Eva-world

There's a place far, far away from here, perhaps in another dimension...certainly in another universe. It's called Eva-world.
Most Terrans would experience the culture-shock equivalent of repeated bitch-slappings before their interdimensional craft even landed, and that sensation would only intensify with every day until at least a few people would be reduced to gibbering idiots. Or stand revealed as gibbering idiots, more likely. But not many people care to make the trip.
See, Eva-world is invitation-only. Every so often, as we're enduring Earth, a potential candidate for migration to Eva-world surfaces. Before today, the last one was Rob Ford.
Rob Ford is a Toronto city councillor. If he were mayor, I doubt Toronto would be anything like the cesspool of crime and litter it is now.
Toronto city councillors have an annual 'office budget' of $53,100. Many of them do their absolute damnedest to spend as much of that as they can. Mr. Ford's expenses from two years ago: $4. He even apologized for spending that much of the taxpayers' money, as I recall...he'd forgotten to bring change to work that day, or some such thing.
Needless to say, the vast majority of Toronto councillors laugh at Mr. Ford and try to shout him down every time he opens his mouth on cost issues. That hasn't stopped him from trying. Unfortunately, he's hampered by a bunch of nitwits who think that $32,000 per homeless person per year is not enough money; that traffic gridlock should be encouraged; that volunteers should not be allowed to clean up Toronto parks because that is properly the responsibility of unionized workers.
I've thought about mailing Councillor Ford some Eva-world citizenship papers. He'd probably think me some sort of crank. That's too bad. In Eva-world, people like Mr. Ford would find themselves in prestigious positions and compensated accordingly.
Today, I learned of another worthy. His name is Stephane Gendron, and he is the mayor of Huntingdon, Quebec. The town has been plagued by acts of vandalism. Council has recently instituted and began to enforce a rather remarkable bylaw: It's illegal for children under the age of 16 to be out of their houses unsupervised between the hours of 10:30 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Parents are fined $50 for a first offense from their little darlings, and $100 for subsequent offenses. That's over and above any charges the little ones incur.

"Nobody will convince me that a kid should be on the streets at night -- nobody", said Gendron. "It's common sense and that's it, that's all. There's no negotiation on that point."

Of course, the cries of outrage are building amongst those who haven't had their cars keyed, their windows smashed or egged, or their grandma's tombstone overturned. The curfew has already undergone a legal challenge because it supposedly 'discriminates based on age' . The Quebec human rights commission still doesn't like the situation. A spokeswoman said "when you say someone can't go outside, you're contravening their rights, that's for sure."

(Kids still have the "right" to go outside at night...chaperoned.)

What the mayor and I want to know is, what about their responsibilities? Why is it that in Canada, we never talk about responsibility? I believe that human rights are for people who act like humans.

You talk about age discrimination and the first think I think of is car insurance. Sixteen-year-olds pay a fortune in premiums, no matter how well they drive. Why? Because too many sixteen-year-olds drive like assholes and get wrecked. It's something we learned really early in school: a few bad apples spoil the bunch. "It's not FAIR!", we whined. "LIFE's not fair", our elders told us. They were right...and all the liberal social engineering in Canada won't change that.

You know what's really sad in all this? That somebody actually had to make a law to enforce what, as the mayor says, is 'common sense'. WHERE ARE THE PARENTS? Are they out doing drugs like their kids? Or are they abed, dog-tired from working three jobs so they can feed their half-million dollar mortgage and still have enough money left over for a Beemer and an annual round-the-world vacation? Their priorities are ever so slightly buggered, to put it mildly. There's nothing wrong with putting more value on trinkets and perqs than on your children...but just make sure you're safely sterilized before you ever have to make that choice, okay?

In the meantime, Mr. Gendron, welcome to Eva-world. We think you'll like it here.



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