B.C. Place streaker tackled

So now the B.C. Place streaker I guess known only as "Surrey Man", let's call him SM, has hired Preszler Law Firm in Vancouver. Real classy case to link your reputation to Preszler. sheesh, disgraceful. Stringing out his 15 seconds of fame, hiring a lawyer to see if it can be monetized, attempting an inversion by bizarrely now representing that he is the victim. What an embarrassment. SM should seek to lay low, keep quiet, make this shameful episode in his life pass over. Notice that SM per CBC story

A spokesman for Preszler Law Firm said their client did not want to be identified.

why doesn't he want to be identified if he did nothing wrong? is there something to hide or be ashamed of? state your name (his face is pretty visible from the pics and video) if you are an innocent victim and want to sue.

Did the player Marcell Young do anything wrong? Clearly the answer to this is no. He acted appropriately. In video from an angle in the stands, SM walks straight past security. Only a single security guard comes out on the field from that stands angle to confront or impede SM. The guard is large and slow moving. The guard waves ineffectually as SM goes by, making no real effort to give chase, lunge in his way, or stop him.

So to player Young, it was clear that security had abdicated their responsibility to protect the players. They were on their own. Now was there any threat to respond to? Who knows, Young had no way to know if SM was armed or dangerous. He was certainly acting dangerously by being on the field, apparently under the influence of some kind of drugs or alcohol, moving toward the players and Young personally.

Also there have been cases recently with fentanyl where paramedics have become seriously ill and died, just by being touched by it. So there is that new risk now just off someone's hands can basically be a weapon from fentanyl. It was reasonable for Young to believe in this circumstance there may have been a danger.

So Young did what he had to to protect himself and his teammates. Where security failed, he used appropriate but not excessive force to counter a real, uncertain, and unpredictable threat. Young exercised quick thinking and watched out for his teammates and himself.

Bill Clinton and today's standards

So Bill Clinton was in the news recently promoting a new book. Interesting Bill Clinton drawing attention to himself at this time. Apparently at age 71 he is not considering the quiet retirement he was graciously offered in the wake of me too events and revelations.

Bill had an interesting take on it in the USA Today article. Noting that 'norms have changed'

Clinton, who made headlines last week for saying he did not owe Monica Lewinsky a personal apology, defended former Minnesota senator Al Franken and said "norms have changed" in terms of "what you can do to somebody against their will," during an interview Judy Woodruff on PBS "News Hour."

hmmm interesting theory there. 'judge not by the standards of today the actions of the past'. as a standalone thing it actually makes sense and seems pretty reasonable.

However Bill does not seem too consistent in this judge not by the standards of today appeal. There was a thing in Charlottesville about civil war statues Bill didn't say too much.

A few years ago Bill Clinton was paid to give a speech in Halifax Nova Scotia. Recently a statue of Halifax founder Edward Cornwallis was torn down under activist pressure. Did Bill object or say anything about that? Nope.

How about Bill Clinton's fellow 1980s man Bill Cosby. Has Bill Clinton defended Bill Cosby by noting that the allegations from the 1980s should be judged by the "norms" and standards of the 1980s. Not that I've heard.

So I will conclude then that the judge not by the standards of today request is intended to have limited and selective application. I will speculate that Bill intended it to apply to:

• Bill Clinton and Al Franken
• the Clinton family, and Al Franken
• the Clinton family, the Kennedy family, and Al Franken

Anyone else who finds their actions of the past judged harshly by today's standards, tough.

Jordan Peterson 12 Rules for Life

I hadn't thought I would do another book review on this site. But this book is important enough and worth a review. I recently read 12 Rules for Life by Dr. Jordan B. Peterson. It was a very good book. I got a lot out of it. I wish it had been around and I'd read it 10, 20, 30 years ago. I bought my copy at Chapters. It was marked down on special, I had some Chapters next purchase limited time promo, and I had a gift card. So I got a good deal too.

Dr. Peterson is a great thinker of our times. Right up there with David Sklansky and Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I'd been hearing stuff about Peterson so I was keen when this title came out. I knew I had to read this book after the infamous Channel 4 Newman crushing by Peterson.

The book opens strong with the famous discussion on lobsters and hierarchies. The whole book is full of great stuff. There is a lot in there and Peterson, a practicing clinical psychologist and academic from Harvard and University of Toronto, makes pretty much every paragraph work. So it can read a bit dense but definitely keeps the reader engaged and is worth reading every sentence, pausing to think, and perhaps reread some paragraphs, maybe read 1-2 pages at a time and absorb. So it's a worthwhile read, personally challenging in parts, manageable but I would not call it a quick read if you are motivated to benefit from it.

So definite recommend really for anyone, especially younger people with most of their lives still in front of them. There is a lot of misinformation in our society and culture. Peterson cuts through it and exposes it and offers solutions. 12 Rules is a great counter, an actual realistic positive way forward.

Youth Action Now

I was sad to hear that former NDP MP Paul Dewar is dying. Too bad, he seems like a decent fellow.

One of Paul's last initiatives is to launch a Youth Action Now initiative. Obviously aimed at Canada's youth.

Paul has been admirably interested in children and youth in Canada for some time. He launched a Canada Youth Plan back in 2011 when he was running for leadership of the NDP party.

I wrote about children in Canada and Dewar's plan back then on this site. Over 6 years later, my take on it has stood up pretty well and is still relevant today.

Lucas Glover PGA incident

Seems there was an unfortunate incident recently involving PGA pro Lucas Glover, his wife Krista Glover, and his mother.

This from USA today story the PGA tour response.

"We are aware of the situation and Lucas informed us of his statement, which has since been posted to his Twitter account," the PGA Tour said in a statement. "Of course, we are here to provide support to Lucas and his family if needed; however, we are also respecting their request for privacy during this time."

Here are some of my thoughts on all this.

Many PGA WAGS are younger and prettier than Krista Glover.

If Krista Glover thinks hitting a golf ball far and straight is easy then let her demonstrate how easy it is by making a living herself playing golf. Lucas can stay home with the kids, allow himself to get drunk during the daytime while she is at work, and they can all live off her paycheques for a few years. Just like she has been allowed to live and live well off his ability to play golf for all these years. Then berate her if she dares have a stray bad round. See how mouthy she is then about playing golf at the highest level.

Also of course Lucas should leave her, kids or no kids. She is a terrible wife, an embarrassment to him.

How would the PGA be responding if it was reversed and Lucas as arrested for being an abuser? Would they be so respectful of personal privacy? Would the PGA insist it's a "personal" or "private" matter, an "off field problems" issue not the concern of the PGA? hardly. If things were reversed Lucas Glover would be getting the Ray Rice treatment.

I understand Krista herself is not a member of the PGA and thus not under a PGA code of conduct. Still the PGA in the interest of equality should do a lot more to support Lucas, and come down hard against domestic abuse. There are some real steps the PGA could choose to take.

Make a strong public statement against domestic abuse and violence. Make Krista non grata with the PGA. She is not to show her face. Disinvite from the WAG social and charity wing. Disinvite from the 18th green on Sunday when Lucas is in the final group.

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It should be noted self defense is a right. Defending yourself and your mother from physical attack is a right. Gender, spousal status, physical size is not an issue. It is the responsibility of the attacker to use good judgment in choosing who to bully, physically attack, and attempt to beat up. If an abuser gets hit back while attacking another then that's just tough. Any individual under attack has the right to use reasonable and appropriate force in self defense.

Abuse can drag on for years cycling through a usual list of excuses "clinical depression", "alcoholism", "bipolar", "uncontrollable temper", "was provoked/just reacting", "exhausted", "drank too much", "bad childhood". Yet in the face of determined self defense the excuses magically evaporate, self control emerges, and the abuse ends. An abuser understands force very well. If an abuser knows an attack will be equally self defended going forward then the attacks will abruptly end.

Why do bad things happen to good people

An old question. If you think about it a bit you can come to understand it. It's actually not a rhetorical or unanswerable question.

Anyone asking the question I think would agree that these are all true

• there are good people
• there are bad people
• good things happen
• bad things happen

From there it should be immediately clear that these must all be true

1.  good things happen to good people
2.  good things happen to bad people
3.  bad things happen to bad people
4.  bad things happen to good people

That bad things happen to good people is the inescapable consequence of the existence of good and bad people, and that good and bad things will happen. Still I've only ever heard complaint about case 4. Nobody is unhappy if something good happens to a good person, or objects if something bad gets thrown in a bad person's face.

Can it be fixed?
Can the fact that bad things happen be fixed? Could it be that bad things no longer happen.

Alas, probably not on the Earthly realm where we all live. Lifespan is finite. Resources are finite. We have to compete with others both as individuals and in groups to navigate through life.

There is large variance in the natural world and how events unfold. Luck is a major factor, which means bad luck must also be a factor. A rising tide lifts every boat. Rain falls on the just and the unjust.

The human body is an incredibly complex machine. Generally it is pretty robust for several decades. However it can malfunction resulting in major illness or death in your prime or well before. Bad luck and natural variance.

Then there's free will. People are able to choose their own actions through life. That means people can choose or intentionally cause bad things to happen to others. Bad people and bad things happening also go together. So as long as there is free will then there is a reality that bad things can happen.