Post #400 – Entitlement

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them, what they could and should do for themselves.
- Abraham Lincoln -

1. The facts: This is my 400th Post. I have been blogging for three and a half years. I get about 60 views a day.

2. My Complaint: My popularity expectations are not being met.

3. My Goal: I want to be immensely popular.  I don’t want to put a lot of effort into promoting my blog, nor do I wish to learn how to be a better writer or photographer. No, I just want what popular bloggers have.

4. My Cunning Plan: I’m going to start a new Entitlement Movement. I welcome your suggestions on what I should call it.

5. What my Entitlement Movement will demand:

• I want better wild animal photos for my blog. No one does a nicer job than the Canadian Photographer, Christopher Martin.  Oh sure, I could buy a camera like his, and learn how to use it, and spend days tramping through the wilderness – but I’d rather be sitting at my computer complaining. I think I am entitled to some of Christopher’s photos. He has lots of them.
• I want better wild flower photos. Montucky at Montana Outdoors is very good. He (at least I think he is a he) is American, not Canadian, but I spend enough money in the USA during the winter when I visit there, so I think I am entitled to some of his photos too.
• I want better drawings. I like the work of Doodlemum.  Yes, I suppose I could learn to draw better, but that would take a lot of time and like I said before, I’m better at complaining.
• I want unique and inventive content. Terry Border from Bent Objects, Nicole at The Middlest Sister and Dan at A LEGO a Day are three of my favourites. I admire their creativity. I don’t have that skill set, and I’m not even sure I have that kind of capability – but it is what I want, and someone should give it to me. I’m entitled.
• I want better stories. Most of my fellow bloggers are better writers than I am, so I want them to ghost write for me.
• I want the same viewer stats as that the top 1% of all bloggers. Why should they have so much, and I have so little?

It just dawned on me that I should be demanding better internet service too. I live in a rural area and the nearest internet tower provides “insufficient service” for my needs (“Insufficient service” – that is how my ghost writer would say it, I think). I know, I could move closer to where the services are – but it would be much better if they built a tower closer to my house. Not where I could see it, though. I don’t want my view destroyed.  It is bad enough that I can see power poles behind my property. I want all power poles to be underground so I can’t see them. I want all my power to come from the sun or the wind and I want it to be dirt cheap.

Speaking of my rural aspect, there are 17 pieces of property out my way and we were here long before the developers started to march across the horizon and build warehouses. We were here long before the nearest town became a city and annexed us. We were here first! I demand that all this newly developed land be given to me and that I be made President and CEO of all the enterprises that have replaced the homes of the moose and deer and fox.

I also want to have quicker access to an airport, but I don’t want planes flying over my place. Sometimes they are so loud that I can hear them above the howl of the wind and the buzz of the mosquitoes. (I want the wind and mosquitoes to go away too.)

Now I want to go have a nap. Organizing an Entitlement Movement is hard work. I think I need to find ‘people’ to do this stuff for me. I’m entitled to have someone arrange for my entitlements.

_________________

I am President of the NBFP Club – home of all those bloggers who feel they are under appreciated!

The Siksika First Nation – Idle No More

Between March 23rd and 27th,  vandals caused extensive damage to 25 Summer Cabins in a quiet little Golf Resort called Hidden Valley.

Normal operating procedure for this community of 300 cabins, situated on a 324 acre parcel of land leased from the Siksika First Nation, would be to repair or rebuild what the vandals destroyed. After all, the cabin owners have rebuilt twice in the past when the community was extensively flooded by the Bow River.

But this isn’t a normal year. It is the last year of the Resort’s lease. A small but vocal group of Siksika Nation Members have decided not to Redesignate these lands for use by non-nation members. By extension, they do not wish to renew the lease proposal that the Siksika Nation Chief and Council negotiated with the Cabin Owner’s Association.

In a Referendum this past December where 4167 Siksika Members were given the opportunity to vote on redesignation, 641 voted NO, while 269 voted Yes. The remaining 78% of the population chose not to vote.

The Cabin Owners (some of them members of the Siksika Nation) were surprised and devastated by the ‘No’ vote. They have been paying the maintenance and improvement costs for the amenities – a 9 hole semi-private Golf Course, pro shop, restaurant, and man made lake – for the past 38 years. With green fees of just $20 a round, the golf course has attracted a loyal following of the Nation’s members and provides employment in a corner of the reserve where there are few jobs. In addition, the Resort pays an annual rights fee to the Nation in order to use the land for six months of the year.

They were equally surprised, but optimistic when Chief and Council passed a resolution that said they intended on holding another Referendum that would extend the existing lease for another 2-3 years so that the will of the entire Nation could be determined.

This action didn’t sit well with those who had voted NO. They had been celebrating the fact that the ‘colonists and their 300 years of lies’ would be forced off of their land. They couldn’t understand how the cabin owners were suddenly back in the running. They did not seem to realize or accept that their Chief and Council had initiated the offer of a second Resolution.

It was at this point that a group of vandals decided to take matters into their own hands. It is hard to say what they expected to accomplish, or where their loyalties lie, but the damage was another blow to the Cabin Owners. They were also disheartened when they found out that Chief and Council were in no hurry to hold the next referendum – the proposed date would not give the cabin owners time to remove their cabins if the vote was NO again. (I expect there isn’t enough time to remove the cabins anyhow as a result of the timing of the first vote.)

The whole thing is of interest to me because this Resort is where our extended family have cabins. It is a place where we have been gathering for over twenty years. We care about this land, and we care about what happens to the people – the ones who own the land, the ones who look after it, and the ones who use it.

The distance between the Cabin Owners and the Vote NO! dissenters cannot be measured. It is more than a failure in communication between partners; more than the mistrust the dissenters have of their Chief and Council. It is more than a dispute over who pays how much for what – and when. It is, in so many ways, the re-enactment of the settling of Canada, only this time some part of the First Nation feels like they have won.

It is sad to think what the rest of this First Nation will lose in the process.

Press Release from the NBFP

I was just putting the finishing touches on a post about all my blogging friends who have never been ‘Freshly Pressed‘. I was thinking it would be appropriate to form a group of ‘Never Been Freshly Pressed’ (NBFP) bloggers, perhaps design our own badge to put in a widget on our sidebar – celebrate our status as the underdogs.

I think everyone roots for the underdog.
- Johnny Knoxville

I was going to link to some of my fellow underdogs and the first on my list was Steve at The Brown Road Chronicles. He recently wrote about how he has skirted around accusations that he has used the banned substance called ‘Freshlypresstosterone’ in an attempt to achieve Freshly Pressed fame. I guess the drug finally worked -  yesterday Steve was Freshly Pressed.

A Broken Heart

Congratulations Steve – but as self proclaimed President of the NBFP, I’m going to have to kick you out of our club. It breaks my heart to have to do it, but rules are rules. (Note to the Club Secretary – please get those rules written. Note to Membership – please nominate a secretary.)

I’m sorry Steve, but you will have to remove your belongings from the Club locker room. I’m going to have to suspend your bar and dining privileges too. (Note to Club House Manager – do we have a location for the Club yet? Note to Membership – hire a Club Manager.)

On the bright side, that means someone gets Steve’s parking stall.

Life goes on. Let me introduce you to some of the remaining members of our Club:

• Al at thecvillean.  Al is blunt in describing his feelings about the WordPress FP editors: “When the intellectual powers that be at WordPress FP gather together to beatify a subscriber, please just put away the dartboard and actually read one of my posts.”

• The self described ‘disjointed and somewhat snide’ blogger at Pouring My Art Out is pragmatic: “I have as much chance of being ‘freshly pressed’ as Dick Cheney has of being voted People Magazine’s ‘sexiest man alive’”.

• Christine at The Good Stuff writes, “I just started my 2012 day timer with that freshly pressed paper smell” – In our club, Freshly pressed means different things to different people.

• L8n at Back Road Scholar. L8n is well connected. If anyone can find us a club house, L8n can.

• Me. I wrote about the probability of being Freshly Pressed in a post called So You’ve Never Been Freshly Pressed. I compared it to a lottery, but it isn’t. It is a competition with no fixed rules where there are winners and losers and no one really understands the how or why of any of it. As one Freshly Pressed Blogger said about being selected, “here was a post that was far from my favourite in terms of creativity and flow. It didn’t even contain any of my own pictures!”

Contrast that to all the benefits of the NBFP Club -  no long lines of strangers hanging about your blog hoping to cash in on your fame; no feelings of inadequacy if you don’t get Freshly Pressed again; and no depression when your site stats slip back to normal.

If you are an overlooked, under appreciated blogger and  you would like to join our club, just leave a comment below and I’ll add your name to our roster. You will have to take an Oath of Allegiance… once we get one written.

I’m Tired Of It – A Protest Movement

I was too old for a paper route, too young for Social Security and too tired for an affair.
- Erma Bombeck -

I recently discovered a blog called A Bear’s Rant. Written by a Canadian, the site is “committed to being an island of common sense in a world with too little of it.”

I stumbled onto this blog when I was looking for information that substantiated and refuted the claims being made by the ‘Idle No More’ Protest. (I like to look at both sides of things before I jump off the fence. Who knows what kind of crap you might land in…) I was particularly curious as to why this grassroots movement did not support eight Canadian Federal Bills that provide a practical approach to making it easier for First Nations to develop an economy.

At ‘A Bear’s Rant’ I found a post called The Misconceptions In Bill C45 That Sparked ‘Idle No More’ – Part One: Reserve Lands. Part Two discusses Bill C45 further, and Part Three concerns Attawapiskat Band Chief Theresa Spence’s hunger strike.

I’ll leave my conclusions about ‘Idle No More’ to another day. I would, however like to join ‘A Bear’s Rant’ in the call for a new Protest Movement called I’m Tired Of It. I’d be hard pressed to add anything to this rant, it is that complete. But – from all the research I’ve been doing lately, I would add – I’m tired of the exact same unresearched news story being repeated over and over again. Really, does it get any truer with each telling?

You may not agree with everything The Bear is tired of, but if you agree that there is a lot of stuff you are fed up with, then join this protest. You can write a blog post and Link to Bear’s I’m Tired Of It post, or go to the post and add a comment. If you have a Twitter account -  tweet about what you are tired of and use the hashtag #Iamtiredof

Man was made at the end of the week’s work when God was tired.
- Mark Twain -