www.crowsnestpassherald.ca • 403-562-2248 •passherald@shaw.ca
April 1, 2020 ~ Vol. 90 No. 13 $1.00
crowSneSt PaSS
Herald Serving the CnP SinCe 1930
Hope David Selles photo
Local businesses like Allied Ace Hardware and many others throughout the community have placed stuffed animals in their windows for people to find. This fun scavenger hunt gives families a chance to get out of the house while keeping isolated.
ServiceS
Page 7
cHamBer
Pages 5, 8 & 9
looking Back
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2 – CroWSneSt PASS HerALD – Wednesday, April 1, 2020
CNP Minor Hockey
AwArds BAnquet & AGM d e n Po
sunday, April 18st 12:30 pm MdM Bellevue
t s Po
Crowsnest Curling Club
AGM & windup April 3, 2020 in the Curling Lounge d
e n Po
t s o P
Cocktails: 5:30pm AGM & Elections: 6:00pm Dinner: 7:00pm
Business triage on Main Street DAviD ThomAs Feature Writer
While medical ethicists guide emergency room staff on whom to save and whom to let die should Covid-19 overwhelms our hospitals, another equally brutal triage is taking place on Main Street. Clinicians are advised to base their triage choices on a patient's prospects for recovery, with a bias in favour of the young and otherwise healthy. The political triage of small business underway by Alberta has no such ethical underpinning. Arbitrarily, small businesses are declared "essential," and must remain open, or they are condemned as "non-essential" and allowed to expire. A walk down Blairmore's Main Street (still legal with a dog) reveals the economic, social, and personal devastation caused directly by the provincial government's murderous lack of basic preparation for an oft-predicted pandemic. Without the personnel and gear to manage an anticipated but not yet real surge of illness, Alberta panicked. It is crushing small businesses, permanently transering what's left of the retail sector over to Amazon, while pacifying the population with "essential" alcohol and marijuana. As better-prepared countries such as Sweden, Germany, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore have shown, the virus can be managed without destroying the economy. These countries, so far, have much-lower hospitalization and fatality rates than Italy, the United Kingdom, the United States and
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Canada, where the dogmas of austerity and minimal government have left citizens defenceless. Now, from the same people, we get limitless money still wet from the printing press and a government that puts everyone under virtual house arrest. Let's start our stroll down Main Street, naturally, at the end: Fantin's Funeral Chapel. You can still slip Uncle Mort into the flames; but no funerals, no flowers, no grieving -- all unessential. Likewise, Grace Anglican and United Church, and all of our houses of worship, baptism, marriage and death. By order of the formerly pious United Conservatives, God is under quarantine. Ben Wong, Sinistra's Salon, Prestige Cleaners, Copy Magic, Alpenland, - all of them non-essential. That's a big relief to their owners, no doubt tickled that they will be able to increase their government-conditioned debt by as much as $40,000. Meanwhile, their former workers click open their online bank accounts in happy anticipation of the next direct dole deposit -their lives now officially non-essential and thus unburdened by any financial or moral imperative to earn their own living. Already darkened by a building inspector's fear of a roof collapse that didn't happen, the Orpheum Theatre has likely been dealt a coup-de-grâce by the government reign of terror that will be impossible to undo for a generation. Cinema is, after all, non-essential. With movies being deemed non-essential, so, logically, is vision. Thus, Rocky Mountain Optometry is shuttered indefinitely. Nothing more to see here, anyway. A hold-out to the end, Spry was a beacon for the Pass's ex-future as an outdoors-oriented shopping and recreation destination. Spry did agily converted its business model to a titillating "Curb-side Pickup", but that disap-
pointingly turns out to be just a bag on the sidewalk. Spry and most other retailers had already taken delivery of their spring and summer stock, now all non-essential. The banks will no doubt be sympathetic to the notion that repayment of seasonal inventory loans is also non-essential. Real estate offices, fitness centres, investment brokers, insurance providers, are all deemed as non-essential as the Cosmopolitan and Greenhills saloons. (With law offices also closed, who will process the bankruptcies?) The Rose Peddlar florist will not recoup its spring season losses: There will be no sudden release of pent-up demand for funeral wreaths and grad corsages, and marriages will be sterile affairs with brides wearing N95 veils and rings offered at the end of a sixfoot stick. The occupants of the old Home Bank building are undeniably non-essential. Who needs a Chamber of Commerce without commerce. Even more redundant, is Crowsnest Conservation Society. The skies are clear, the chainsaws have fallen silent, the drilling rigs have fled to Texas, and there will never be either need nor money to realign Highway 3 through the wetlands. As for the spectre of any new coal mines: Poof! So it's G'day to the flurry of offices opened by Australian mining promoters. Thanks, Riversdale, for the traffic lights and the beautiful road to the rebuilt golf course you also paid for. We don't want to seem ungrateful, but our present worry is keeping at least some of the mining jobs we still have in a rapidly de-industrializing global economy. (According to BBC, China's ventilator manufacturers can't meet demand because the world supply of components has withered under the onslaught of global government economic oppression.)
So now we come to the Crowsnest Pass winners in Alberta's economic triage: the pharmacy, the pot shop, the liquor store and the post office. Cannabis, not long ago a criminal trade, is suddenly essential to keep the citizenry quiescent. (Ref. "Soma", Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, 1932.) Similarly essential, the Blairmore Liquor Store, for old-school social pacification. The post office is of course absolutely essential to the government's dictated diversion of retail transactions from Main Street to www.wepaynotaxes.com. So, if you want a legal outing and you don't have a dog, slip on your comfiest pyjama bottoms and shuffle on down to the post office for your government-paid relief package from Amazon. And, of course, be sure to nip across the street to replenish your stash of Soma. You will need it. As John Ibbitson writes in The Globe and Mail, "Shops will close and jobs disappear as the elites discover that they like working from home and having everything delivered. Inequality and resentment of inequality will increase. . . . "And we seem to have stumbled into a guaranteed annual income. In an effort to protect workers and keep the economy from shutting down completely, the federal government has rolled out plans to pay those who lose their jobs or their business or whatever their livelihood might be, including those who must quit work to care for others. The measures are only temporary, but that’s what they said about income tax in 1917." The vast majority of Crowsnest Pass businesses are non-essential to anyone except their owners, employees and customers. But who cares about them. We have an economy to shut down and a society to convert from productive employment to state dependency.
For updates on the municipality and Covid-19 virus check our website and Facebook page. We will continue to be your tried and trusted source of information and news for the Crowsnet Pass!
Wednesday, April 1, 2020 - Crowsnest PAss herAlD - 3
In the lIne of fIre Between March 23 and March 30, Crowsnest Pass RCMP responded to a total of 33 calls for service including the following reported incidents. Three (3) assaults, two (2) threats/harassments, one (1) mischief (vandalism), two (2) thefts, one (1) disturbing the peace, five (5) other criminal codes, four (4) other provincial statutes, five (5) driving complaints, two (2) motor vehicle collisions, two (2) assistance to general public, two (2) suspicious occurrences, two (2) assistance to other agencies, one (1) 911 call (invalid) and one (1) false alarm. Mischief On March 20th, 2020, there was a complaint of mischief to parked vehicles in a parking lot on main street in Blairmore. Eggs and Apples were thrown at the vehicles. Outstanding Warrants On March 24th, 2020, a male turned himself into RCMP detachment on outstanding warrants
from Lethbridge. He was released on documents for Court at a later date. Noise Complaint On March 25th, 2020, there was a complaint of a noise that sounded like shots fired in Bellevue. It is unknown where the noise came from. Single Vehicle Rollover On March 29th, 2020, RCMP were informed of a single vehicle rollover near Lundbreck. Occupants left the scene and were picked up by a passerby. Pincher Creek and Nanton members assisted in the arrest of a 25year-old female and 41-year-old male from Calgary area. They were charged with possession of stolen property. The vehicle was reported stolen from Calgary. Effective immediately the RCMP office will be limited to persons attending detachment. If you need to attend the detachment, there will be limited persons at the detachment including front counter. Please call to make appointment at
~ rCMP news ~
403 562 2867. Found bikes turned into Crowsnest Pass Bylaw Be aware of a new scam. Victims get phone calls from someone pretending to be from Service Canada or another government agency, saying their social insurance number (SIN) has been blocked, compromised or suspended. The call might be one of the latest variations on caller ID in which fraudsters disguises the number seen on the ID display in order to trick victims into answering phone. The person will ask for SIN and other personal info, such as date of birth, address, etc. Victims who provide personal info are at risk of identity fraud. Also, Do not say yes to any questions if you are unsure of who is calling as people can use voice recognition to access other information. Anyone with information regarding any crime is urged to contact the Crowsnest Pass
The Simple Raven’s Post by Avner Perl
A virus war story The country is in trouble, worse than it was when we declared war after Pearl Harbour. This is a time such as most living Canadians have never experienced in their lifetime. We are under attack from two, perhaps three fronts at the same time, and our people are becoming casualties. It is not only soldiers who are falling, but mostly civilians right at their homes, towns, and cities. To survive the war, we will need co-operation from all of us to an unprecedented level. It will take self-sacrifice, and the ability to go on fighting even under stress, deprivation, isolation, and losses. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A space historian recorded his impressions. He was studying primitive physical cultures close to entering the transition to a spiritual existence. He was visible to his own kind but not to earthly humans yet for those who saw him; he looked humanoid. I saw a world of bipedal intelligent creatures who built and developed an amazing civilization. They are amazing not only in their ability to build and develop but also in working towards beauty and some ability for caring for each other. Some are great warriors but others developed humanitarian tendencies and empathy towards each other and even towards animals they share the world with. As in other worlds, humans were not all of the same mind, but generally, they displayed the potential to be a force of good. They could not see me, or my vehicle, so I remained around the planet. Humans in a relatively short time developed great technologies, amplifying their physical power and control over their environment. Their biggest quest is to overcome a process they call on their planet “evolution.” Their bodies and brains develop competitively, dropping the less able into oblivion. They do realize that they are spirits (like us Space Travelers) but they are unable to overcome the tempting physical plenty which surrounds them. Since the Space Historian wasn’t subjected to the planetary time, he observed humans over hundreds of earthly years taking notes. The humans, he said, are not efficient in organization. They are concerned about advancement, but constant competition leads them to provide great rewards for a few who excel while ignoring the greater numbers, leaving the majority mostly unused for the greater good. The species could have been developing much faster if all its members were utilized. I conclude that the evolutionary system of the planet is the cause. The Historian observed humans transitioning from a mainly agrarian society to an industrial age. People learned how to use mechanical means to augment their muscles.
RCMP Detachment at 403-562-2867, or Crimestoppers to remain anonymous at 1-800-422TIPS. Reminder to residents of computer scams, credit cards scams, Grandparent scams, Revenue Canada scams asking for money or cash cards and saying warrants out for arrest, do not give out personal information to persons you don't know. DO NOT OPEN EMAILS if you are suspicious of its origin. Do NOT purchase gift cards for payment to Revenue Canada. Do not send monies to person claiming you have won a prize and need to send money for delivery. Crime mapping is available online to residents who are interested can login online at Municipality of Crowsnest Pass website (RCMP crime map for Crowsnest Pass). Crime mapping shows property crimes that occurred within the past two weeks in our area.
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Later they studied the environment and developed advanced weapons for fighting each other. They improved communications and traveling. Not long after, Artificial Intelligence machines and the humans managed to leave the Earth’s atmosphere and return. The Historian made some footnotes. Humans are attempting to travel to other areas of space but have a physical barrier. They do not understand nonphysical existence yet. They made up a story about God, which leads them to believe that He is less than what he is. As humans began using satellite communications, the Historian began gathering mountains of information. In one of his notes, he described an observation. Humans have been experimenting with governing themselves, but failed to discover and implement an efficient, equitable way. They designed communism to rule by consensus of the masses, but failed. A Democratic Capitalist system led the species towards destroying their world. Currently, the species is on “pause” by intervention they call an Act of God, which is threatening the civilization’s ability to survive. Epidemics affect primitive cultures greatly causing unforeseen changes. Some immediate and long-lasting, and others only show up a long time after. The humans coining of the event as an “act of God” is true. God, whom humans envision as an all-powerful human. They designed an invisible creator who installed behaviours into creation to enhance and preserve it. Humans call it the law of nature and are just beginning to discover its workings. I was watching the creatures build cities and optimize technology while at the same time their ever-growing population lives deprived of basic needs. Their evolutionary system is handicapped by their inability to involve a great number of individuals and is hampered by the control of a few who often are not most advanced or capable. Almost all sicknesses and disasters meet a response from the supreme mind of the universe. As I expected, a plague, they named COVID 19, entered the humans' world atmosphere threatening to wreak havoc and demanding reaction. They are forced to use their opposing governing systems and expose weaknesses and strengths. In less than a month, most of the advanced nations on Earth instituted measures to isolate populations, bringing the world economy to a standstill. The reaction of the panicked populace exposed the truth that the economy was built to benefit a few at the expense of the many keeping most humans at subsistence level unneeded. Also, a new wave of sharing engulfed humanity. An oil-based economy that made energy unnecessarily expensive collapsed when production limits were lifted plunging the most affluent energy companies into useless status. The economy that was based on creating artificial scarcity has been exposed. People connected by Social Media began to overthrow pretend Gods like money, sports, fame, and politics. A new appreciation dawned on the value of community, family, and the benefit of caring for each other. As the casualties are mounting, there is a feeling that there is an invisible hand directing events to help humans preserve their civilization. The space historian finished his notes and said a little prayer for the creatures he was studying. Being a more advanced creature of their own kind, he had empathy and something called LOVE in human communications. His ancestors barely survived similar trials in their history. Humbly he attributed their survival to some invisible mind called God. Could God be using a simple, nonliving or thinking virus to shape things to come? Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/ Feel free to check other articles and comment.