I first met Alberta Rich in 1986 when I got a job as a computer instructor at the St. John’s Native Friendship Centre.

Some clueless bureaucrats had decided homeless aboriginal people needed to learn how to use office computers and had provided money for that. I applied and was hired. This was long before email or the internet or even hard drives. What was I going to teach them?

Alberta was an Innu woman living in St. John’s. Like so many of her people back then, she had been brought to town for some reason and then released onto the street.

The afternoon I met her she was wearing a salmon T-shirt pulled over her big belly, and black tights. She was tall. On her feet were cheap sneakers, no socks.  While clearly overweight, she had the most beautiful face, and as I was to learn, the most beautiful soul.

She had very pronounced high cheekbones, catlike eyes and a lovely, wide face full of kindness and joy. She had a distinctive voice — high pitched, raspy, sexy even. Her hair was shortish, wavy and swept back over her head, out of her face. And her wide thick-lipped smile filled the room. So did her hearty laugh. She would smile so hard her eyes would close. Hard not to smile back.

She looked like an old-fashioned movie star who had seen better days. Bruised and careworn but still beautiful, like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard (Google it). She looked like no one else I ever knew. She was beautiful like no one else I ever knew. Behind all that bubbly joy was a very deep sadness.

I remember our first lesson. I sat her in front of the computer. She looked at the keyboard, laughing nervously, and put her hand over her mouth self-consciously as she did.

Turning her face to me she asked if she could switch chairs and just sit and watch me “do some computing.” Sure. As I sat there walking her through some of the applications she just stared adoringly at me. It was unnerving.

I did what I could to get her interested in computer lessons. She would mostly giggle and sigh and roll her eyes.

“You really know how to work that machine, eh,” she said with admiration. I told her I could teach her too. The machine has such great untapped potential.

Her eyes widened. “Like what?”

Like being able to store music and video and communicate all around the world for free and tap into practically every book, text or manuscript, movie or video ever created I didn’t say, as like most people, I could not see into the future.

With little conviction I lamely told her if she learned computer, she would be more employable.

Looking at me with her huge, brown soulful eyes, with all the sadness of the universe reflected in them, she asked me, “Why would I want that?”

She had me. I looked at her for a moment and spoke to her with the honesty her very presence demanded.

“Keep taking the lessons. I like your company. I have to do this to pay rent for me and mine.  I promise to teach you a few useful things.”

She slapped her hand on her knee with a hoot and loudly proclaimed “Fair enough, darling — just don’t expect me to learn anything!”

We did continue and became fast friends. I learned from others of her horrific life and how she refused to even entertain the notion of going home to Labrador. I once asked her about her life in Labrador. It was the only time. I saw the joy leave her face. She got up and trudged out of the room and left. Message understood.

I showed her things like word processing. She would always listen attentively, being more interested in my interest than in the subject at hand.

She was next to illiterate but appreciated the fact that once a recipe or a list of friends and their phone numbers were typed into the computer, they never had to be typed again. She liked recording recipes.

I never met anyone who had been through more and still had such sweetness and joy. I never met anyone who tried harder to be happy. I never met anyone who failed so spectacularly.

Next week Part Two of Alberta’s story

Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com

The post Bruised and careworn, but still beautiful appeared first on The Shoreline News.

Bruce Leaman, with DFO on The Broadcast talked about salmon on the South Coast in trouble.  Some of the problems are fish farms escapes, also a disease called sea lice caused by the fish farms and warm water and low water.

When I was a boy going to school in Lushes Bight, I knit a salmon net 20 fathoms long in the night after my homework was done, had no time in the day busy at wood and water.

I got a few to eat and to sell at 15 cents per pound.

In 1954 I moved to Deer Lake to seek my fame and fortune, in other words, to better myself.

I was an avid trout fisherman, and Deer Lake was a good place for trout.

Later in life my next-door neighbour, who was an avid salmon fisherman, persuaded me to try salmon fishing.  I went with him; it took a couple of days before I hooked my first one, then I was hooked.  It was better than sex. 

In them days you could keep four salmon a day from May 24 to Sept 15.  In 1976 the call of the ocean was too great, so I retuned to my roots to become a commercial fisherman.  Mostly cod, turbot, etc.  There were many small boat fisher people who made a living at the salmon and lobster, and some would go up the Labrador Coast for salmon when the lobster was over.

About the same time as the cod moratorium was called the salmon was in trouble and the commercial salmon fishery was shut down and now, 34 years later, it is in more trouble than ever before because the government in Ottawa, which manages the ocean, did not try to find out what caused the collapse or try to fix it. 

Our salmon stocks are just about over, and we are not doing anything to stop it.  The proposed marine park for the South Coast, the one thing that could protect some salmon rivers, is at a stand still all because the aquaculture organization is too powerful and is always promoting jobs.

Well, we cannot keep providing jobs until there is nothing left, where will we get jobs then? While I haven’t caught a salmon for 50 years, I am still concerned about their future.

We owe it to our children and grandchildren and be like my grandparents, who took what they needed and not what they wanted. I have always done that, and I have done very well, and I can die with a clear conscience

Things that are impeding the return of the salmon is the mergansers, a duck that lives in the rivers. I have killed them with their stomachs full of salmon eggs, also the cormorants that are in the mouth of the rivers and will kill the smolt as they return to the ocean. 

The seals are also in the mouth of the rivers to feed on the mature salmon returning to the oceans and they are better at it than us.

(Ret.) Capt. Wilfred Bartlett

wilfbartlett@hotmail.com

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With the increasingly hysterical media coverage of the onset of artificial intelligence (AI) I have decided to make a case for OI – Old Intelligence, otherwise known as wisdom.

All manner of folk have peered into the future, some are excited about the onset of AI and some don’t like what they see. There’s no end of AI coverage in the news, and very little on the value of OI – the wisdom most older people have. Wisdom we have always had and have today.  I think, especially with the onset of AI, more attention on OI is needed.

Youth culture, always obsessed with itself, doesn’t value OI. Old people, often not tech savvy, are considered irrelevant. That might be, but many are savvy in other ways. Tech is useful, but so is basic humanity. We are humans, we need each other, and all this tech tends to isolate people from each other. OI knows the value of shutting off the devices and just hanging out.

Technology is changing fast, but human nature is not. As humans we need OI. The longer you’ve been around the more you have seen. The more you have experienced. The more you know.

When I was a teenager, I volunteered in a senior’s home. Not because I was community minded, but because the boarding school I  was sent to was more or less a prison, and this was a rare opportunity to get out, on a weeknight no less. I had met a girl and on Tuesday nights we would meet at the local mall, go to the seniors home and make out in the laundry closet.  She soon tired of me, but I kept going because it was a chance to be out in the world on Tuesday nights. I started making the rounds visiting the old people.

What I didn’t see coming was how many would become friends. At 16 I began to learn they weren’t old people; they were people. Cool people. I remember four old fellas who would hang out with me when I got there. They had figured out the girl thing, even joking about the laundry room. I was bummed she had dumped me, and they consoled me with stories of girls they had known when they were young – during the Second World War. One of the men had a son who flew 747’s internationally. They had a HAM radio set (Google it) and they could make contact with him, even when he was flying. They taught me how to use it.  It was fun.

They had fought in wars when they were barely older than I was. Some had seen combat. Some had raised families. Some had never had families. All ended up in this grizzly medical warehouse waiting to die. The place was understaffed, dirty and uncaring. But they made the best of it. That’s what men of their generation did. That’s one of the many things I learned from them.

Whatever the reason I originally started volunteering there, I stayed because of their wisdom, their character, and their friendship. I sat through classes every day that whole year, but I don’t remember anything of them.  My old friends however were a different case. I am close to their age now, 50 years later, and I remember each of them and our time together vividly.  That’s the power of OI.

Is the worry over AI overrated? I remember when the internet was deemed to be the great Satan. I remember experts fretting about highspeed internet. Satellite internet. Google, when it came out, was a worry to many. And so it goes.

I know I possess OI.  My OI tells me we will figure out how to use AI. As a species we have seen far worse. My buddies taught me that half a century ago.

If you are worried about AI seek out some OI. AI may change the world, but OI might change your life. It did for me. I learned a lot about life from those men.  I doubt there’s an app that will ever do that.

Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com

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What do sugary soft drinks and social media have in common?
They have both been targeted by government over the years. Many years ago, a very clever senior employee in the department of Finance (one of the people we are lucky to have working for us) wrote a masterful memo on the proposed sugar tax. With clean cold logic he showed why it would not work. As a capable public servant, he had shown how the tax was not cost effective, an administrative nightmare, and poor public policy. In short, expert advice you paid for.
Cabinet imposed it anyway. They did it because it was an easy way to make you think they were doing something about obesity. Such is the nature of politics.
Our current crop of politicians is now considering a ban on social media for kids 16 or under. I am going to address this in my own clumsy way, and try not to lapse into scorn, but it’s not going to be easy.
Some say social media is a boon. Some say it is a curse. I say it is what it is and is here to stay. We as people will all have to get used to it, not ban it and ignore it.
Banning doesn’t work. For starters it’s well nigh impossible to enforce and makes the banned issue more interesting to young people.
I remember as a kid adults tried to ban rock music, making it all the more interesting. I sat through a sermon in which the reverend railed that the rock band KISS was Satan returned to Earth and must be banned to protect young people. Made me run out and get the album.
Smoking under the age of 16 was banned, so I started when I was 12 (note – it was BRUTAL to quit, smoking is stupid). Various religions banned some books, making them more interesting. Over a hundred years ago we banned alcohol here. We all know how that worked.
When my eldest was 16 a group of parents tried to have Alanis Morrisette’s new album Jagged Little Pill banned. They asked me to help. I borrowed her copy, listened to it and it remains to this day one of my favourite albums. This did not endear me to those parents, who banned their kids from listening to it. All those kids owned secret copies.
Where am I going with this? As a parent I taught my kids about the world. I didn’t ban things, I explained them.
This isn’t a debate about the dangers of social media to young minds. This is a reminder that young people need education and guidance, not banning. Banning only makes the banned thing more enticing. I wonder about adults who decide to ban things. Were they not once kids?
The trouble with banning things is it addresses the symptoms but not the problem. Banning fails because banning something doesn’t stop the demand for it.
Nobody likes being told what to do – especially kids. They’re going to do it anyway – we did.
So why the proposed ban? Politicians like to wrap themselves up in righteous causes that get them positive attention and don’t cost anything. Banning social media sends the right message to concerned parents and makes them look like they are doing something. Like the sugar tax, the fact that it doesn’t work is irrelevant.
We in this province have a host of very serious grown-up problems we need our politicians to deal with: healthcare, homelessness, skyrocketing food prices, the Churchill Falls issue – you know the list. Proposing a ban lets politicians of all stripes stand and look serious and show how much they care. They go home feeling good about themselves and, as is often the case in government, nothing actually gets done. It’s feel-good PR. It’s also nonsense.
Politicians need to stop basking in the self-righteous glow of making unenforceable laws, grow up, and deal with the serious difficult issues. Tackle the hard stuff and leave the parenting to the parents.
Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com

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From time to time, I am criticized for being cynical. Fair enough, I am a big boy and I welcome criticism. The truth is I am an eternal optimist with great faith and hope for us all. But I have been around a while and I have eyes.
Case in point. A while back the new Tory Health Minister declared gender-based violence an epidemic. It is. It always has been. It’s a great PR move to bring the issue to the forefront. She is striking a twelve-person task force to “deal with the problem.”
Here’s where people confuse my despair with cynicism. Since her announcement, experts are lining up to go in the media and say all the predictable things, repeat the tired buzzwords they always use. Like “gender-based violence.” Some victims won’t know what gender-based means.
Reports will be written, advocates will suggest giving them more money is a good solution. An ad campaign will be developed and broadcast. Lots of money will be spent on this.
We have seen this all before. My worry is the money won’t make it down to the people who need it. The victims. It usually doesn’t.
Still think I am cynical? Read the most recent Auditor General’s (AG) report on government’s response to rising homelessness. A lot of money was spent – $24 million. The AG reports 34 people got shelter – that’s $706,000 per person. These aren’t my numbers, they are hers. That’s $24 million of our money and homelessness is still rampant. (I have heard unofficially that some of those 34 folks were soon evicted from their new homes).
Government loves to throw money at social problems. There are plenty of people willing to take it. There’s a homelessness industry, an addictions industry, a poverty industry with lots of experts on the payroll. The problem is homelessness, drug addiction and poverty are getting worse.
Nothing seems to be working.
As I have mentioned before, I volunteer at a food bank for pets. One of our friends (I refuse to use the word client) showed up for cat food. In the ghastly terminology of government and other “experts,” she appears to have “complex needs.” She dearly loves her cat and she’s having a tough time because she recently lost her beloved dog. She was sporting a big shiner on her eye. Told us she had fallen off her porch. I ran out to the parking lot after her when she left. Asked her for the truth. She told me.
Are the activists making big salaries and using all the buzzwords in the media going to help this woman? Are spiffy ads made for government at vast expense by advertising agencies (sometimes the ones that do election ads) going to help this woman?
I don’t pretend for a minute I know what is going to help her, but I know what’s not helping her.
She’s just an example that came to mind. I know many women who have been beaten, punched, and even stabbed by men they associate with. Is any of this helping them?
The answer is no. They don’t need an industry funded by the taxpayer dealing with “gender and intimate partner violence.” They need help. Real help now. I know on paper there is help for them, but I don’t see it working.
I don’t see boots on the ground.
This is not cynical. This is a plea for new ideas, new approaches, new ways of helping women (as it is usually, but not always, women who are victims). What is being done now is not working. The answer cannot always be for more tax dollars.
I congratulate the minister for using her position to speak the truth about gender-based violence. My concern is I want new ideas on what can actually be done about it.
Men beating women is an ancient societal problem. It is an epidemic. It has no place in our modern world. This cannot be an ideological or political football. We all need to combat this scourge, not just pay our tax bill and ignore it. Doing that is how we got here.
Like the minister, I am interested in having this conversation. Not with so-called experts but with all manner of people. Are some offended by what I am saying? Maybe someone will be so angry by my comments they will write me or the editor to set me straight.
Here’s hoping!

Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com

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So, over the months I have shared how poorly the Province is doing in providing health care to us. Remember this is a public service, we are the clients and we are paying for the service.
And it is not just NL Health that is failing us. So are the licensing bodies, which should be making every effort to create pathways to ensure every trained medical worker in the province is utilized. Similarly, they should be doing a major ad campaign in the U.S., Ontario and Quebec. Other provinces are hiring hundreds of American trained workers right now.
You have told me your stories. Here are some of them….

• I am 50 and need a knee replacement. I have 15 years of work left, but expect to wait 7-8 years for my surgery. I need my knee today. My friend’s dad who has had four joint replacements is scheduled to have a second knee replacement soon. I am asking him to please leave his new knee in his will for me!
• I am a certified Physicians Assistant from the Canadian military. I served 23 years as a medic, and my retired colleagues in other provinces are working in offshore, mining and remote communities filling the role of doctors. Our training exceeds that of a Nurse Practitioner. But it is not recognized here, so I’m moving.
• I am an internationally trained doctor practicing here for 15 years. Getting licensed as a foreign trained doctor is expensive and time consuming. There is a lot of bias against us. Most of the international docs I know leave for other provinces within two to three years. This is because of unrelenting harassment by MCP. They can audit us several years in the past, judge that our billings are incorrect and demand that thousands of dollars be returned. We have no recourse. No province treats internationally trained doctors as badly as Newfoundland, so we leave and tell others to do the same.
• My husband passed away three and half years ago. The things I saw in the Health Sciences Complex were so alarming and disturbing that I don’t think I will ever be able to forget what he went through. Several times he had to go to the emergency department because he was so ill. He lay on a stretcher there for several days before being finally admitted to a room upstairs. Although he was taken inside, he spent days there in a room, on a stretcher, with a washroom at the end of a hall, too far away for him to get to. The nurses were too busy to come to his aid when he needed to use the bathroom. I stayed with him as much as I could over the days he was there but I, too, became exhausted. l will stay home and die rather than ever go back to St Clare’s or the HSC.

These stories are heartbreaking. I know you and your family share them. Friends, we do not need to put up with this. We deserve much better, but nothing will change until we demand it.
When is enough, enough?
Waiting for someone else to fix this is not working. If we want our health care to change, we need to speak up. There are solutions. If you will join me in the fight for better health care, please contact me at mardicollins7@gmail.com.

The post When is enough, enough? appeared first on The Shoreline News.

I am turning to your readers for help!  My sister in Ireland (I am the only one of my family to live in Canada) had a “best ever” vacation with McCarthy’s Party a few years ago.  Fell in love with everyone and every place.  A couple of years later I found these earrings and sent them to her.  They became her favourites.  Every time she wore them, someone asked her where she got them.  And one day she came home and only had one. Alas the lost one never showed up again.  I have called every craft and art boutique I could find a listing for in. Newfoundland and have drawn only blanks. There are similar ones…but not as big or as dangly or as colourful as these.   If one of your readers knows where these ones came from or who produced them, I would be thrilled.  I can be reached via FB. I live in Kitchener, On.  I would put my email here but I doubt it is allowed!  I really want to surprise my sister with another pair just like this one! 

I would be happy to pay the postage to me as well as the cost of the earrings. I also ADORED my 3 week solo trip to Newfoundland ten years ago …drove all over… and the kindness of strangers blew me away. I had stories to tell. 

I know this is not a typical Letter to Editor…but maybe you can find somewhere to put my plea.   Please call 1-519-896-4690.

Sincerely

Ronnie Lowrey, Kitchener, On

The post Friends, baymen, townies, lend me your ear… ring suggestions appeared first on The Shoreline News.

Dear Editor:

Someone needs to look into how this (CBS) council is spending money.

First off ,16 million dollars for the community centre – part paid by the provincial government. I am assuming that a lot of money was spent for the design of the balloon structure, and now the Town has gone and cancelled that because it was going to cost an extra $4 million.

Then they turn around and go with a steel structure that will cost 22 million dollars. Lookout public, taxes keep going up and you have absolutely no say in it.

Projects like this should be put to a vote by the general public – not by the mayor and a few councillors.

So many people are still waiting for water and sewer – that is what should be the priority.

Harry Tucker, CBS

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Work in Progress by Ivan Morgan

A long time ago my buddy and I had a gig on CBC national radio. It was a comedy show. We called ourselves The Awful Awful Men. It was a lot of fun, we had a good following across the country, and the money was great! Primarily it was based on the experiences and observations of two fortyish divorced dads. We were far from politically correct.

One thing we didn’t enjoy was the producers. Producers sat behind a desk deciding who would get on the air. Like every industry and profession there were good and great ones (you know who you are). There was also a goodly share of unimaginative bureaucrats who were heady with the power they perceived they had (as is always the case, you don’t know who you are).  This being CBC in St. John’s the amount of arse-kissing by some in “the arts community” to producers to qualify for lovely CBC money was revolting. Unlike private radio, good ratings (which, surprisingly, we had) were not a big factor.

I mention this because now we have social media with no producers. Now you just put yourself online and if you are good, you will attract folks and make money and if you aren’t you won’t. No mission statements, no ideology, no gatekeepers. Just happy, delicious freedom of speech.

An excellent example of this new trend is a local production on YouTube called “The Honourable and the Hack.” It’s a local political vlog hosted by Andrew Parsons, former Liberal minister of everything, and journalist Alex Bill. Full disclosure, I know both in passing and respect them as levelheaded capable fellows.

Run, don’t walk to your nearest screen connected to the Internet and dial them up. They are a must see.

These are two smart connected fellows. So far, their show covers all the bases. I haven’t watched all the episodes yet, but they’ve interviewed a good cross section of people. It’s an engaging watch.

Can you hear the but…?

This is not criticism. This is an encouragement. I want to see them begin to feel their oats.

The show is interesting, but safe. I have said this before, and I will say it again. Traditional mainstream broadcast media is toast. It’s dead but don’t know it yet. Whether funded by government, or by private corporations, in the age of social media they are increasingly irrelevant. Bill knows this – he runs a private online news outlet. I assume Parsons does too because he’s on board.

They are just getting started and I am anxious to see how they evolve. I have a few suggestions. Watch Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan and a few others from south of the border. Not for the content but to see the latitude they have given themselves over time. No more producers, no more network pressures, no more party pressures. Gentlemen, you are free!

Megyn Kelly (interestingly also a lawyer like Parsons and Bill) is arguably one of the most influential American political podcasters, who outperforms legacy media by miles, with an estimated 100 million views a month. You might think that is good, or bad. That doesn’t matter, it’s a fact. I have seen her speak about the beauty of having no behind the scenes people telling her what to do or say any more. It’s worked for her.

My message to the Honourable and the Hack: you have no one watching over your shoulder. Spread your intellectual wings. Push the staid and predictable boundaries of Newfoundland politics so many of us are tired of. In my little corner of the universe, I get many responses from readers fed to the back teeth with same-old same-old. You two gentlemen have the platform, the connections and the intelligence to work outside the box. Fill yer boots!

I suspect you will build a strong following. Stop being so safe. Be edgy. You can do what you want on YouTube. Say what you want. Swear if you want (Parsons swore twice in the first episode!). You both know what’s wrong with our system – say it. Live a little.

The past is the past. Your podcast could very well be the future.

I’m already a big fan. To quote the TV character Frazier Crane (who I have been unfavourably compared to in the past), “I’m listening.”

Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com

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First off, no disrespect to Dr. Pat Parfrey, briefly head of Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services (NLHS). From mutual friends I know him to be a fine doctor, and a good guy. Hell, he was influential in developing rugby in this province. I played rugby in my youth. He was the CEO of NLHS for just over a year, ‘til the new Tory government showed him the door and put their own guy in.

In a recent Rotary speech, Parfrey shared his thoughts on a new Health Accord he has had a hand in writing. He said nothing about the new Tory government giving him his walking papers.  He also mentioned how he would like to die. I wasn’t there for the speech, but it was reported in the media.

I have a lifelong aversion to medical stuff. Can’t read about it, don’t want to talk about it, put my hands over my ears yelling LA LA LA if the subject comes up. But I did read what he said. He spoke of the overmedicalization of death, of modern medicine keeping people alive when maybe it’s time to go. He said he does not see the appeal of spending his final days in a hospital room frail and confused. He spoke about how de-medicalizing death could save families money.

I understand what he was saying. I agree in principle with him. We are all going to die, he wants to die with dignity. Amen to that, brother.

Dying well? Yes. Saving money? Hang on a minute.

Parfrey spoke about Choosing Wisely Canada, a national medical think tank whose members call themselves the national voice for reducing unnecessary medical tests. That means saving money. Period. If you are interested, Google them. I did. As much as I cannot stand medical stuff, I read about them. They scared me (excuse the ironic phrase) half to death.

They make a point of saying they are not influenced by their financial supporters, which includes government.

Our province’s health bill this year is 42 per cent of our 2026 budget: $5.4 billion. They are partners with this outfit but nowhere on their website do they say how much government gives them. Red flag to me.

Maybe I come across as paranoid, but the minute I see government involved in cost saving measures for anything, I know who is going to suffer. It’s always the most vulnerable. I am not saying the folks trying to save money are evil. That’s ridiculous. But we have all seen how government neglects our most vulnerable – children in crisis, seniors, drug addicts, the homeless, you name it. Lots of money for salaries inside government but the people who need the help – really need the help – are often left out in the cold.  No need to take my word for it, look around.

That especially applies to health care. No one needs to be told our health care system is poorly run. We have all heard enough horror stories to know its many, many problems. We spend a fortune on it and yet people suffer. The money often doesn’t make it down to the patient. If we start de-medicalizing death, how long will it take before sick elderly folks are seen as an unnecessary budget expense? As a financial burden? The goal starts as concern for expenses, but the outcome makes people suffer. It’s already happening. 

Palfrey was only head for a short while, but I’m sure he knows how bad it is. Dying with dignity is what we all want. Getting kind, compassionate care during our last days is what we all deserve. Are there hundreds of angels in the system who deliver this? Yes. I have met many. But these caregivers, who are so good at looking over the people they serve, are in turn overseen by people charged with watching the money. This is how it starts, and it is a slippery slope.

The minute the system starts contemplating “cutting costs” and refusing tests, or deeming them “unnecessary,” I have to part ways with the good doctor. His intentions are admirable; I am more worried about the practical consequences.

There is an expression, “a society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable.”  There is no room in end-of-life medicine for belt tightening or cutting. People who have been paying into the system for decades deserve better. Often, they can’t speak up for themselves, they can’t resist, and they soon won’t be able to vote. They are some of society’s most vulnerable people. Again, no one means ill will, but some see the system differently, and it might be you who suffers for their decisions.

The road to your hell could very well stem from their good intentions.

Ivan Morgan can be reached at ivan.morgan@gmail.com

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