Opinion

Ask anyone to list their least favourite months, and September will make the list. Not with the unanimity of our hatred for grisly, cold February, or dreary, ominous November. But why is September disliked? It’s still mostly a summer month.

Remember TV Guide, the little magazine with the red logo? Every September, they would publish a thicker than usual issue that would spill all the goods on the new fall season.

Next year’s Alberta election will run on wishful thinking. Albertans will be asked to ignore an awful lot of stuff that can’t be ignored after the election. Two standout examples involve complaints about spending and carbon taxes.

Remember the farmers’ markets of “our day,” before the government got involved? Farmers set their own prices. You could haggle for a better price on that 100-pound sack of potatoes, usually unwashed (horrors!).

A few months ago, I wrote about Uber, and how it had fundamentally changed the car-sharing world, in many ways for the better (shortly after that, their CEO stepped down in disgrace, so hopefully that’s not a harbinger for any company I write about).

This month, I propose to answer the age-old question: Were things better in the old days then they are today? This is a difficult question, in that the very term 'old days' means different things to different people.

A few months ago, I wrote about Uber, and how it had fundamentally changed the car-sharing world, in many ways for the better (shortly after that, their CEO stepped down in disgrace, so hopefully that’s not a harbinger for any company I write about).

This month, I propose to answer the age-old question: Were things better in the old days then they are today? This is a difficult question, in that the very term 'old days' means different things to different people.

Alberta breeds political parties the way a nice pool of standing water breeds mosquitoes.

Alberta breeds political parties the way a nice pool of standing water breeds mosquitoes.