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The Value of a Human Life
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2131
And this is one take on the value of a human life:
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Uncomfortable, this measuring of one's worth with dollars and cents, but it's something that companies do all the time. Think Union Carbide in Bhopal, or The Ford Pinto, both of which saw companies cheerfully put a dollar value on Human Lives. We do it all the time as well, Xenophobia sees us raise the value of lives in our own country VS lives of those in other countries, sees us raise money for the rich (think Fort MacMurray, no lives lost (well, one, in a traffic accident fleeing the fire)), yet in Alberta more money was raised to support the victims of insured inconvenience and homelessness than was donated to victims of the Lac Megantic rail disaster in Quebec. Clearly Albertan property and industry is far more valuable than Quebec lives. Think of the welfare allocated to a single mother VS the amount of money it takes to incarcerate a sex offender - several times more money is "invested" - to questionable return - in the sex offender. Insurance companies assign your life a value based on your ability to pay them and the probability of them having to pay out. And I could continue. The video only lightly touches on some important questions that we, as a society, need to revisit...
The Gopher Hole Museum - Torrington
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Other
- Hits: 2260
And another day off, with the Italian Waiter, he's only another 7 or 8 weeks before returning for good to Italy, and in those brief days off I'm trying to show him the country...
The Sunday before last, still deaf, off to Torrington to see the Gopher Hole Museum. I've been a couple of times, small, maybe 20 minutes, but it's cheap (2$) and a perfectly eccentric roadside attraction, anthropomorphic gophers posed in Dioramas, after Walter Potter or Ferenc Mere.
After this, a few moments prospecting, some finds of potch, or not-precious opal, no diamonds. The Bleriot Ferry, The Horsethief Canyon Viewpoint, lunch at the hotel in Wayne, then back to the Orkney Viewpoint and to Calgary. A fine day for sightseeing, not so much for prospecting, but this is something I gotta do on my own, nobody seems to share my enthusiasm (although if ever I find something they will, oh, they will...).
Anyways, some hasty and not-so-good photos of the Gopher Hole Museum, a curious bit of Alberta, if you live here you should really make the trip and see it in person...
(I showed these pictures to the Italian Salad Girl at work, and she asked me: "But are they embalmed?"..."No, No..." I reassured her..."They're trained actors...I should have made a video for you...")
The Cost of Urban Sprawl
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2319
An interesting look and breakdown at the cost of Urban Sprawl in the United States. While the conclusions are both predictable and obvious it's good that someone crunched the math. I'm guessing that they've underestimated it greatly, Calgary's sprawl alone must account for several billion dollars squandered annually...
Link: http://www.citylab.com/design/2016/06/cost-of-sprawl-us-commuters/486170/
Buried in Money
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2401
He was a good looking kid, young, under 30, fit, he had it all. No shit, had it all, his father, one of the owner's best friends, 10 or 11 figures easy, owned a nationwide company, made him VP even though all he could do was pick up uniforms and drop of laundry. He was the heir-apparent.
But he had problems. Lots of problems, going way back, problems that the seemingly infinite supply of money only ever made worse. We all knew him, he was a junkie, in and out of rehab, the finest clinics, spas really, in the states. Dad Paid. He had parties, crazy parties, in his multi-million dollar penthouse downtown. Not the kind of party regulars you expect in a multi-million dollar penthouse, but this wasn't the typical million dollar penthouse. A 53" TV, no couch or chairs, no furniture, really, a variety of party goers that all, more or less, fit into the same type. The same as you'd run into in any crackhouse. Only here 50 stories up doing lines off of marble countertops and tweaking for days watching the sunrise over the mountains and the stars of the city fade...
His life, when you looked into it, was a series of bumblefuck accidents. By accidents I mean the predictable outcomes to a life lived without responsibility or consequence. He'd run a man down when he was a teenager, trying to get out of having a fight. There were other things. Everything that money could buy, and nothing that it couldn't. He lacked character, integrity, purpose. Whatever he wanted was given to him. The finest of cars, of accommodations, of worry free high rise living, an allowance, the best looking of crack-whore girlfriends...
***
No one was surprised, he hadn't shown up at work, answered texts, dad broke into the penthouse with the building manager and some cops, it looked an awful lot like Suicide by OD. He'd closed his social media to comments, there were other things going on....
***
Everyone felt bad for his dad. I mean, he had his failings, for sure, he caused G*** to get fired, for one, and an awful lot of other ones, but you could never wish this upon anyone. And he's blaming himself, doesn't understand why, the kid had everything...
***
Everyone else knows, the kid had everything given to him, this is, was the problem, everyone knows it, hard to feel sorry for the poor little rich kid, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but they are quiet when he's around, commiserate, but you here them talking afterwards...
***
After the funeral, the shit begins. The crack-whore girlfriend steals the dog, gets a warrant saying that she was left the apartment, the car, everything, they lived together forever, many years (it was at most a couple of months), other claimants step forward, everyone wants a piece of him, most have transparent claims, trumped up lies, easily disproved, but the police show up for each of them anyways, they're not thinkers, standard warrant-less searches, intimidation, J***, he's out of his league but he's got an expensive lawyer so things are sorted out pretty quick...
***
The Nephew remembers when his son would call him at 5:00 in the morning, addled out of his mind, talking about all the things he'd buy when he inherited, sold the company, A Maserati, A Lamborghini, A Ferrari, A Land Rover, there would be a parade down Centre Street and it would snow cocaine upon the whole city every Xmas ... if only his goddamned dad would die...
***
And J***, it's been a few weeks, the only child he has that actually spoke to him, hadn't done him wrong, and he's begun the unremembrance of reality, the attributions of imagined battles and saintliness "I'm a Gladiator...just like *****" and you stare at him in disbelief, ***** a gladiator? A gladiator that was given every weapon in the arsenal and after staggering into the arena under the weight of admiration and wealth promptly fell upon his sword...
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