WINNIPEG:

KELVIN COMMUNITY CLUB DEMOLISHED:

Molly blogged quite frequently early last year about the closing of the Kelvin Community Club, just south of where Molly lives. Despite the efforts of local residents at the time the doors of the Club were closed, and last Wednesday, April 16, the wrecking crews moved in. This was despite the efforts of the Manitoba Metis Federation earlier this year to save the club by offering their own financial support for its re-opening. The City rejected the offer of the MMF, and stuck by its plan for demolition. This event precipitated one of the usual exchanges between Lillian Thomas, the City Councillor of Elmwood and Sam Katz, the Mayor. Councillor Thomas suggested that she may run for Mayor in the future to "make up for the damage he has done" because she is "so pissed with this guy". Katz responded with even snarkier comments, saying that such a move would be "the best thing that ever happened to the people of Elmwood-East Kildonan. That would hopefully mean that they have a chance, an opportunity, to finally get a councillor who would represent them". Here it's time for another of Molly's hairballs. Cough, cough, cough, gack, gack plahhh ! Oh, that's relief !!! I suppose that selling the frontage of the now-extinct KCC will be "in the interests" of people residing in this ward ? This is grist for the old "there otta be a law" mill. Perhaps there should be a law that says that any developer who is sold city land at a reduced price should NOT only have NEVER been associated in a business sense with ANY of the politicos who voted to offer such land for sale, is NOT presently associated with same and will NOT ever be associated with same for at least 20 years in the future (ALL these deals are done by informal contacts within the social circles of the ruling class- put a tiny, little restriction on such things). Criminal penalties should be applied. If you steal millions from the public you should face at least the same sort of sanctions that somebody who breaks into a house and steals a $500 piece of electronics does.

Unfortunately such justice will never happen. In the interum the ruling clique at City Hall has put forward a proposal to fund "sports participation" on the part of inner city kids (though one can bet that the lion's share will go to the suburbs in the end). Oh great ! There is considerable debate about whether such "organized sports" actually reduce the crime rate amongst youths. One thing is certain, however, it fits the world view of the ruling class that the underclass has to be disciplined and organized. Militarized in other words. When it was operative Kelvin was a locus for far more than sports, especially "organized sports". There was a chess club and a film showings amongst other things.

Molly has a particular bee in her bonnet about this. She suffered through the one and only effort on the part of the local Legion to organize a hockey team in her home town. It lasted all of one year, and it was never repeated, though the efforts of said Legion to enforce a curfew at the local hockey rink persisted several years until they were abandoned. We won in other words through shear persistence. Militarization !. Molly lost at least two teeth on the rink in the local games. Neither incident was so exquisitely painful as being forced to perform in public before an audience. The word "terror" hardly expresses what I felt then. Later in life, after the old man had retired and we moved to the city, Molly was one of the best players on defense in the informal football games that we put together without the obtrusive and obnoxious organizing efforts of the adults. Well, I'm half Russian, and I was very good at rushing.

Informal !! That's the key word. Despite the illusions of the ruling class that all the scummy little poor buggers need is a little discipline, and despite the illusions of their leftist collaborators who are salivating at the prospect of more remunerative positions for their ilk, the sort of personal dignity that actually prevents crime can only come from the individual themselves. I doubt that kids today are very much different than they were when I grew up, even if the temptations of anti-social behavior are far greater. This sort of personal morality is contradictory to the "gang mentality" that is taught by adult-organized sports.

All that adults can do is stand back, provide a variety of opportunities to youth, and not try to direct the kids' lives. This, of course, assumes a faith in the potential of free action that neither the ruling class nor "the left" has. So I conclude... let kids be kids. Don;t close down their gathering places and expect that your army-like "alternatives" to substitute for their free action. But, of course, liberty is one thing that both our rulers and their leftist imitators fear.