Big Brother

   My peers and I have spent many moments of our youth in great wonder and worry over the future of Big Brother and just what that would look like in our communities. Here's a glimpse of what it looks like in my neck of the woods.
   It was not many years ago that a prominent business person in my community was the victim of a lying in wait assault on a commercial property I owned at the time. There was an investigator assigned to the case and in speaking with him I advised that I had cameras both inside and outside the building, but he never made any attempt to view the footage. I had installed the cameras for reasons of safety and security of both employees and patrons. Since this was outside of any city limits, law enforcement was and is nonexistent. We can put cameras up all day long, and of course that is good for the economy, but we can't force anyone to pay attention.
   However, I did see in the news that our Mat-Su Borough has taken the initiative to install cameras on some local contractor's worksite. This occurred only after they had both been cited by OSHA.
   Who's afraid of Big Brother now?

Conservative Irony

   The irony of some people calling themselves conservative is laughable to a truly conservative person like myself. In my decades as a bartender in Alaska I have often been the most conservative one in the room, you can imagine. But my conservativism made it easier for me to apply the rules of liquor service in a beverage dispensary setting. I've often wondered why it was that, throughout my career, I was told, after I had discontinued service to an individual, that I was the only bartender who had ever cut them off. I had heard it from so many guests, sometimes quite elderly, that I was left with one nagging question. Am I the only one that ever refuses to sell someone a drink?
   That question was practically answered for me a few years ago, by the offspring of a guest of mine from the past. This adult child explained that their parent had finally ended up sober, in prison for vehicular manslaughter. At that point, they began to identify me to their family as the only friend they ever had, for I was the only one in their life that had ever refused to sell them a drink.
   Now, I am just one conservative person with my own conservative thoughts, but it would seem to me that if there had been one good conservative lawyer in the business of alcohol representation, I might not have had this experience. Bartenders all over this state would have been refusing service to many guests. I imagine, also, that the people of my great state would not be nearly as oppressed, as so many are, by their life experiences with this legal drug.
   The biggest irony is that the lawyer who had had the most input, dare I say the "go to" lawyer in our alcohol industry, now claims to be a conservative running for mayor of Anchorage, complete with the endorsements of both current and past mayors support. I haven't checked the records, but I'm pretty certain some of those endorsers have a stake in a liquor license here and there.

Confidence Games

   Many people alive today are not familiar with the fact that much of our personal security measures mandated in federal law were in part based on the existence of 'con men' as they were called then, short for confidence men. The reference relates to the actions of gaining a persons confidence long enough to gather the information they require to operate their game. In the last century of American culture they had begun to make 'marks' out of much of the disabled and disadvantaged of our society, because their friendship and confidence were so easily gained. Progressive people have sought ways, through law and legislation, to protect those whom needed it the most. These con's operate a criminal life on the backs of some of the neediest of our neighbors and loved ones and they continue today.

   However, there is a side to the con game that some are not aware of that affects our culture as much or sometimes even more, in this information age. That is the withholding of information from the general public who could benefit, while making sure that those they want to have the information are provided it in a timely manner. The information is now the confidence that is kept. We complain, at times, about lousy news reporting, for we know that there are always lots of things going on, but no media reports all the information for delivery to the public. More and more information is being held close to the vest, as they say. Confidence games are alive and well, especially with some of our politicians.