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Societal Anguish and Fear: No Biggy

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Do you think societal safety is going to the wolves and that boggy men are everywhere waiting to jump you and ravage you mercilessly? Is this something new, a phenomenon of violence? Nope, not at all folks.

People with mental health issues acting out, violence with no apparent reason why it’s happening, young and old people lashing out at others, knives, guns, and beatings bringing our society to a state of fear and frenzied anticipation of what’s going to happen next. Parents are afraid of letting their kids onto the transit system or walking about alone. Adults are filled with fear and dread of what can happen. Candidates running for the mayoral race in Toronto talk about nothing else but how terrified Torontonians are presently and what they will do to stop this violence. Amazing stuff, is it not? The media talks about little else but Torontonian’s inability to live in an urban center free of the stress and tension presented to them by the media each time someone is assaulted or hurt. Millions of people think they may be next.

I feel for Torontonians but do realize they are a bunch of bubble-wrapped self-centered individuals with no concept of how to defend themselves and use logic as a tool that could solve their problems. Since the time memorial women, men, and the elderly traveled together for safety and personal/group protection. If someone is going to snap, they will have to deal with more than one person right? Wrong, not in Toronto or most urban centers. Urbanites worry about themselves, and should something happen before them, will likely take photos or make a video of the event but not assist someone in need. In rural settings, when a person is in need, they get help from a bye standard, but in Toronto, a City with a reputation that emits cold self-interest before a helping hand, those in need will have to fend for themselves and wait for those paid to help them. New Yorkers are more helpful to their fellow citizens than Torontonians, really!

Traditionally urbanites rely upon the police for protection, but with changing public attitudes towards the men and women in blue, citizens may need to rely upon themselves to observe and respond to any threat before them. Many of the Torontonians who shout for taking revenue from the police budget may need to rethink their methodology, as they may feel threatened themselves.

Toronto has become an International Center, something the elites have wanted for a long time, and while the elites have protection from the criminal and unsavory elements, most Torontonians do not.

What to do?

1. Self-defense classes. Get fit and learn how to defend yourself. No weapons are needed, just a good swift kick between the legs, and any a**hole will fall.

2. Do not place yourself in a situation where danger-violence can present itself. Violence can happen anywhere, but be aware of your environment, and those about you, and look where you going(away from the screen of your phone), and where you can go if you need to retreat. Also, be aware of the police or security’s location in that environment.

3. Only you can prevent bad things from happening to you or your loved ones. Police cannot be everywhere, and politicians…well politicians promise the world and in fact deliver very little.

4. Educate yourself as to what sections of your city are in trouble zones, areas where the feared may travel and carry out their business. Educate your loved ones, and keep in touch with them throughout the day.

5. Beware of politicians who run a near Bankrupt City, while promising you the world, sun, and beyond. Hot air floats, as do many of their plans, methodology, and public practices. The public authorities have no idea how to deal with drug dealers, addicts, the homeless, and mental health candidates. These same public authorities are as afraid of dealing with an addict or mentally challenged person as are you.

6. Demand that all sectors of the public authorities, that are directly involved with those who frighten you daily, be properly trained to deal with these challenges. Police, social workers, and medics receive little training in dealing with these people, and the solutions they find often end up involving violence themselves.

7. Each threat to you is specific, so learn how to respond in kind. Rapists, habitual assault fiends, and mentally ill individuals act in particularly identifiable ways, and their playgrounds are easy to identify. Rapists like to be hidden, while assault fiends often like the limelight…they like to feel superior to their victims and those around them. The mentally ill are often as fearful of you as you may be of them. It all falls into the way you can identify those that may challenge you each day.

8. Pay higher Land Taxes so you can hire more security. Low-taxed neighborhoods have higher crime rates.

Torontonians need to realize that the crime and violence they are hearing about from the media have happened many times before. Nothing special, except you hear more about each event and more often. Remember hearing about violence a lot, will make you think about violence a great deal, and you will probably center yourself upon the violence you have heard about from the media. Social Media will often twist and stretch the truth as well, possibly creating a situation where you believe a plague of violence is upon your city. Woo to your victimhood. Victimhood culture makes it hard to avoid wrongdoing.

Prepare yourselves for whatever comes your way. Today is a new day, don’t let history interfere with your destiny and mindset.

Steven Kaszab
Bradford, Ontario
skaszab@yahoo.ca

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As sports betting addiction takes hold in Brazil, the government moves to crack down

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SAO PAULO (AP) — “King” doesn’t disclose his real name. Even clients of his Sao Paulo newsstand have to call him by his moniker. The Brazilian online sports gambling addict lowered his profile after a loan shark threatened to put bullets in his head if he didn’t pay up.

Broke and embarrassed, King sought treatment and support earlier this year.

“I was once addicted to slot machines, but then sports betting was so easy that I changed. I got carried away all the time,” he told The Associated Press.

King’s story is that of many vulnerable Brazilians in recent years. The country has become the third-biggest market in the world for sports betting, following the U.S. and the U.K., a report by data analysis company Comscore said last year. But unlike those countries, rampant advertising and sponsorship have been coupled with an unregulated market. The government is now — belatedly, some say — striving to get a handle on the epidemic.

On a recent evening, King’s Gamblers Anonymous meeting took place in an improvised classroom inside a church, with coffee and cookies to keep everyone awake, and supportive messages scrawled onto the blackboard. One that’s become ubiquitous in Brazil and beyond: “Only for today I will avoid the first bet.”

King and other attendees, all Christian, started a prayer and the meeting began.

King said his financial problems arose from his addiction to online sports betting, chiefly on soccer.

“I miss the adrenaline rush when I don’t bet,” he said before the gathering. “I have managed to stop for a couple of months, but I know that if I do it once again, even a small bet, it will all come back.”

Driven by the pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic was a key driver for Brazilians embracing sports betting. King said he transformed almost every sale during that time into a bet. His hook was the non-stop advertising on TV, radio, social media as well as sponsorship of local soccer teams’ jerseys. He asked for bank loans to pay his gambling debts and then, to cover those, went to the moneylender. His total debt now amounts to 85,000 reais ($15,000) — impossible to pay off with his monthly income of 8,000 reais.

Digging oneself out of debt in Brazil is especially daunting with its sky-high interest rates. Loans from Brazilian banks could add interest of almost 8% per month to the borrowed sum, and from loan sharks could be even more.

Four Gamblers Anonymous meetings attended by the AP in October featured discussions about difficulties paying down debts, forcing working-class members to postpone housing payments and cancel family vacations.

Some members of impoverished Brazilian families have used welfare money for betting instead of paying for groceries and housing, official data suggests. In August, beneficiaries of Brazil’s flagship program Bolsa Familia spent 3 billion reais ($530 million) on sports betting, according to a report from the central bank. That was more than 20% of the program’s total outlay in the month.

A host of gambling related problems

Sports betting was made legal in 2018 in a bill signed by former President Michel Temer. The subsequent turmoil has recently been setting off alarm bells, with addicts venting on social media and media reports of people losing huge sums.

On Oct. 1, the economy ministry prevented more than 2,000 betting companies from operating in Brazil for having failed to provide all the required documents. Soccer-loving President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said in an interview on Oct. 17 that he will shut down the entire market in Brazil if his administration’s new regulations — presented at the end of July— fail to work. And Brazil’s Senate on Oct. 25 opened an investigation into betting companies, focusing on crime and addiction.

“There’s tax evasion, money laundering of organized crime, the use of influencers to trick people into betting. These companies need to be audited,” Sen. Soraya Thronicke, who proposed the inquiry, told journalists in Brasilia.

Sérgio Peixoto, a ride-sharing app driver in Rio, is one of many lower-middle-income Brazilians who have reduced their spending due to sports betting debt. Peixoto’s debt currently amounts to 25,000 reais ($4,400). His monthly income is four times less than that.

“It stopped being a game, it wasn’t fun. I just wanted to get the money back, so I lost even more,” said Peixoto, 26. “I could have invested that money. It would surely have given me more benefits.

Pressure to bet

Pressure on people to gamble is everywhere. Current and former soccer players, including Vinicius Júnior, Ronaldo Nazário and Roberto Rivellino, are among the poster boys for local and foreign brands. All but one of the top-tier soccer clubs have betting companies among their main sponsors, with their name and logo emblazoned on their kits. There have been cases of kids and teenagers setting up accounts using their parents’ personal information and money, multiple local media outlets have reported.

Brazil’s economy ministry estimates that Brazil’s sports betting market had $21 billion in transactions last year, a 71% increase compared with the first year of the pandemic, 2020.

The ministry’s newly presented regulations include facial recognition systems for gamblers to bet, the identification of a single bank account for transactions involving sports betting, new protections against hackers and the government-authorized domain, bet.br, which will host all betting sites that are legal in Brazil. Once they are in place, come January, between 100 and 150 betting companies will continue to operate in the South American nation.

The changes in Brazil have prompted some companies to take preemptive action. A report by Yield Sec, a technical intelligence platform for online marketplaces, said several betting companies voluntarily restricted their operations in different places after the latest editions of the European Championships and Copa America in the hopes of presenting “the best possible license application face to the Brazilian authorities.”

Magnho José Santos de Sousa, the president of the Legal Gambling Institute, a betting think tank, said Brazil is currently “invaded by illegal websites that have licenses in Malta, Curação, Gibraltar and the United Kingdom.”

De Sousa expressed hope that the new regulations for advertising, responsible gambling and qualification of sports betting companies will transform the country’s deregulated arena into a more serious one that doesn’t exploit the vulnerable.

“The whole operation could turn from water into wine,” he said.

Gamblers Anonymous in high demand

Meantime, the demand for Gamblers Anonymous meetings in Sao Paulo has grown so much in recent years that the weekly gathering, in place since the 1990s, was no longer enough. Many groups have added a second day in the week to help new people recover, mostly sports bettors.

Earlier in October, a group on Sao Paulo’s northern edge admitted a man who was struggling with sports betting and card games. The 13 other people in the room stressed that he wasn’t alone.

“Welcome,” one long-time attendee said, in a greeting that has become a regular for the group. “Today, you are the most important person here.”

___

Dumphreys reported from Rio de Janeiro.



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Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman improves to 6-0 at mixed curling nationals

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SAINT CATHARINES, Ont. – Saskatchewan’s Jason Ackerman remained undefeated on Wednesday with a 7-4 win over Newfoundland and Labrador’s Trent Skanes at the Canadian mixed curling championship.

After going down 3-1 through four ends, Ackerman (6-0) outscored Skanes (3-3) 6-1 the rest of the way, including three points in the seventh end.

Alberta’s Kurt Alan Balderston also earned a win, defeating New Brunswick’s Charlie Sullivan 9-2 in another matchup in the final draw.

The win improved Balderston’s record to 4-2 and sits in third in Pool B.

The top four teams from each pool will play four more games against the survivors from the other pool. The remaining three teams from the pool will play three more seeding games to help set the rankings for next year’s event.

The championship final is scheduled for Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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Oilers fall 4-2 to Golden Knights in McDavid’s return from injury

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EDMONTON – Noah Hanifin had a pair of goals as the Vegas Golden Knights won their first road game of the season, coming from behind to shock the Edmonton Oilers 4-2 on Wednesday.

Jack Eichel had a goal and two assists and Mark Stone also scored for the Golden Knights (9-3-1), who have won two in a row and six of their last seven. The Knights entered the game 0-3-1 on the road this year.

Brett Kulak and Zach Hyman replied for the Oilers (6-7-1), who have lost two straight despite getting captain Connor McDavid back from injury earlier than expected for the game.

Adin Hill made 27 saves for Vegas, while Stuart Skinner managed 31 stops for Edmonton.

Takeaways

Golden Knights: With an assist on the Knights’ second goal, William Karlsson has recorded at least a point in all five games he has played this season (two goals, four assists).

Oilers: McDavid was a surprise starter for the Oilers, coming back just nine days after suffering an ankle injury in Columbus and initially being expected to miss two to three weeks. The star forward came into the contest with 11 points (three goals, eight assists) during a six-game point streak versus the Golden Knights, but was held pointless on the night.

Key moment

With just 48.4 seconds left to play, the Golden Knights won a race to the corner and Ivan Barbashev was able to send it out to a hard-charging Hanifin, who sent a shot glove-side that beat Skinner for his second goal of the third period and third of the season.

Key stat

It was Hyman’s third goal in the last four games after the veteran forward went scoreless in his first 10 games this season following a 54-goal campaign last year. Hyman now has five goals in his last six games against Vegas.

Up next

Golden Knights: Head to Seattle to face the Kraken on Friday.

Oilers: Travel to Vancouver on a quick one-game trip to clash with the Canucks on Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.



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