Numerous Narratives

Atomic Essays | Mini Essays | Diverse Ideas | Digital Garden 🍁 Mostly Fiction... & Some Nonfiction Welcome to my creative space! Here, I write to explore my voice, experiment with ideas, and help others navigate life's challenges. This blog also serves as a workshop for two books I'm working on: a novel and a nonfiction project. I use the following to organize and develop my work: - StandardNotes to gather ideas to research to write - Manuskript an open source software - perfect tool to organize and plan everything before writing - thequill.app, a bank-level encryption author writing tool - 100x easier than Scrivener - - - A Personal Blog (Economy & Politics, Culture, Technology) The views shared here are entirely my own and do not reflect the opinions of my employer or any organizations I am affiliated with. My perspectives may evolve over time as I strive to maintain an open mind. This blog offers a snapshot of my thoughts at specific moments, capturing ideas that resonated with me then. Please note that some older posts may no longer align with my current views. - - -

Battle for Intellectual Sovereignty

January 7, 2025•651 words

Allow me to draw your attention to the value and beauty of marriage. The complementarity of man and woman, the vertex of the divine creation, is being questioned by gender ideology, in the name of a freer and more just society. The difference between man and woman is not meant to stand in opposition, or to subordinate, but is for the sake of communion and generation, always 'in the image and likeness of God.' Pope Francis There is too much ideological conformity in gender studies. The true-be...

Life's Footprints

January 7, 2025•514 words

"Humans are now the most numerous mammal on the planet. There are more humans than rats or mice. Humans have a huge ecological footprint, magnified by their technology." ~ David Suzuki "The money economy thus leaves a large ecological footprint, defined as the amount of land and resources required to meet a typical consumer's needs. For example, with only about 4% of the world's population, the United States, the largest money economy, consumes in excess of one-quarter of the world's energy a...

Mistakes - Part & Parcel of the Human Experience

January 6, 2025•350 words

"Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later a collection of mistakes is what is called experience." ~ Denis Waitley "There is no such thing as failure. Mistakes happen in your life to bring into focus more clearly who you really are." ~ Oprah Winfrey "A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." ~ George Bernard Shaw "All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes." ~ Winston Churchill The mistak...

Afghanistan - A Female Hell on Earth

January 4, 2025•1,064 words

Afghan women, as a group, I think their suffering has been equaled by very few other groups in recent world history. ~ Khaled Hosseini Seeing the Afghan women in their burqas, it's easy to say, "Well, they're not as fully aware as I am, so why do I have to worry so much about their plight?" But that's a misunderstanding. They are brutally aware of their station. ~ Eliza Griswold Throughout the last century there were multiple attempts at giving Afghan women more autonomy, to change marriage l...

The Almighty Dollar and the Afghan Quagmire: A Cautionary Tale of Misused Power

January 3, 2025•748 words

The war in Afghanistan, the first war of the twenty-first century, shows the United States doing what it wants to do, not caring about who it antagonizes, not caring about the effects on neighboring regions. ~ Tariq Ali When I went to Afghanistan in 2003, I walked into a war zone. Entire neighborhoods had been demolished. There were an overwhelming number of widows and orphans and people who had been physically and emotionally damaged; every 10-year-old kid on the street knew how to dismantle ...

Guantánamo Bay or JTF-GTMO, a Kafka Nightmarish Farce

January 2, 2025•987 words

"What does Obama mean keep working on closing Gitmo? It's a broken promise. Obama said we were gonna close Gitmo the first day he was in office and it never happened." ~ Rush Limbaugh "We need to shut down this Gitmo prison? Well, don't shut it down - we just need to start an advertising campaign. We need to call it, 'Gitmo, the Muslim resort.' Any resort that treated people like this would have ads all over the 'New York Times' trying to get people to come down and visit for some R&R, for...

American Rendition Torture Program At Guantanamo Bay

January 1, 2025•625 words

"Guantanamo Bay is the anti-Statue of Liberty." ~ Thomas Friedman "Remember when Obama was campaigning? Didn't he say he was going to close Guantanamo Bay? Didn't he say that? Apparently, he just meant for renovations." ~ Jay Leno "Shouldn't the American leadership be addressing what is happening in America, with its domestic policies on racism, discrimination, illegal monitoring, solitary confinement, torture, Guantanamo Bay and any other social and political issues related to the American s...

CIA OPs To Destabilize Governments

December 31, 2024•1,438 words

The [CIA] Agency has owned outright more than 240 Media operations around the world, including newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, radio and television stations, and wire services, and has partially controlled many more. ~ Michael Parenti [Barack Obama] pledged to end torture, but he has continued the CIA renditions where you kidnap people and send them to another country to be interrogated. ~ Nat Hentoff During the terrorist regime in Haiti in the 1990s, the CIA, under the administrati...

The Military-Industrial Complex and the Perils of NATO's Imperialistic Expansion

December 30, 2024•1,219 words

I have heard this a thousand times. Of course every state has the right to organize its security the way it deems appropriate. But the states that were already in NATO, the member states, could also have followed their own interests - and abstained from an expansion to the east. ~ Vladimir Putin [Mikhail] Gorbachev said that he would agree to the unification of Germany, and even adherence of Germany to NATO, which was quite a concession, if NATO didn't move to East Germany. And [George] Bush a...

The Road to War: Technology, Militarism, and the Decline of Democracy

December 29, 2024•593 words

"Without the truth of the people, politics degenerates into mere spectacle and democracy declines, leaving demagoguery and cynicism to fill the void." ~ Jerry Brown "The very existence of armaments and great armies psychologically accustoms us to accept the philosophy of militarism. They inevitably increase fear and hate in the world." ~ Norman Thomas "What is the only provocation that could bring about the use of nuclear weapons? Nuclear weapons. What is the priority target for nuclear weapo...

Homeless In United States Of America

December 28, 2024•330 words

"People who are homeless are not social inadequates. They are people with governments that have abandoned them." ~ G. D. Armstrong "Seven out of 10 Americans are one paycheck away from being homeless." ~ Pras Michel "Our Government is proud to support the Provincial Metis Housing Corporation and its local partners, like Yorkton Parkland Housing, and all of the important work they do in our province to help those in need. With a roof over their heads, all Canadians can prosper as we work toget...

Four Stages of Twisting Truth & Lies by Tyrannical Leaders

December 27, 2024•675 words

"Life makes no sense if you have to tolerate endless lies. I will never accept this system, which is built on lies, i will not stop my fight against this junta." ~ Alexei Navalny "We now live in a country with a thousand political prisoners, a country where each week there are new trials, where people are put in jail because they liked something on the Internet." ~ Alexei Navalny "Russia spends enormous, senseless amounts of money on the army and the police. We have one of the top rankings in...

Understanding Vladimir Putin - Dark Triad Personality

December 26, 2024•771 words

"One of the things that I am concerned about is the degree to which we've seen a lot of commentary lately where there were, there are Republicans or pundits or cable commentators who seemed to have more confidence in Vladimir Putin than fellow Americans because those fellow Americans were Democrats. That cannot be." ~ Barack Obama "In Russia an authoritarian leader is running the country. You can't fight Putin with elections because he controls them. That's why demonstrations are the most effe...

The Dark Triad Personality Traits

December 25, 2024•696 words

"Since narcissism is fueled by a greater need to be admired than to be liked, psychologists might use that fact as a therapeutic lever - stressing to patients that being known as a narcissist will actually cause them to lose the respect and social status they crave." ~ Jeffrey Kluger "Exploitation and manipulation produce boredom and triviality; they cripple man, and all factors that make man into a psychic cripple turn him also into a sadist or a destroyer." ~ Erich Fromm "Psychopaths are so...

War Transforms Humans Into Change

December 24, 2024•642 words

I learned early on that war forms its own culture. The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug, one I ingested for many years. It is peddled by mythmakers- historians, war correspondents, filmmakers, novelists, and the state- all of whom endow it with qualities it often does possess: excitement, exoticism, power, chances to rise above our small stations in life, and a bizarre and fantastic universe that has a grotesque and dark beauty. ~ Chris Hedges The enduri...

Refrain From Speaking ill of Others

December 23, 2024•508 words

If you think well of others, you will also speak well of others and to others. From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. If your heart is full of love, you will speak of love. ~ St. Mother Teresa "We are all one family in the world. Building a community that empowers everyone to attain their full potential through each of us respecting each other's dignity, rights and responsibilities makes the world a better place to live." ~ Pope John Paul II Speaking well of others and not speakin...

We Don't Want You in Our Schools

December 22, 2024•415 words

The practice of pushing Indigenous students out of schools due to poor attendance or academic struggles is a subtle but powerful reflection of the systemic discrimination woven into the fabric of Canadian society. This approach does not merely harm individual students; it reinforces a cycle of marginalization, stripping them of dignity and opportunity while allowing the institution to absolve itself of indigenous student responsibility. Indigenous students carry the weight of historical trau...

False Narratives of Marginalized Individuals

December 21, 2024•317 words

"If the church does not identify with the marginalized, it will itself be marginalized. This is God's poetic justice." ~ Timothy Keller "Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape." ~ Pope Francis Narratives or stories that misrepresent someone's life or actions can...

A Near Miss

December 20, 2024•310 words

"I believe life is a series of near misses. A lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It's seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future. It's seeing what other people don't see And pursuing that vision." ~ Howard Schultz "It's real easy to sit on your couch and point fingers and say, 'So-and-so did something wrong...'. But until you are out there in these cars at these speeds and seeing all the near-misses and what is really going on, it is not worth forming an opini...

The Psychology of Workplace Backstabbing

December 19, 2024•443 words

"Backstabbers specialize in saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person." ~ Les Parrott "You know that you have been stabbed when you feel the deep pain of betrayal." ~ Les Parrott Dealing with backstabbers, there was one thing I learned. They're only powerful when you got your back turned. ~ Eminem Backstabbing in the workplace is often subtle and difficult to detect. People are not always as they present themselves, and it's important that you don’t naively accept the im...

AI-Powered Technology That Uses Nanopores

December 18, 2024•322 words

"Nanotechnology in medicine is going to have a major impact on the survival of the human race." ~ Bernard Marcus "If we can reduce the cost and improve the quality of medical technology through advances in nanotechnology, we can more widely address the medical conditions that are prevalent and reduce the level of human suffering." ~ Ralph Merkle "Today, a group of 20 individuals empowered by the exponential growing technologies of AI and robotics and computers and networks and eventually nano...

Surveillance Is A Threat To Power Itself

December 17, 2024•623 words

"Everyone everywhere now understands how bad things have gotten — and they’re talking about it. They have the power to decide for themselves whether they are willing to sacrifice their privacy to the surveillance state." ~ Edward Snowden "Total surveillance is increasingly the general condition of society as a whole." ~ Michel Foucault "Today we are at a crossroads. The technology is available for two great options: The massive surveillance state, or the renewed freedom of a deeply-involved c...

Expression Of Dark Emotions

December 16, 2024•388 words

Education will lead to understanding; understanding will lead to action. Education and understanding are going to be key to moving us forward. That's why I take every opportunity I can to try to educate Canadian people on the impact of intergenerational trauma. To tell them how, until 1951, indigenous people weren't allowed to leave the reserve without a permit. That it was illegal for a lawyer to give us advice. It was illegal for us to sell our wood, our cattle, without a permit. I want the n...

The Power Of Presence

December 15, 2024•429 words

"The successful are those who have been given opportunities." ~ Malcolm Gladwell "True genius, in strategy or anywhere, lies in self-control, self-mastery, presence of mind, fluidity of thought." ~ Robert Greene "Outlier are those who have been given opportunities-- -and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them." ~ Malcolm Gladwell Whether it be the battlefield of sport or the chessboard of management, presence of mind is a weapon sharper than any blade. The power of pr...

An Individual Who Schemes In The Shadows

December 15, 2024•392 words

"What is to be expected of them is not treachery, or physcial cowardice, but stupidity, unconscious sabotage, an infallible instinct for doing the wrong thing." ~ George Orwell "don't sabotage your own greatness by succumbing to failure!" ~ Terry McMillan "The Israelis wanted to sabotage the Palestinian - Palestinian reconciliation." ~ Benjamin Netanyahu Be wary of individuals who scheme in the shadows, for the trap they set for individuals may become their own downfall. The desire to see...

My Italian Canadian Community

December 14, 2024•89 words

When I was 5 years old, I played soccer in Little Italy, Edmonton, with Italian coaches who pushed me to work hard as if there were no tomorrow. My Indigenous mother and father would say, "This is good for you; it will make you tougher." They saw something in me — a desire for a better life — and they believed in me, they saw something that I didn't see. I’m deeply grateful for my Italian Canadian Community and their support and for pushing me to strive for success. ...

25% Tariff

December 13, 2024•375 words

"Tariffs that save jobs in the steel industry mean higher steel prices, which in turn means fewer sales of American steel products around the world and losses of far more jobs than are saved." ~ Thomas Sowell "What protectionism teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war." ~ Henry George "Protectionism is a misnomer. The only people protected by tariffs, quotas and trade restrictions are those engaged in uneconomic and wasteful activity. Fr...

Neo-ultranationalism

December 11, 2024•425 words

We see threats to liberal democracy coming from lots of directions. We have to create something new, a common response, because in so many places - the UK, France, Germany - ultranationalists and the far left threaten the free market and liberal democracy. ~ Garry Kasparov Nixon urged Clinton to maintain his relationship with Yeltsin but make contact with other democrats in Russia. He warned Clinton away from some ultranationalists and toward those interested in liberty and reform. He pressed ...

The Power Of Appreciation & Silencing The Whining Wolf

December 10, 2024•262 words

"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails." ~ William Arthur Ward "People won't have time for you if you are always angry or complaining." ~ Stephen Hawking "What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain." ~ Maya Angelou Make lists of positive aspects. Make lists of things you love - and never complain about anything. And as you use ...

The USA & Israel Support of al-Qaeda Leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani in Syria

December 9, 2024•365 words

"Since September 11, 2001, the powerful coalition of nations, led by the United States, has seen many successes against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. It is imperative that we remain united and steadfast in the quest to defeat terrorism around the world." ~ Kenny Marchant "Now, al Qaeda's on the run. Afghanistan is no longer a base of operations. The Afghan government is a friendly government that is trying to bring democracy to its people." ~ Condoleezza Rice "I fear that our true moti...