Tax dollars better spent elsewhere
Re: City gears up for transit vote, Feb. 5, 2015
Even when I saw the headline of Westender’s article, I could feel something in me tying-up-in-knots. I really hope that the NO vote wins – there is something that really irks me about the taxpayers having to pay for these transportation upgrades. I’m only going to speak for Vancouver, most of the residents will probably hardly ever use the Pattullo Bridge or the Surrey light rail transit and even the Broadway subway will have limited usage by tax-paying Vancouverites.
As far as the transit system is concerned, if they don’t clean-up their notorious audacious ineptitude, it’ll be like casting pearls before swine.
It galls me too, all the money that floats around and gets wasted by government and corporations, how much money goes into bad services, bad planning, bad management and executives’ pockets. How much money that is out there and so little of it is in the reach of the ordinary citizen who pays their taxes. Whether they are richer or poorer, so many people are just making ends meet. It just sucks!
I don’t think traffic congestion woes will be solved by this transit and transportation plan. But I’ll maybe talk about that in another rant.
–A Vancouver citizen
Hippy movement had realistic goals
Re: Back to the Land 2.0, Jan. 29, 2015
I do take some offense to the attitude that the ‘60s city retreat was not based in reality or taken up by realists. Apparently this 21st century hipster never saw the Whole Earth Catalog, the hippy Sears catalog of the day. [Whole Earth Catalog editor] Stewart Brand was given the job of the Office of Appropriate Technology (OAT) by Jerry Brown’s (“Governor Moonbeam”, because he proposed a communication satellite for California) administration in California. That $40,000-a-year position saved the state $4 million (the cost of said satellite). I personally gave a copy of Ecotopia to Jerry at a Humboldt County town hall speech during his presidential bid. He had already read it, but opened his speech talking about the books “ideals”, those he tried to turn into a reality.
–GarryBry
The lost magic word
I was just in my local corner store where the guy in front of me was short 10 cents for whatever he was buying.
Though I didn’t know the guy, he turned to me and asked, “Do you have a dime you could give me to help me buy this?”
I wasn’t 100 per cent sure if I had any change or not, but I simply replied, “No.” However, even if I had a bag of dimes in my hand, I wouldn’t have handed one over.
I just do not understand why people, who are asking for a favour, no matter how small, from someone that they don’t even know (or even if they do know them), have lost the ability to use one simple, monosyllabic word... PLEASE!
I choose to ignore requests for favours from people – whether I know them or not – that do not include “please”.
It’s a very simple word; one which used to be called the “magic word”. People, start using it again, please. Thank you!
–Canadian Guy
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