Getting Rid of Men

Back in 1997, during Mayor Susan Thompson's reign, City Hall had hired George Cuff, who hailed from Edmonton, to look at ways to further deepen Unicity government here. At the time, there was a major campaign through the press to replace the five City Commissioners, who were all Men, with one CAO at City Hall.

The way this concept was sold was we were constantly told that Edmonton City Hall had recently replaced its Commissioners with a CAO, thereby saving costs. Enacting this required an amendment to the City of Winnipeg Act, which was put into action on October 29, 1997.

However, the first Winnipeg CAO was a woman, Anita Stenning, who after quitting that position, went on to CEO of CentreVenture, which is in charge of getting a hold of property that is vacant and finding new uses for them.

TVOntario's Agenda had a program topic about Women in Politics, and whether there should be more women encouraged to enter that field.

One of the panelists said because women are finding it hard to break through the so-called "glass ceiling" in politics, but doing the job of CAO is easier because it is a managerial job and not an elected position.

About halfway through the program, one of the panelists mentions that 54% of CAOs in Canada are women!

I wonder whether the Cuff Report was written to get rid of some Men in civic administration.

See also:

Frontier Centre for Public Policy - Cuff Report: Tricky Treat?

We Are Borg, Resistance Is Futile!

This past weekend I had the opportunity to check out the Facebook website.

I did this only because in checking the weblogs for truwinnipeg.org, it reported that most of the accesses to our site were via Facebook, rather than Google, or MSN Search, etc...

So after getting curious about this created my own Facebook ID. The difference in creating an on this site as compared to others is that you are highly encouraged to use your real name.

There are online communities similar to those on the regular web, except to view them, you MUST have a Facebook ID.

I know a few people on there locally, and of course I typed in 'Winnipeg Transit' to find groups related to that, and I also became official friends with other TRU Winnipeggers, and a politician.

What bothers me about Facebook is that it is like peering into someone else's private life. For example, I have a friend outside of Winnipeg who used to live here. I know that he has 3 or 4 kids. I can view photos of their Christmas together. I can also view photos of another friend, this one who does live in the city. And his kid is a bit on the obese side, for someone his age, yet I have had not met been in the presence of this person yet.

One other friend that I know allows Facebook to publish the latest songs and YouTube videos that he has watched.

We are quickly becoming a surveillance society, with Facebook, other online communities, and of course surveillance cameras on buses, and on street corners, and inside businesses and civic institutions like the public library.

Facebook to me, could be used for evil purposes. It could conceivably create a community against a person, and unless that person were a member of a site like Facebook, they would not have a clue what is being said about them.

I see this being used, in worse times that we live in now, as a sort Orwellian "eye", where there is considerable peer pressure to remain part of "the collective", like The Borg of Star Trek fame.

I will NOT be emasculated!

It is since 2002 that it seems that most men my age are too soft when it comes to the way they act... They are not "real" men because society has told them that men with male qualities of assertiveness, aggressiveness, and competitivenesses is somehow wrong.

Well, this is just plain WRONG! I have a very strong sense of being male. You cannot take that away from me. You can try, but in the end the man with inner boy comes right back. I almost fell for being emasculated earlier in the decade because I noticed more young women serving me at fast food restaurants for example... Soon enough you start to talk to yourself in that feminine voice. But no more! I've figured out the plan.

And men have been constantly told that we "need to get in touch with our feminine side" Rubbish! This false propaganda is the the source of the problem.

So whenever I see a Mom telling her young son that he is acting to aggressive, I have begun to tell the Mom that "he is normal, that is normal for a boy".... I mean as long as he is not punching another person and causing physical harm that way, no harm.

Guys are guys, and girls are girls. That's the way God designed us.