in English. Thinking about it, it occurred to me that the question was about sets and logic as much as English comprehension. The original problem was stated similar to

In a certain math class there are Hardworking students and Lazy students. The class writes two tests. A student can Pass or Fail each test.

These are the overall results of the two tests.

1. The students, who were lazy, failed.

2. The students who were lazy failed.

Questions for students

- draw Venn diagrams with Hardworking, Lazy, Pass, and Fail for each of the two tests
- did any Hardworking students Fail the first test (yes, no, possibly)
- did any Lazy students Pass the first test (yes, no, possibly)
- did any Hardworking students Fail the second test (yes, no, possibly)
- did any Lazy students Pass the first test (yes, no, possibly)
- is it possible that everyone failed the first test?
- is it possible that everyone failed the second test?
- which test was probably harder? explain your reasoning


Now the first bit is English comprehension, as the only difference between the sentences is the punctuation. This part might be contentious so I put in my reading of the sentences. I'd be curious to understand how others may read it.

In the first sentence, my reading is: the punctuation makes laziness a property of those who failed the test.

In the second sentence I read it: the statement applies to the class as a whole.

So given that I can rewrite the sentences in an equivalent form that can be used for Venn diagrams

1 => 1.1 everyone who failed is lazy

2 => 2.2 everyone who is lazy failed

From there it's possible to create Venn diagrams and answer the questions.

I used creatly which was a nice online program. Easy to use and powerful. +1 to creately.

These are the Venn diagrams I came up with

For the first test

For the second test

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Tim Horton's 100 challenge

Recently a few people have put the Tim Horton's roll up the rim challenge to the test. Apparently they are buying 100 cups of Tims coffee in an experiment.

I wonder what they were trying to discover. lol Tims is rigged? maybe they thought with 100 tries things would converge and they would have exactly 20 winners. In Tim Horton's roll up the rim they state that 1 in 5 cups wins something. The something is typically an inexpensive food prize such as a free coffee or doughnut.

I thought offhand 100 isn't a real large sample size and there would be some variance and probably surprises from people actually doing a sample of 100 times and recording the results. First I thought to write a script to use a random number generator to build a large set of samples of 100 trials (taking Tims at their word that indeed 1 in 5 cups randomly is a winner), then see what kind of data emerged.

Then thinking about it some more, I realized the chance of each of the outcomes, from 0 wins to 100 wins, can be computed exactly. This is the equation, where x is the number of times to win.

The probability of winning x times over a sample of 100 where each attempt has a 1 in 5 chance of winning is


This formula can be readily entered into Excel and we can determine the chance of each outcome. I entered it into a spreadsheet and these are some observations of the results.

The chance of losing all 100 times is about 1 in 4.9 billion. So any regular who tells you they never win is probably selectively forgetting a few stray wins here and there.

The chance of winning all 100 times is about 1 in 1070, or 1 in 7,888,609,052,210,030,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

There is about a 1.26% chance of winning fewer than 12 times.

There is about a 1.12% chance of winning more than 29 times. So regulars who think they win about half the time are likely overestimating how often they win.

With a 1 in 5 chance each time, the expected would be of course 20 wins. There is actually a 9.93% chance of winning exactly 20 times, or more than 90% to get something other than 20. Most of the action is around 20, there is an 83.2% chance of coming in between 15 and 25 wins over the random sample of 100 cups.

Saturday, March 11, 2017

The end of the independent judiciary in Canada

Some recent court cases have called into question whether a judge in Canada can act as independent, impartial, disinterested observer in a criminal trial. In recent months in some court cases judges have been subject to censure after the trial for applying "incorrect" reasoning.

In an Alberta case a provincial court judge Robin Camp was subjected to a Canadian Judicial Council committee of inquiry who ruled that he "should be removed from the bench". The council also ruled that he "committed misconduct while presiding over the trial"

What was this misconduct? Judge Camp's mistake apparently was applying what some might consider thoughtcrime in his reasoning in acquitting a defendant of sexual assault.

With a precedent now established from the judge Camp case, now in a Nova Scotia case there are again calls to remove a judge over a sexual assault verdict, to send judge Gregory Lenehan to "Judicial council review". Again some disagree with the learned judge's reasoning in acquittal, and want the judge removed from the bench.

In the past there were concepts of an impartial judge, an unbiased observer with no personal interest in the outcome of a case. This allowed a judge to weigh the evidence as presented and determine a verdict free from outside pressure.

So what is the takeaway from this for judges and criminal defence lawyers? If I was a criminal defence lawyer with a client facing sexual assault I would not recommend my client go to trial by judge alone. Go with a jury trial. As we have seen, if a judge can be censured and kicked off the bench for acquitting, then it's hard to see how a defendant can get a fair trial by judge alone. If the judiciary is no longer independent then judges have to be aware of what the "expected" verdict and reasoning is before the trial begins. And they will be smart enough to protect themselves and deliver that verdict.

Even with a jury trial, it is still dangerous to the judge. His instructions to the jury could also be subject to this Judicial council review, so judges will be pressured to steer juries to deliver a predetermined verdict. Also once a precedent is established with judges, jury members as well can potentially face repercussions after the trial for coming back not guilty. So they will also now feel pressured play it safe and come back with guilty, to avoid trouble and possibly losing their day jobs as a result of delivering the "wrong" verdict.

The result of everyone having to play it safe is bad for defendants. In order for judges and juries to cover themselves and avoid difficulties after the trial if they acquit, established conventions would change. Presumption of innocence replaced by presumption of guilt. Burden of proof shifted to the defendant to demonstrate at least one of
a) the alleged crime did not occur
b) someone else committed the crime
c) it is impossible for the defendant to have committed the crime

Otherwise it might be "murky" as in the Halifax taxi case and better play it safe and protect your own interest and convict.

Friday, February 03, 2017

The Modern CBC Narrative

Interesting video posted by CBC 22 minutes apparently some time ago. Just saw it recently.


Intended as comedy, it's actually a sad and disturbing rendering of modern relationships. I suppose CBC has, as Canada's self-appointed storyteller, told the story of the modern Canadian man. Perhaps unwittingly but maybe not.

In the video a man comes home with a brand new truck that he bought. Before he even gets in the door of his own house he is attacked by his wife for buying the truck. Watch it in the video. A screaming, foul mouthed, public tirade against a man. The justification for her vicious attack? oh of course these invisible three kids.

Suitably shamed and humiliated, the video ends with the "man" agreeing to return the truck to the dealership for a vehicle of his wife's choosing.

Imagine for a moment CBC, doing it the other way. a wife comes home with some purchase husband disagrees with and is attacked as a result. yeah any day now we'll see that segment on 22 Minutes.

The poor guy and his 3 kids. loser should have never had kids or stopped after 1 with harpie. kids prevent him from doing the right thing and leaving her. 

For the guy, the 10 minutes that it took to drive the new new truck from the dealership to his house was probably the only 10 minutes of satisfaction he's experienced in the last 10 years being married to her. loser, he should leave her for disrespecting him. that's 10 minutes too much of his happiness for his wife to allow. so he goes back to the dealership, back to paying for everything, back to his job with it's prescription drug card.

Look at themes here. man attacked by his wife in public, openly berated, treated with hostility and contempt. the video is unfortunately so sad because it's not comedy. it's documentary, an accurate description of everyday life for all too many modern men. confirming and normalizing this type of abusive behaviour by women. The video is in poor taste.