Change My Mind, Please:

1) That we need easier access to alcohol in this province.

I need my mind changed on this because I don't think we do...and for thinking that way I'm treated like pond scum.

I think people have absolutely no trouble procuring more than enough alcohol. The cops are called to one street in our fair city an average of more than once a night. Alcohol has something to do with the vast majority of those calls. And while I understand that there are in fact people out there who can drink booze without turning into raving lunatics, the sheer number of people who do turn into raving lunatics makes me very leery of loosening restrictions on alcohol in any way.
"But it will be cheaper and there will be better selection!" Cheaper, yeah, just what we need. More selection, ha. How many different kinds of drunk are there, anyway?
"Keeping it restricted hasn't stopped people from drinking to excess, so we might as well make it cheaper and easier to get." Yeah. Restrictions on guns don't stop murders, so, hell, let's just hand them out in the schoolyard.

I shudder to imagine the midnight clerk at 7-Eleven having to cut off someone who's intoxicated. Those folks make close to minimum wage and they work alone. Given how crazy drunk people get if you deny them anything at all, the thought of denying them more alcohol chills my blood.

I know it works elsewhere--almost every elsewhere, actually. I just don't see how the culture here can handle it.

2) That texting is actually the bee's knees.

I'm sorry, I don't get the appeal. I don't understand why we had to shrink a perfectly good keyboard from "my finger rests on one key" to "my finger rests on six". I don't understand why *anybody* would prefer such a soul-destroying, dehumanizing form of communication over all others. Truth be told, I hate messaging/emailing people on Facebook with a bloody passion. I would much rather at the very least hear their voices. and even better actually see them face to face.  Instead I have to stop what I'm typing and restart in light of the text that just came in; my 'phone' rings every time the person I'm 'talking' to so much as clears her throat. And nobody but nobody can text as quickly as they can talk, or even type on an actual keyboard. I've seen people who can text so fast my eyes blur--I can still out talk them.
Messaging is great for getting in touch with lots of people quickly. But one on one, it sucks. I'm sorry. I keep coming back to "Ily", the three-letter acronym that means "I love you, but not enough to type seven extra keystrokes".

I have to remind myself that so many people prefer to message *everyone* and when they keep *me* at a distance I shouldn't take it personally. It's hard, though.

I had a friend call me last week. I get about one friend call every six months, and truth be told it had been several years since someone has called me just to talk. No time anymore, I guess. I say that knowing full well you can talk an a telephone while doing something else, even without speakerphone, but texting takes both hands and (usually) both eyes (unless you're driving, then you can occasionally spare half an eye for the road). But no, Ken, there's no time to talk to you.

I ask people if I can call them and outside that one friend who called me, I almost invariably get a no. No, Ken, no, stay behind your screen, we don't want to hear you or God-forbid see you, because if that happened we'd...I don't want to finish that sentence. I've stopped asking. There's no point. Pile up enough rejections like that and you start wondering if maybe the few people who do seem to want to hear your voice really don't, and are only doing so out of politeness.

So I'm stuck with the screen. I take what cold comfort I can out of it. To be fair, I've racked up a lot of nice things "said" to me just in the last week or two. I appreciate them, I really do. At the same time I wonder: would I hear them, face to face? In some cases I know the answer. It's no.

I need my mind changed on this more than possibly anything else. As you can see, it has a direct line to a lot of really shitty thoughts I'd prefer not to think.

3) Lotteries. Why. Just...why. The supreme irony is that many of the people who play the lottery will tell you with a straight face that they pay the damn government waaaaaaay too much in taxes. I mean hey, if you want to set your money on fire, go to, it's not my money. But it's utterly bizarre behaviour so far as I can see or say. It's even stranger that so many of the people playing the lottery are the ones who can least afford to do it. If someone could explain why so many people are so willing to throw so much money away in search of an impossible dream, I'm all ears.

4) Smoking. I have the utmost sympathy for smokers trying to quit (for the record: Champix if you have no history of depression, e-cigs if you do). What I don't get is why, in this day and age, someone would start. I could certainly understand people smoking fifty years ago, when it was marketed as a cure for the common cold. Now....? I can't help thinking anyone who starts smoking nowadays is mentally defective.

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The rest of these things I don't *need* my mind changed on, because I'm perfectly content thinking the way I think...but I like to understand the people who think thoughts diametrically opposed to mine, and in some cases I can't do it.

Case in point: same-sex marriage.

Open invitation to anyone reading this who believes same-sex marriage is bad/evil/wrong. Look, I promise not to judge you or yell at you. In fact, if you can articulate your thoughts in some sort of compelling way, I'll bow down and kiss your feet. I've yet to hear someone explain to me just how same-sex marriage affects their marriage, or anyone else's, and why "traditional" marriage needs "protection" or "defence". I sincerely don't understand these things, and I'd like to. You won't change my view, but you'll help me understand yours, and that's a good thing.

I want to understand strongly religious people, for similar reasons. I want to know how you believe in an all-loving God, a God who loves unconditionally, and yet who judges, let alone condemns, let alone damns, let alone forever. To love unconditionally means that you do not judge, by definition--at least it seems to, to me. I simply can not accept a universe in which a Hell exists.

Pot. People who are viciously against it--why? Have you tried it? Do you discount its medical effects? I am not a pot smoker, but I do not understand the level of fear and loathing it presents to people. I especially can't figure out why the Harper government is so dead-set against a huge new revenue stream stream that only affects users, and likewise a solid blow against organized crime. Harper claims to care very much about organized crime, and he certainly hates the idea of raising taxes--well here's a way the government could cut taxes and still keep the same revenues. Why not jump at it?

And that's all I can think of for tonight. So come on, folks, change my view. I've had it done successfully on two issues in the last fortnight. Let's go for more.