It was the summer of 1917 and T.E. Lawrence, the British colonel in charge of the so-called Arab revolt, had decided to attack and take the Turkish stronghold of Aqaba, which is now in Jordan..All this without any permission from above on his own initiative — an unheard of thing in the staid British Army where the chain of command was paramount..To get there in secret to surprise the Turks, they had to cross fierce desert landscapes with nothing but the food and water they brought with them..And the camels too, of course, which could carry a guerilla fighter 1,000 miles and back in any direction and, if it succumbed, serve as a valuable source of meat..Your basic Superstore on four feet, actually..I actually tried it in Cairo, it wasn’t bad. A bit rubbery, but the hot peppers and sauce made it rather tasty..One night they settled in a valley, which looked OK, to rest the desert warriors who would later become his faithful bodyguards..To their shock, the valley was infested with highly venomous cobra snakes. That’s right, infested..A hidden part of the world where snakes ruled and men, or anything that walked, were unwelcome. T.E. and his men were intruders and would soon find this out..Over the night several men died. Personally, I wouldn’t have slept a wink and kept my sidearm pistol ready to blow the head off any slithering beasts that came my way..Look, I don’t like snakes, never have but I don’t want to kill or hurt them … live and let live, they’re part of nature and all that..When the sun rose they had lost a few men and then they got the hell out of there, never to return..T.E. and his Arab army would easily take Aqaba, a major objective, and then go on to harass the Turkish forces in the desert for months with tactics that would be emulated for decades to come by other rebel forces..In fact, Vietnamese general Võ Nguyên Giáp would personally cite T. E. Lawrence as one of his greatest influences..Well, my friends, I’m afraid to say we too have entered the valley of the cobras, but in our case, there is no escape..And I’m not just talking about Baboon Boy and the reigning Liberal party. There is enough shame, to go around..At least three times over the last few years, I have received a comment brochure from my “Honourable Member of Parliament for Calgary Nose Hill,” none other than Michelle Rempel Garner, in my lowly Panorama Hills condo mailbox..Normally I toss these into recycling. But, I thought, no … I’m going to fire off some of my thoughts and comments and ask for a telephone call in reply..Well, surprise, surprise — Madame Rempel, who seems to spend a lot of her time on Twitter, has never, ever phoned me back..Not once. Not a single sausage. Nada. Nyet. So long, so sorry. Arrivederci..Alas, this tells me a lot. A whole helluva lot. While she has ambitions of grandeur, for some reason she doesn’t want to mingle with the great unwashed. Which is me and my cat Burt..Honestly, I do take a shower, once in a while!.Surrounded by cobras, surrounded! Remember that..What then must we do, as the great Tolstoy once said, as we can’t even trust our elected Western members of that useless, overpaid Parliament?.I’ll tell you what we do..In that cool space movie, Armageddon, the US president orders the “secondary protocol,” to detonate the nuclear device on the surface of a giant meteor headed toward the earth..An action opposed by the oilpatch drillers recruited for the job, led by Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis), because it won’t work..After Chick (Will Patton) sees the bomb timer counting down, Harry summons astronaut Sharp (William Fichtner), and mayhem ensues..What I remember from this scene is Stamper, who releases Sharp from the grip of a giant set of vice-grips, appeals to his decency and logic:.“For God’s sakes, think about what you’re doin’. Why are you listening to someone that’s a 100,000 miles away? We’re here, nobody down there can help us. So if we don’t get this job done, everybody’s gone.“.Sharp relents and Harry goes on to save the world in Hollywood fashion. .But, ladies and gents, the same question must be asked. And I must appeal to your decency and logic. Enough is enough..Why, in God’s name, are we listening to a bunch of overpaid fools, thousands of miles away in Ottawa?.The morons are talking about taxing or taking the equity in our homes. They also want to tax the Internet. How long before they also start looking at our RRSPs?.We all know they’re spending money wildly, faster than they can pay for it. Not only that, but they refuse to tell us how they will pay for it!.Carlton PC MP Pierre Marcel Poilievre, questioned the government over and over and over how they will pay for it. And not a single man — or shall we say, snake — had the guts to come forward to answer..A new deal in Confederation or we walk, we go our own way. I said it before,and I will say it again. To stay the course would be pure folly..It’s time to stop that meteor from destroying Alberta..Dave Makichuk is a Western Standard contributor. .,He has worked in the media for decades, including as an editor for the Calgary Herald. He is also the Calgary correspondent for ChinaFactor.news,.makichukd@gmail.com
