How to Spot an Ineffectual Do-Gooder. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako



How to Spot an Ineffectual Do-Gooder.


The ineffectual do-gooder’s preferred habitat is the front page of your local media outlet.


Their most distinguishing feature is that they are always ‘raising awareness’ of some significant topical issue, and a distinct absence of ideas of exactly what to do about it. They want to hold a candlelight vigil. More than anything, they want a pat on the back and reinforcement of the idea that they are good people, that they love Jesus and they’re just trying to do God’s work for Him, when in reality, these privileged, dull, unimaginative children of the middle class are just looking for a little publicity and a feeling that they are making a difference, when, really they are not—


If I was a Canadian journalist, confronted by yet another ineffectual do-gooder, ever so sincerely trying to raise awareness on the front page of my media outlet, I would have just one question for them:


“On this particular issue, if you could offer one single, concrete, and specific suggestion to address the situation, if you were given the power to take action, what would you do?”


< resounding silence>


“What’s the first thing you would tell the government to do. Right? They have the power to pass laws and fund programs, what would you suggest…? Right?”


<more silence>


And, ladies and gentlemen, if they don't have anything, then they don't get in my newspaper or other media outlet. That's because you're wasting all of our time. As a self-absorbed, egotistical little shit, this shocks you in some small way. But, as an example, 'the opoid crisis' is in the newspapers, on TV news and radio news, at least once a week.


How much fucking higher do you think we will have to 'raise awareness' of this issue, considering the idea or concept of the opioid crisis has well over a 95% 'penetration rate', in terms of public awareness. So, if you get that up to 98%, will something miraculously happen to solve the problem…??? Because that’s the impression I get. The power of positive thinking is useless without positive, by that I mean concrete, specific suggestions. Ideas. What exactly would you have us do? Go downtown and burn a candle on the riverbank with you? All that does is get us in the paper.


You honestly believe it will work—


You honestly believe that somebody, somewhere else—surely not the likes of you, will take concrete and specific actions to address the issue. As long as it’s not you—because you don’t have one, single fucking idea. Just feelings—hopes and dreams—thoughts and fucking prayers.


And you can't—or won't—answer that one either. It's okay, you're in good company. Canadian journalists can't answer it either. No, far better to raise awareness and have no ideas at all. At least that way you can’t fail. That’s because you can’t try. You have nothing to try—nothing at all.


#practical_suggestions #Canadian_journalism

Simply put, you're a bunch of fucking dummies.

A dummy is someone who doesn't have any ideas.

They’re fucking everywhere.

Are you aware, young man, that income levels are closely linked to outcomes in terms of mental health issues?

And that mainstream media and the middle class have forever inextricably linked mental health and addictions as being one and the same issue...??? #fuck_off

Have you ever wondered why they do that? You know, like slandering anyone who ever had a beer or smoked a joint as mentally-ill?

Oh, yeah, and then turning around and slandering anyone with a mental illness as an inveterate substance-abuser?

When the Establishment does that, government, CMHA, corporate media, it is an attempt to make an expensive problem look unsolvable. They’ll drib and drab with food banks, mental-health outreach programs, all of it underfunded because it’s hopeless anyway.

And they’ll never be out of a job, either.

And, if the middle-class, the taxpayers, (the rich, the big corporations, duck their fair share in a multitude of ways, and of course poor people are below the tax threshold on CRA tax tables), think it's a lost cause, why, then, they’re obviously not going to want to spend their tax dollars on it. They’d rather plunk it down on something that works, like roads, bridges and hospitals.

Those are more tangible—you can see them, and they seem real. The average middle class person has no expertise when it comes to solving poverty.

I’ll tell you this much: you have no ideas. No one is going to hand you a big pile of cash, not an effective amount of cash. Because it takes billions, year in and year out. Fifty or sixty grand, some grant money, (but you haven’t even got that far yet, that’s because you have no fucking ideas), buys you a storefront for a few months. It hires one entry-level professional just out of school, for about six months, and it buys a few pens, pencils, an ad in the local paper—who are only too happy to take the taxpayer’s money.

You're all talk and no cock, Boyo.

What impresses me most about you people is how little you know about the people you are ostensibly planning to help.

More.

“It’s difficult to validate, but we do believe that several deaths have been prevented since Naloxone or Narcan kits have become available,” he said.


Yeah, it's a lot like claiming success in suicide prevention, while at the same time, resisting all calls to track ODSP/OW suicide statistics. Because we all know what that would show. It would show that ODSP/OW clients are a high-risk group. They are at-risk. We all know it to be true, even though there are no stats—it is a self-evident truth.  


And we also know that the only solution is time, money, expense, trained people, working at effective programs. That money would have to come from somewhere, probably the taxpayers.


We can’t have that now, can we.


Ideas do not come from ineffectual do-gooders.


#fuck_off

Another one.



...would this, by any chance, have anything to do with the fact that ODSP clients are living thirty-five to forty percent below the poverty line?


Then why not fucking say so.


The funny thing is, he never will, and neither will local radio.


#fuck_off


St. Myles of Yappi.


What’s interesting about the more effectual do-gooders, such as St. Myles of Yappi, is that never, so long as they live, will they bring up the fact that ODSP clients are living thirty-five to forty percent below the poverty line, and that the landlord is taking seventy percent of their disability pension in rent.


Saint Myles will never call for a raise in ODSP/OW rates.

He will never call for a raise in the minimum wage, or rent controls, or an increase in allowable earnings for people on social assistance. In that sense, he is a stooge for the bourgeoisie. But then, they’re the ones donating all the tins of soup, which is of course in their best interest—they don’t want to see the situation coming down to class warfare.

***

Ultimately, an ineffectual do-gooder on the front page of the newspaper is just another damned suck-hole, looking for easy publicity, mostly for no reason at all.

End

The Right Honourable Bob Bailey Lies About Otter Creek Wind Farm and Water Quality.

Louis Shalako

According to Sarnia-Lambton Member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, The Right Honourable Mr. Robert Bailey, he would cancel the Otter Creek wind farm due to groundwater contamination. 

No word on how he would crack down on agricultural runoff, which leads to algae bloom affecting millions.

Letter to the Editor, July 21/16:

“I ran a water treatment company for nearly 25 years. I found it absurd when an article published in the Sarnia Observer had a few disgruntled individuals attempting to tie earthquakes and windmills to turbidity in well water.

Peter Epp then wrote an editorial (Absurdities Abound, 14 July) that appears to be based entirely on this article. He is a wordsmith, not a water well expert. Good editorials are written by good wordsmiths who have done their homework! He totally missed the real problem, which is that poor water wells produce bad water.

A quick call to the local offices of The Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change and the Health Unit would have flagged the real issue: water quality.

What I believe I see in the original article tells me that these ‘problem wells’ are likely shallow dug or GUDI wells (Groundwater Under the Direct Influence of Surface Water). They are known to be problematic. If an earthquake in Quebec causes turbidity, you have a problem! Get your water tested! The health unit will provide you with directions and materials for bacterial testing. It is free.

Water quality can be a real issue in rural areas. Water quality is important. I am saddened when this real issue is diminished by individuals with hidden agendas. The editorial’s headline is correct. It’s absurd to imply that earthquakes or windmills are causing bad water.

I, for one, am tired of the anti-wind energy neo-Luddites’ fear mongering. They accuse windmills of causing what, at times, seems to be half the world’s problems.”

Dean de Jong

Plympton-Wyoming (a largely agricultural area of Lambton County).

The site, outlined in purple.

That part of southwestern Ontario (the Otter Creek site) is low, it's flat, and the water table lies quite close to the surface. It has been extensively deforested and is intensely farmed using backwards technologies. Groundwater problems are the result of terrain, soil type and a hundred and fifty years of bad environmental practices.

In other words, it is the classic GUDI area, i.e., 'groundwater under direct influence' of surface water. What is even more important to understanding the hydro-geology of the area is that it is farm country and staunchly Conservative.

Wind farms have only come in during the last fifteen years, under a Liberal government.

If it had been their own idea, then that of course would be different.

The terrain.

The elevation of Lake St. Clair is 175 metres. The elevation of Chatham, Ontario, is 198 metres, at a distance of roughly twenty kilometres due east of Lake St. Clair. That isn't much of a gradient for runoff to begin with, and such a flat, treeless plain with minimal elevation above lake levels, is already prone to flooding. That is less than ten metres of drop for every kilometre of distance. It's practically indiscernible. Wallaceburg flooded this spring, and it is at risk of flooding virtually every spring.

There are rivers coming down from London and environs, as well as the rather flat Lambton County to the north. So, in periods of extreme rainfall, or heavy snow-melt, much of that water soaks down, rather than draining to the lake. Any sensible mind can see how this would be a major cause of well-water turbidity, considering the heavy agricultural use and lack of forest cover and natural wetlands. There are no hedgerows or windbreaks, familiar from the Delhi and Norfolk area, which, with sandy soil and deforestation in previous centuries, suffered extensive soil loss and had to be rehabilitated at great time and expense.

Interestingly, if farmers have taken up the practice of using all fields, in other words not (just for example) a four-field, three cash-crop and one cover-crop rotation, but in fact planting all fields with cash crops, each and every year, they are taking out an estimated twenty-five percent of fodder or grass cover, which resists soil erosion and holds water closer to the surface (slowing down surface runoff).  It takes up a good rain and turns it into vegetation quite quickly, (mostly in the growing season). The difference between that and corn, is that there is no bare soil exposed, and little in terms of fertilizers and pest control agents to be sucked down into the water table.

In winter, a field of grass will still hold more water, and more topsoil, than a field of plowed dirt. Rain or snow-melt quickly runs off into ditches and tile drains, taking a measurable portion of soil with it—along with all those pesky chemicals.

So, if they're not leaving anything fallow these days—this may be a contributor to the problem. 

Leaving a quarter of available land in clover for a full season of course takes out one quarter of the potential revenue. Not leaving fallow ground is not an advance in farming technique. It may be an advance in revenue generation, in the short term. Long term, it assumes a constant diet of fertilizers and other chemical agents. This is going to affect water quality, not just downstream in Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie, but also right there in your own wells. 

So, why would Mr. Bailey, who has access to all the facts and a responsibility to know and to comprehend them, make such a bone-headed assertion? 

He wants their votes. He wants yours too, my suggestion is that we don't give it to him.

END

Louis has all kinds of books and stories available from Smashwords.

Thank you for reading.