Raise the Hammer
Good is a good word.
Good is a staple in common interaction:
Hey, how are you?
Good. Thanks. You?
Good. Thanks.
Good.
Good is more than, simply, good, however. Good is the ultimate goal, the only objective. Good is the torchbearer, holy terror, cross carrier, and pit-bull terrier in the epical, eternal, ethereal, ethical, ever-epochal endeavour to eviscerate evil.
Alliteration good. Rhyming is good. Used properly, commas are good. It's all good. Not really, but it sounds good.
Good versus evil is older than dirt, after all. Good luck, good. Evil puts up a good fight. Nevertheless, once in a while, when time allows, I'll throw on a good cape, sit at the good computer, and, with my trusty sidekick, Keyboard, give it a good go.
Keyboard Superhero
I help the poor overcome their plight
I take wrongs and make them right
I see the blind and give them sight
I find the guy who gave us light
I save the damsel every night
I challenge evil and win the fight
I'm a one-man army when I write
Fifties are good.
There are a lot of reasons why Las Vegas, the casino capital of the galaxy, is called Sin City and Lost Wages and none of them are good. I don't care if you put a casino in downtown Hamilton, but don't tell me it's good.
A free music festival in Gage Park would be good. A nice, new stadium in beautiful west harbour would be good.
Hamilton's pro-casino, mover / shaker, over-taker, news-and-noise-maker crowd are the same anit-social media, babbling, blabbering, blathering, blustering, bobbling Bob-Bobble-heads, who tried to bully Hamiltonians into building a big-parking-lot-modest-stadium project in another timezone. Good grief, Charlie Brown.
Who are these people? Why do they think they count so much? Good questions, indeed.
History is a good teacher. Since the beginning, local, native, existing... populations have been subjected to invaders, pillagers, plunderers, raiders, and opportunistic interlopers and carpetbaggers. It might not be good, but it's reality.
Hamilton Tiger Cat owner, Bob Young, CFL commissioner, Mark Cohon, and Ti Cat president, Scott Mitchell, may all be wealthy, silver spooners from good private schools, but none live in our poor city. Foxy, cagey, crafty, Foxy doesn't live here. The Spectator and CHML's uber-outspoken, NASCAR-loving talky-Scotty Thompson doesn't live in Hamilton. Loud and obnoxious, there's nothing good about NASCAR.
Evidently, many well-heeled nonresidents feel perfectly-suited to tell us what's good. My goodness, it must feel good to feel so good about yourself. How does one get like that? Good parenting? Good (private) schools? Good genes? Nice jeans?
Media: mainstream, lame-stream, live-stream, extreme, off beat, or online, can be poison or good. The newspaper and coffee is a good, peaceful way to start a day. If an interloping dj, with a passion for CAR CARS, is racing, revving, and running his motormouth, I turn the page, lest be poisoned a good mood.
"Good mood" is a good eye-rhyme. "Good blood" and "blood mood" are good, too.
Like my good self, billionaire Bob Young, obviously, feels he's a good arbiter of bad and good because he recently wrote the owner of Hillbilly Heaven and encouraged him to take down his confederate flag (bad) and put up a Tiger Cat one (good).
Are any flags, universally, considered good? Is the Union Jack good, everywhere, to everyone? Good old Stars and Stripes? A Native friend said he finds the Canadian flag offensive and upsetting. A colleague from Quebec says many in the belle province have the same reaction to our good flag. That's not good.
Irony is good.
After watching Bob, Scott, Mark, and their out-of- town friends, carrying on during the Pan Am stadium fiasco, I no longer see anything good in a Tiger Cat flag.
Change is good.
According to all the media, The Confederate flag at Hill Billy Heaven didn't come down, but Bob's letter went up. It's good for business, after all. As any good businessman knows, publicity, good or bad, is good.
The road to Hell is paved with (good) intentions.
Brain rattling hits are good for the football business, but brain injuries aren't good and football causes them, in abundance. There are thousands of former football players suing the NFL. From a CNN article: "Lawyers representing the NFL players cited dementia, depression, reduced cognitive ability, sleeplessness, early-onset Alzheimer's, and a debilitating and latent disease known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy as some of the specific injuries caused by head trauma in the NFL." Good Heavens.
Mike Wilbon, a host on ESPN's Pardon The Interruption (PTI), recently said, "The NFL, no, professional football is in a lot of trouble." The best show on television, PTI is a good way to waste half an hour.
There are many good minds, with good insights, who claim, with good reason, the NFL can't survive its own violence. The N.F.L. generates $9 billion a year. Good luck, CFL.
Another good friend of Bob Young's is Hamilton senator Davey Braley, who, according to one of the Internets, lives in Burlington. Braley owns two of the CFL's eight teams. That's almost half, if my math is any good.
The good senator has billed taxpayers over $100 000 in two years for travel and accommodation. Braley could travel for free on a train, but he's too good (he says "busy") for that, so he spends thousands week after week, whether the lowly upper chamber is in session, or not. Is that good?
Braley was quoted in The Spec, "We are getting a bit of a rap right now, but there are a lot of people in the senate that do very, very, very good work...." Really? I can't see it, but, owing to distance and cynicism, my view of the senate isn't good.
Davey Braley, on the other hand, has the peculiar, perverse, perk-privileged, preposterously perverted perspective of a pampered, permanently partially-prorogued senator on what constitutes "very, very, very good work."
Indeed: good job, Wallin. Good effort, Duffy. Good behaviour, Brazeau. Good judgement, Harper. Good work, senators: very, very, very good work.
Good communication is devoid of unnecessary words. "Very" is very unnecessary, so repeating "very" thrice, in one very short sentence, isn't a very good use of language, very. It is very, very, very wasteful, and redundant; senatorially so.
Reading is good. Reading, while barreling a HUGE SUV down a highway, isn't. It's a good way to kill people, who count less.
Etobicoke's Rob Ford is mayor of Toronto the good. Good choice, buttheads. Privileged and too-important-to-be-good, Ford loves football.
Profiling is good.
Gordon Gekko was wrong; greed isn't good. Greed is infantile narcissism and childish self-absorption, which good people outgrow. For those who don't, Old Boy is a good label.
Good Old Boy
To Daddy's fortune he was an heir
Now, he's a big, bad millionaire
His sense of entitlement knows no compare
So he doesn't care if utter despair
Is sitting right there, in the very next chair
Life, he'll swear, is always fair
As long he's getting more than his share
A good, public education system is critical for a good community. I don't think the students of Hamilton are in good hands. Classrooms have 20 -30 students, many with special needs, enrollment is declining, schools are crumbling, and the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board is demolishing good buildings for no good reason.
Many students can't reed, right, math, or, like, speek that good, eh. The latest round of provincial testing scored Sir John A. McDonald High School, which is downtown, at 1.9 out of 10, one of the lowest in Ontario. The high school is three blocks from the board's perfectly good, perfectly groovy, old office, which they "outgrew" and knocked down. Good Heavens. Who are these people?
The new "education" palace is going on the mountain, far from Sir John A. For the hundreds of "educators," who go to the board office, everyday, to do God-knows-what, there will be plenty of good parking, good highway access, and good shopping, nearby. Goody, for them, I guess...
Wait!
Hundreds of Hamilton's "educators," who go to the board office, everyday, to do God-knows-what, need a brand new, hyper-expensive, state-of-art "educational" palace, in a time of financial crisis, far removed from - by their own accounting - some of the neediest students in Ontario?
That doesn't sound good.
What if all those publicly paid "educators" went to public schools, everyday, and worked with students and families, instead of playing with themselves in a swanky, new castle?
What if all that was diverted to schools? Wouldn't that be good? Wouldn't it?
The public has good reason to say, "Hey! Tim, Judy, Alex... EVERYBODY! Stop being so good to yourself. Instead of wrecking it, move into a perfectly good, well-loved, older school. Reduce your numbers and nonsense by three quarters and put 'educators' into the public schools, to work with the public, where they can do some good, for goodness sake!"
Whenever I tell someone Hamilton fired several city workers for time theft, the response is universal: good. Everyone knows, all municipal, provincial, and federal government departments need a good cull. A good civil service is good, as is a good public servant, but too many self-serving public servants are killing the civil service and that's uncivilized.
It's good to be civilized.
If your job seems too good to be true, it is because if you're not doing good, you're no good. Santa, Satan, God, and Karma know, so you'd better be good, for goodness sake. Karma's good because, when you deserve it, Karma's bad. Good night, nurse!
Good thriving:
My goodness, those kids are good. Good job, Moms and Dads. Regardless of what any yahoo, C.E.O., or the yahoo C.E.O. of Yahoo thinks, there's nothing more important than being a good parent.
It's good to be a dad. We're blessed with two good girls. The oldest just turned 16 and we're teaching her to drive. She's good. I got her this sign for her birthday.
Princess Parking
It was a good price; $1.99 at good old Value Village. She laughed and likes it, so it's good value.
Our girls have grown up in a house full of animals. A houseful of pets teaches acceptance, compassion, commitment, goodness, responsibility, tolerance, and love, love, love for God's creatures, better than any good book.
Science, often, simply affirms what good sense tells us: pet therapy is good for the soul; a Full House is a good hand.
My uncle, John, who died, recently, loved animals. A good man lives by good example and John lived a good life. Quiet, thoughtful, and humble, Big John was a good guy, through and through.
There were seven children in their family, and, when my father was 7 and John, the oldest, was 16, their father died on September 17, 1947. Although they were teenagers, John and my other uncle, Angus (good guy; RIP), left the farm in Saskatchewan and came to Hamilton to work at Stelco in 1949; they were 18 and 16, respectively.
They sent money home and returned to Saskatchewan on vacations to help; good men, indeed.
Both uncles settled in Hamilton and worked shifts in the steel plants for more than three decades to provide their families with a good life. Good to the end, John raised five kids and, when he retired, spent his time tirelessly volunteering and shuttling others to appointments and activities.
Good bye, John. You done good.
Another uncle, Paul, from my mother's side, came to Hamilton, in 1965, from their family farm in PEI, for a good job at Dofasco. He loves animals, as well. Modest, funny, and nutty, Paul's a good guy. Unfortunately, he has cancer in his bladder and prostate. There were plans for an operation, which would mean sacks and bags, but Paul has decided to forgo the surgery and let nature take its course. Good for you, Paul. Good choice, but do not go gentle into that good night.
Listening to Dylan Thomas's poem is a good way to spend 94 seconds.
If you look in good places, it's not hard to find a good man.
Hamilton used to be a Mecca for good jobs.
My PEI relatives are good. They have a good accent and vernacular. For example, rather than say, "It's a good thing...," they declare, "Good job..."
As in, good job this guy was wearing a helmet:
Good job his friend had a bike-camera because no one would believe he got smoked - real good - by a gazelle.
Our niece isn't doing so good. She just turned 12 and has been plagued with health issues her whole life. She's a good girl and doesn't deserve a second of it. Sometimes, the sadness is paralyzing, so we hope. Hope is good.
Hope
Like a doper needs dope
We all need hope
Hope so we can cope
With the scope of life's slope
Good tan or really sad?
All Fridays are good. If you get the day off, Good Friday is, especially, good. A permanent four day work week would be good, for everyone. Better wages and benefits, for all, would be good, too.
... Affiliation, beliefs, car, church, clan, clothes, community, country, dress, education, faith, family, gay, income, looks, membership, minority, nationality, neighbourhood, occupation, politics, poverty, race, religion, school, senate seat, sex, status, straight, style, tan, title, trendy, victim, wealth, weight... doesn't make a person good. Being good makes you good.
That's it, that's all. It's good and simple: be good.
One Commandment
Be good at night
Be good all day
Be good working
Be good at play
Be good when they're watching
Be good when they're not
Be good when you're doing
Be good when you plot
Simply too simple
To be misunderstood
Two little words:
Be good, be good, be good
Simplifying is good. Exercise is good. Walking is good. Riding a bike is good.
Trains are good. Trains force people to co-exist peacefully, respectfully, whereas cars can enable or reinforce aggressive, dangerous, destructive, egocentric tendencies in, otherwise, good people.
A good city provides good alternatives to (increasingly, prohibitively expensive) cars. Hamilton is a good place to raise a child, but has to be better to be the best, which is a good objective.
I could go on, for good, about good, but can't, so won't. Good riddance, Good. I reckon, A Fifty called Good is good way to wrap up Good.
Good
Good show
Good news
Good suit
Nice shoes
Good God
Good book
Good cook
Good look
Good dog
Good plan
Good job
Great tan!
Good poems
Good rhymes
Good rhythm
Good times
Goodness gracious
Goodness me
Good for you
Good to see
Good night
Good eye
Good day
Good bye
Kevin - I loved this piece. What a treat. Thanks.
By Kevin (registered) | Posted April 02, 2013 at 22:19:45
Hi Graham:
Thank you for the kind words. I appreciate all the good work you do.
KS
By Today (anonymous) | Posted April 03, 2013 at 03:44:39
Remember Kevin, we live in Canada. Just thought I'd let you know that, sir.
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