Many years ago, I Iistened to the U.S.’ National Public Radio news programs each day while driving home from work. It has now been quite some time that I haven’t had NPR on my radio set, haven’t listened. I changed residence and have CBC Radio 2 on a worn and stuck-in button these last twenty or so years. Many people make strong comparisons that the world view, the politics, the agendae of the two networks are much the same. I guess so, yes. I think they are. What is interesting is that my world view, politics are in tune with those of the public broadcasters — almost always. I very much enjoy (what I believe to be) balanced and in-depth reporting of events, the measured tone of the talking heads, the focus on arts, literature, culture. All of the daily programming menu seems pretty high-brow and I am a sucker for high-brows – long hair. Gimme an ‘F’ for Farley Mowat! Gimme an ‘M’ for Margaret Atwood…gimme a ‘P’ for Philip Glass. Yay!

At one time, near the end of Thursday’s All Things Considered program on NPR, they read letters from listeners. Usually, the letters were fairly benign requests for coverage of different things or praise of particular broadcasts. For the best part, they were sweet little notes and notes full of considered, intelligent observations. I always listened. One Thursday, a letter stood out for me. I no longer remember the exact details but I remember the personal comeuppance I felt. “Whoa…” I said in realization, “I am less than perfect.” The letter-writer started with a pleasant salutation and noted that he/she had been listening to news coverage and wished to offer a criticism. That’s when the tone of the letter changed, easing into a sort of “Damn you liberals all to hell!” that was ‘suggested’. The writer launched into an attack on the ‘left wing liberal’ slant NPR applied to the news reporting, accusing the editorial staff of allowing a biased representation of facts. “Wait, just one minute!” I nearly cried aloud. “You are attacking what is some of the most balanced and fair reporting there can be! How dare you be so blind! Well!!!” Two seconds after my inner outburst, I stepped back, aware that, of course I would think a left wing liberal slant to the news would be an un-biased one…I am a proud left wing liberal! Uh-oh…can it be that I, I am not righteous, not pure, biased?

Moving at a high rate of speed to today and the antagonistic rhetoric that passes for discourse, I am realizing something again. If we ever had a moment when people listened to each other, respectfully, then articulated their own, possibly different view without rancour…that moment is very gone. It does not exist in mirage. It does not exist in memory. It does not appear to exist as a future possiblity. Events that unfolded after Trump’s (obvious to all – right and left, even Fox news acknowledged that it did sound that way) call to arms on national television and public media have brought freedom of speech discussions shouting to life. As Twitter (I love that name – so appropriate for the twits who use the format) and other platforms close down on MAGA, shutting off their life-line to the airwaves, we are faced with a renewed battle. Is it denying freedom to speak when a private company kicks someone out of the club because they are saying something extreme or unpopular? Who decides what is acceptable? What is Free Speech? Is telling a lie, Free Speech?

There are so many opinions about anything. I think the sky is misty-grey today. Another fellow thinks I have misspelled gray and that, indeed, the sky is a silver-gray. I believe I am the smartest, most righteous man alive and my inner voice just laughs and laughs at that idea. I think my neighbour is real sexy, that I wouldn’t mind a little dancing toe-to-toe with him(so to speak). I say so, I say it out loud on Facebook and my relatives think I should hold my tongue, it is vulgar to notice such a thing aloud, that I should be ashamed of myself. That is their opinion and that is that. I haven’t inquired about my neighbour’s opinion, he may not well endure such a conversation. He might say, “Hey, what the..?” That would be perhaps an unfavourable (to me) opinion. There are around 7 billion, sentient human beings on earth and 7 billion developed opinions. There are 7 billion different right ways to think or be or live or believe. Think of it, 7 billion faces of the possible God! So amazing, so complex to be human.

Each of us, I believe, does have the absolute right to our opinion. None has the inherent right to make another be still or believe as one body. I may want you to either agree or be quiet but wanting is one thing, demanding, another. No one has the right to force you, force me to shut up. I have had two marriage partners and they will both tell you that I am unlikely to shut up, that I am unlikely to watch the television news without shouting out my disagreement. I do believe and know that all ideas are valid, even those deemed by a majority of coinciding opinions to be wacky. All ideas should be available for consideration, freely. Go, ahead, speak. Tell me that Adolf Hitler was a fair man and why you think so. Whatever. Grab a megaphone (Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and others), stand up on the podium and lie your ass off. I am free to disagree, free to educate myself, free to turn off the radio, free to walk away in disgust. Here is the rub. “So,” you may say, “Calling for violent overthrow of the state is Free Speech? Speaking lies in a manner that is injurious to another is Free Speech?

Currently, there is a wave of conservative media opinion that left-wing, socially liberal media are attempting to shut certain views out of the public space. I think it’s true. I am sorry to have to say so but very, very true. There are calls to shut down right wing websites, media platforms, public groups. After the actions of Trump’s mob, Twitter, Facebook and Web-hosting companies are busily shutting off the flow of effluent. (not that I have an opinion on the quality of rhetoric being denied a lectern) There is a momentum to still the social conservative voices. Folks are sick and very tired of Rush Limbaugh, of Steve Bannon, of Franklin Graham. Ted Cruz and company have worn out any welcome they may have had in the public sphere (except from their supporters, whose numbers seem steady). Is it right to shut them down with a blanket response? Hit the switch? Stop them from speaking?

No. It is not right to shut off the flow of ideas that are unpleasant, that smell of falsehood. The civil libertarians must stand up and speak. (haha) Without cooler heads we risk a lot. We are plunging into a dangerous current by shouting for the heads of the folk we don’t agree with and I believe nearly everyone is doing this. Everyone on each of the 7 billion sides is shouting to ‘lock them up’. Well. Who should be shut down? Anyone? Whose ideas should be turned off, locked out? What ideas should be rejected, en masse? Any? Yeah. Some ideas need to stop being shouted out.

My opinion is: No, you may not stand up and urge others to grab a weapon, head downtown and tear the place up. That is not free speech. That is hate speech. That is speech that deprives another of their human rights; the right to life, liberty, the right to an opinion and the pursuit of happiness. Hate speech seeks to throttle another voice, kill a different opinion. Hate speech is speech that makes an object out a human being or a group of human beings. The N-word is hate speech. Calling someone an idiot is hate speech. Calling someone a fag, a wop, a whore, etc. is hate speech, not free speech. Telling lies, stories without evidential basis that injure another or prejudice opinion is hate speech, not free speech. All of those things are what I believe Parler, Fox news, The Proud Boys, extremists of all stripes are doing. Those things are what should be shut down, disavowed, put to rest. Our problem in the coming weeks, months is that the process of making distinction between free speech and hate speech is going to be difficult. Do the groups I mentioned have a right to a day in court? Absolutely. Does left-wing liberal media have a right to a day in court? Absolutely. Do we have the responsibility to let others speak? Absolutely… but that is just my opinion. With my opinion and $5.88, you can get a cup of cofeve and a bagel at Starbucks.

Sunshine – blue skies. Our long greyness has dissipated. That is a nice word, dissipated. It applies to fog, to misspending youth and vigor, to melancholy, to a circle of friends… There are so many ways to use such a lovely little word. I like words that have a lot of applications. In the case we are concerned here with, ‘a gradual evaporation — a slow waste — a plodding dilution — vanishing uselessly — scattered’. I love it. Our long greyness has disintegrated, evaporated, scattered itself to the four corners. Without anyone being fully conscious of it or realizing it, the sun has been allowed to light the earth in Leamington, Ontario for a day. How very nice that is.

The grey has lifted, dispersed, eased away. With the grey has gone melancholy for a while. The fog has crept away on it’s ‘little cat feet’. That is good, that is a relief. Endless cloudy skies drag the spirit down, depress the soul, remind us of where and how we are living. We need a break from such drear. Break out the jugs of joy-juice, strike up the band! Give that fellow on the mellow guitar an exuberant hand! Ah life!

Washington, D.C. has dissipated for me on this bright day. The twitter-verse fell silent. Hate got a slap in the face by it’s own hand and we can breathe a moment. Maybe it would be more accurate to say ‘we can gasp for a moment’? Yeah, that. We are fish and have been hooked, scooped out of our comfortable lives at swim. Now, the struggling is finished and we are on deck, mouths open, relaxing in the sun while the next horror is prepared for us. “The freezer for you, buddy boy!”

The next horror comes not as a freezer, exactly but more in the form of ad nauseum discussion. Enough of that to dull and slow the metabolism of the mind. In the coming days, weeks, months a slew of opinion editors will rise to mark recent events. Talking head after talking head will endlessly repeat the obvious, political types will roundly and earnestly discuss prevention of future such happenings. Sociology professors, political insiders, psychiatrists will be consulted. In-depth analysis of the perpetrators of malfeasance will come to the front of the ‘news cycle’. We will see the sad stories of the ‘bad’ people. Some of that is already here in the case of the woman who was shot by police as she attempted to burst through guarded doors. Y’see…her poor business was on the ropes, nearly bankrupt. No wonder she took up with the likes of Qanon and stormed the capitol! Any reasonable person would do so.

But… it is a quiet, sunny day today. I shall go for a walk, then maybe play guitar. All of the riotous behaviour is over for a moment, the news trucks can take a break. Maybe they will purchase some ‘street-food’ from a covid-crippled vendor? Oh, yes…there is that other story. Maybe folks will go back to that one, since so many have died interim. As a rising news item (with the other analysis in the background) the spotlight will surely return to dead and dying – businesses and people. Before you know it, Trump, antifa, white supremecy, Sexy Buffalo Horns Man will all have dissipated and the covid catastrophy will rise again. In valiant effort, praises be, CNN never stopped for a moment. Theirs is a non-stop, 24 hour panic. Fox, of course continues it’s panic in another fashion with undertones of “Oh my gosh…the ‘alternate facts’ got away from us!

I am ok. Through all of this, most of us are ok. Nearly 7 billion of us survived night on earth and are up ‘n at ’em again today (whatever day that is where you are). Many hundreds of thousands or even millions died during the evening or passed out drunk in the ditches of wherever. Some were horribly treated, some suffered political pogroms or disease of other types, some died by their own hands. Some folks fell in love, some had the best climax ever. Some were laughing loud, just before the car smashed into the guardrail and flipped them into oblivion. That continued as it has for the eons we have been borrowing earth. As proof, I give you my blogging, my eating an apple, my drinking a tea, my pooping, my breathing. Even though I am dissipating (I can feel it) I continue, for now.

I wonder sometimes, about events and conditions like the ones we are traveling through and taking our brief break from. When there is major disruption, war, famine, disease, Is it earth, cleaning house? Or, horrors be, God (just like Mom said)? We seem bent on destruction as though by some other hand. Every news cycle there is a case to indicate we are dissipating, that we will be gone in a bit. I don’t think that can be denied. We are, as cloudy-brained humans, evaporating. We watch ourselves in the mirror without seeing the image. Fortunately, there are days like the one here, at my doorstep. Today, I can take a break, turn it off a second, enjoy the sunny day. I am going to. Maybe there was never crime to witness. Maybe it is simply the nature of fog, to disappear.

Grey day number 347? Ya. I never realized that just being 45 minutes closer to the lake would change my skies. Wow. With the weather difference and the giant cannery chimney, they should call this ‘Greystack Tomatoe’ not Leamington. Maybe, in a nod to the recent development of cannabis greenhouses, they could call our town – ‘My Magenta Heaven’? (For those who don’t know – our night skies are coloured magenta from the grow house lights bouncing off the clouds, unearthly).

Names are funny. The little beasts of the earth and fowl of the sky and fish of the sea don’t have names for things. At least, I don’t think they do, they don’t talk to me very much. (Well, strictly speaking, sometimes, they do talk to me and doff the tiny fedoras. It’s “G’day, Brother Hubbard” and off they go. Those are the days that I stop at one bottle of red wine.) Only we humans give names. Is it that we have to name everything in order to remember where or what it is? The creatures don’t have to do that. They remember a lot, except the squirrel who vacations in my little maple tree. He can only remember that my windowsill is where he smacks the dried treats in order to break off mouthfuls. As far as what he left where? It’s any squirrel’s guess. In spring, leftover buried stuff starts growing in the middle of nowhere.

Yes, I have never seen a cat with post-it notes all through the house. They just go where they need to go and do what they need to do, then go back to that warm place. They don’t call it a ‘warm place’ though. They just ‘prrrrt–m-ow’ and go there. I called it a warm place because I am writing this for human readers and, as might be expected, I needed to add clarity, definition. If there were a pussycat looking over my shoulder just now, he would turn to me with a “Really?” sort of expression, then saunter slowly away. He would step carefully, pretending that he didn’t see what he just saw.

Yeah, yeah. Another grey (or gray) day. I am still working on poems. They suck, I suck..what the hey. It’s okay, I think. Since no one is publishing them and I write them in a digital form, then no trees have to die for misanthropic art. Misanthrophic? Haha. Yeah, the old poems don’t like people very much. I put them in a book for safekeeping. The new ones are changing, becoming stories and I think that is a good thing. I am trying to steer away from rhyme because that is like salt. It adds a wonderful flavour but easily overwhelms meaning. I am trying to stay away from obtuse meaning also because, well, why talk in riddles all the time? Sooner, or later, the audience starts thinking about eating twinkies or having sex with Ryan Gosling and not reading you anymore. Too much work.

Last week, I watched, witnessed several murders, horrific accidents, cars flying in the air, bombs going off, a rape or two, a major financial crime, a bizarre political plot and people just behaving badly. Every day, another dead person, another investigation. I sat on the jury in a dozen kangaroo courts as the inaccurate or wildly incorrect details poured out. It is all too much. Now, I have to slow down on the TV shows. Can’t watch much more if I am to remain a high-functioning human being. The worst of this charade? The bizarre plot and the bomb were not fictional. A lost soul blew up part of downtown Nashville and well-respected constitutional lawyer Trump wobbled forth in antical action. I thought about all of it. How daily life imitates the art we feed ourselves with!

A serious part of today is: It is lockdown and lockout, a submission to l’emission as a replacement for up-close and personal. We are trapped at home with the remote. By inertia, we are drawn to the devil and his moving colours, shapes, his sounds. We can’t help but edge closer. This happens even though we have heard the warnings. It is nearly a platitude to make any remark in dismissive criticism about our television culture. If you are listening, ad nauseum shouts of “Hey, it ain’t helping us!’ fill the air as columns of smoke do from a fire. This is not a good time and not a good place to be.

It is too easy to flip through the parade of horrors and observe each over-decorated float as it passes. It is too easy to settle down amid piles of garbage. I see that ‘the vast wasteland’ is alive and unwell, unhealthy for us. My gut feeling is that the Maury Povich Show, The Nightly News, The Apprentice, Family Feud, re-runs of The Beverly Hillbillies or nearly any Netflix series have broken our culture complete. Nuance and reflection are become archaic words that no one understands anymore. We have no depth and we accept that as a way to live. We are numbing ourselves to cacaphony. We are losing faith, losing perspective. It has to come to an end. We will, otherwise.

The very last thing to do is to try getting the garbage flow to stop with legislation. Thumping bibles and threatening retribution are only a part of the play that must end. The only reasonable response to the rythmic assault is to turn away, on our own. It has to be my choice NOT to turn on the box, my choice to go for a long walk, my choice to walk away and stay away until the sellers of so-called art or so-called ideology revamp their wares. They will, it is up to our pocketbooks to dictate. The producers of garbage, need us to consume it. In this oligarchical, crowded west, we still have the freedom to choose.

Yeah. Still, leave an eye open, an ear to the ground…there may be a necessary action to take. These folks in the Brooks Brothers suits are a sneaky bunch. The best thing is to be aware but keep your distance. Don’t let the overflowing sewer soil your better selves. Keep a clean soul. This is a mirage, that plays across the large-screen…it has little to do with really quenching thirst.

There are things I wonder about, don’t know about but don’t get concerned enough about. I don’t do the necessary research. I satisfy myself with my own idea and go on to the next item on my daily list. Today, I wondered about the trees again. They are high on my curiousity agenda. They figure in my poetry almost as if I were Joyce Kilmer (hahahahahahah) “…I think that I shall never see, a thing so lovely as a tree…”

I was just wondering if the winter wind or breezes in general keep the trees flexible? Maybe the constant movement is good for their ‘wood arthritis’? The doctor tells me I should keep moving and I was just curious. It seems certain that if I were holding my arms up all day, every day, my body would seize up completely. That is why I think the wind movement must be good for trees. Now, I am worried. Maybe I have done harm by trying to protect my cedars. I wrapped my two little trees with burlap so that the snow doesn’t make them bend too far and snap. I worried that their sweet little tiny branches would snap like a twig, eventually. Get it? …snap like a twig? Hahahahaha. I am so funny. Anyway, I will be satisfied, thinking that a tree feels the burn when the wind blows. Maybe they drink celery juice through their veins?

Does a squirrel feel the blood rush to his head when it is upside down in the tree? I would for sure. It would feel as though my head were twice the size and I wouldn’t be able to breathe. It is possible that hanging upside down makes the squirrels move so jumpy-like. They twitch because the blood has gone to their heads. It makes me nervous, just to watch them. When I get nervous, I need a beer to calm me down. No beer. I was nervous the other day, because of the police following me and I finished them all. I will have to go outside and grab the squirrel to set him upright or I will have to start baking something to calm my nerves, that works, too.

My neighbour is going out for coffee. He does that on Sunday mornings. He took his skinny legs and his light-footed walk out to his man-truck and drove away. He has remote start for his truck and when there is snow, he starts it up from inside the house. He didn’t do that just now, he got in and started it up. He has a nice beard. When Covid first hit, he didn’t shave or trim for a while and started to look like Rip Van Winkle’s brother, Joe. It was nice. On those days, I watched his beard wiggle in the wind as he walked out to his truck and took off. There is so much lovely in the world. Now, his wife is pregnant (Covid captivity?) and he shaved down to a little sexy beard. He just came back. He forgot his wallet, I guess. Now he is gone again. That was quick.

There are drops of water on the tree that is between my house and my neighbour’s driveway (where he just left from). They are almost thick droplets and dangle from the branches. It looks as though someone didn’t take the Christmas tree down yet. They started the work, because there is no garland or lights, but they didn’t finish. That would be me. I put stuff off a lot. I don’t do all my work. I get easily distracted by figuring things out and being curious but not curious enough to find out the facts. This has been my way, all through life. It is written in the comments section of my first-grade report card. It says: “Robert has a tendency to procrastinate but is otherwise only moderately evil…he didn’t bend the crayons this time.”

I made that last part up a little bit but it was true, sort of. I was bending crayons with my mind (I warmed them in my hand) and entertaining kids one day when I was very young. I was in Kindergarten and enjoying the day. I started by throwing erasers at the other boys and girls. What fun! When the black felt erasers hit, the chalk dust flew up and there was lots of screaming! A total blast of excitement for me until I was captured. Mrs. Trull made me go sit in the ‘quiet place’ and colour as punishment. While I was colouring, she read a story about the Trolls that lived under the bridge. I mentioned the similarities between her sur-name and the Trolls’ sur-name. She wasn’t happy. That’s when I demonstrated my psychic skills for the other children and Mrs. Trull demonstrated her tenuous connection with being calm, cool and collected. Whew! I thought I was a goner, that time!

I am not a goner. Not yet. I wasn’t then and I am not today. I am a fatter and a broker and an older, but I am not a goner. I have been trying to bend when the wind blows, so that my arthritis doesn’t get too bad. I will leave the squirrels to their own way of hanging about and stop worrying. I might be a little nervous but I won’t be drinking beer because I drank the beer. I might bake something, though. Yeah. That won’t be helpful if I want to be skinny, like my neighbour. I have been trying not to be too obviously curious about what my neighbour is up to, so that I don’t get sent to the ‘quiet place’ and have to bend crayons with my mind again.

What would the subject of a New Year’s Day blog be? Should I fill the blank space before me with platitudes? Those platitudes being dusted, polished and recycled from last year and the previous? Should I speak to the moment at all? This day is, after all, only a day in the life. There have been many days and will likely be at least a few more. More for you, too. The sun came up, sort of. The coffee pot fired on the first pull. I drew my robe up against a bit of chill. I ate something light for breakfast and am ready for what comes in the next shorted day’s while. I am as ready as I can be, all my weaknesses notwithstanding. That every day is a new beginning, that I am grateful for this fresh start is not necessary to relate. It isn’t necessary but is sure a good thing to do. My gratitude is a reminder to me, a reminder to you. Yup. There is time, yet. Keep pulling a smile up out of your worn and thirsty boots!

We still have a couple puffs of the not-quite-exhausted air to take in, some sunlight above that sneaks a ray down through the constant clouds. I know it’s up there, yes. In the immediate, a remaining drop or so of clean, refreshing water awaits our parched tongue of a heart. We are weary, but that is always true. Moving from one day to the next takes a lot more of us than we usually realize. My best view is that In the main, 7 billion or so will be here for the day, doing what we are able. Not all of us have been killed and we who survived the night have our work set out.

There are dishes to do, floors to sweep, dinners to cook. We have all of that. There is a good looking young someone, somewhere, waiting for your surreptitious survey. You know the kind of casual survey that awakens the eye with another’s beauty? That kind of ‘survey’. Ha. Any gentle walk through the world reveals a thousand brightnesses, a plethora of futures. I passed a hand-lettered, blue-painted sign on my way to buy a ready-made cup of tea. Someone had a baby, a boy baby. Down the street further, a house festooned in pink balloons. Pretty ordinary expressions of joy at the gender of a new person, both. Who cares? It was joy, it was expectation, it was anticipation, it was tomorrow and the tomorrows to come, dancing on the end of balloon strings.

Maybe for you there is a caring spouse or children? A new job to start? A finished paint job to admire? A song in your heart that is making it’s way to your fingers and your voice? Maybe you will fill with joy today? For a moment? Someone will, that is certain and it might as well be you. The idea of joy, our own or another’s is lovely, I think we could all do with a share in that. I lift on your joy, you on mine, we are together. Ha. There is the other side, it is ready, too. The down side of living is only the same downside waking to the world ever has. It could go miserably awry, all of it. Every bit. Yeah. There is that. Covid slept peacefully through the night and Trump woke to a sumptious breakfast of big Mac and fries, maybe a super-size chocolate shake. There is danger, evil on every slippery step of the way downtown. A big black dog’s bark can be vicious at times. I have seen this. He is on the next block, probably. I know you know this as well.

Today, grey new year’s day — I shall cross the street to avoid the dog. He will have to run through traffic to get me and I really don’t think he’s that stupid. He is clever, patient, he can wait for a facile occasion to swipe at me. I know he will. He will get me one day sooner than I wish for. If I stop to think about it, to listen well, I can hear those sharp teeth snapping. Today, I choose not to stop and listen for snarling danger. I choose to continue.

Whatever we are still able to do this morning, remains to be done. Anything could happen, we do cut a break sometimes. There will be a piece of cheery cherry pie one day when you least expect it. My friend in England has a few more delicious pop tunes to write, whether the black dog is waiting or not. I can look forward to hearing those tunes. It is a new day and I owe myself an equal helping of cheer, I have hope. I feel lucky. I am lucky. I hope I stay lucky for a while. I hope you are lucky, too! Let’s try our luck with a nice, relaxing walk through today. Hmmm?

Congratulations!

Just made it! Whew! We are now at a few days past the shortest day of the year, the longest night (Lat. 42 Lon. -82.). That statement could also be made in a metaphorical sense. With Trump near the end of his mind-numbing reign as a foreground figure, the days are growing longer and we are tilting back toward the sun. Colour returns to Pepper-Land, everything, or some stuff, is looking up. The promise of a vaccine for the China-flu lies before us. With gratitude, I offer my sigh of relief. That the future is looking better, you would never guess by the relentless back and forth whining of the mass media. “It’s always something..” as Rosanne Rosannadanna might say. Well yes, it is always something. Today, it is cold.

It is a bone-chilling cold and a steely grey sky outside my little barely-warm place. I shiver. What cold I feel is not that deep February chill, it’s more the ‘about to do the freezing rain bit’ kind of low temperature. It has been said that In the far north, folks have a bunch of different words for snow. The words are very particular to the kind of snow. It turns out that it isn’t quite true…the truth is that there are a bunch of different languages and they have blended at times so that it appears there are ’50 different names for snow. We do need a special word for today, something better than lengthy descriptive phrases. Maybe ‘pfreeze’, meaning pre-freeze? ‘.

In the far-north, there are many different kinds snow, they are the same different kinds of snow that near-north English describes. I discover this with a Google search. I am chagrined. It was a poetic idea, thinking about multiple variations, multiple single word descriptions of the snow’s quality, something that would encapsulate…’crisp, more crisp, super-crisp, soft, more soft, super-puffy…etcetera. It gave me a sense of how the Inuit are much more connected to their environment than we might be. That fits with my world-view, my stead-fast liberalism, my ‘snow-flake’ belief system. Inuit are inherently good…europeans, bad colonialists. Truth be told, Inuit aren’t necessarily more righteous, I see them whizzing across the tundra on snow machines. More truth? Europeans aren’t necessarily evil. We are equal in human strength, human weakness. We have an equal number of faults and an equal number of names for faults.

Long ago, I saw a movie called ‘Smilla’s Sense of Snow’, based on a book named ‘Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow’. The advertisments and trailers for the film suggested the idea of multiple, more accurate descriptions of snow. It promised that the film would have a certain depth, a certain poetry. Turns out the movie was just about killing and fucking and tracking someone through the wilderness, like all of our movies are now. It did have an interesting snow-twist and some nice location scenes, but… (It also cost 35 million to make and earned 23 million at the box office…oooops)

All of the above notwithstanding, it is kinda chilly today. Looks nasty out. I shall attempt not to warm myself with a nice hot donut and cup of chocolate or a piece (large) of warmed up apple pie. There are, indeed, fifty words for fat…

December 29, 2020

I watched birds for a while this morning. There was a thin film of ice on the marina’s stilled, environmentally protected water and several gulls huddled out of a light wind there. They weren’t sitting on the dock, warming themselves in the bright sun? What odd creatures they are. Skinny legs, puffed breasts, tucked in wings, my thought is that the poor things aren’t well escaping the cold. Why do they hang out, sitting on the ice? Is it a form of protest? Do they intend to sit there in silence until all birds are free? Are they protesting Thanksgiving in support of their turkey friends? Have they got a good game of telepathic bingo going on? (It must be telepathic, I heard nothing.) I wonder that because, on occasion a gull will fly up jubilant and circle the group. “BINGO!” Maybe that isn’t why. It could be not. The upward jump may have a more practical purpose. If my bum were parked on the ice, I wouldn’t last long before I took to the air and warmed myself with some good ‘ol wing flapping.

The feathered ones weren’t social distancing, as they were a day before. That day, they were lined up in a single file across the floating dock, about three feet apart. For birds, a little less space is required than for us larger creatures. Their wheezing, half-teabag sized lungs only spread droplets a few inches. They can cough at will without raising a wing to cover it and I haven’t seen that they can touch their faces, so must not need to be concerned about repeatedly washing bony feet. As proof of that supposition, I saw no bony feet sanitizers, no signs in bird-speak-squawk warning of the possibility of an uncaptured cough spreading disease. I saw no signs threatening legal repercussions or barring entry to the unmasked, either. I noticed not whether one bird arrived after another left, keeping the number of parked birds at an ideal. I guess Leamington Marina dock is the Walmart or big-box store for birds? The remaining unfrozen seaweed and tiny fish mean that the Marina is an essential service sort of thing.

These gathered birds were paused in a good sized group but they WERE outdoors, on the dock. It had to be uncomfortable a little, I saw no portable heaters, gas or electric. There were no plastic igloos. I didn’t witness it but I have to assume there was drinking going on since there was a bit of open water and that’s how birds are. They are indiscriminate about drinking, being the sort of beasts/creatures who follow the moment, who seek liquid pleasure where it can be found. They probably consume marijuana gummies as well but I haven’t seen that, either. Today, I imagined I could even hear a bit of rock music, the sexy kind, going on. Yes, I am sure of it…the open water of the lake splashed up on the tumbled stone jetty rhythmically.

I thought about what the birds would do if the police arrived to break up the party. Being able to take to air and rise up out of the reach of uniformed predators would be magnificent. My fine friends might be capable of such a facile escape. It isn’t often that you see a viral video on Facebook of birds being whacked on the head with a wooden baton or tasered, no gif’s of them being shoved rudely into a paddy wagon. It does happen, I am certain of that, since that is what happens to us if we don’t toe the line. In the case of assembled birds misbehaving, the police reaction doesn’t seem to be ‘news’. I did a Google search for birds having to defend themselves and found nothing beyond a few comedy film clips. There was nothing about marching birds carrying signs. Perhaps the Conservatives have squelched this information. I don’t trust them at all. There is a blue wave of misinformation and confusion traveling the world. It is the true ‘deep state’ at work and what happens to our bird friends just one further element of their evil plan. Today, as I watched my shivering friends gather illicitly, I wanted to shout “FREE DONALD!” (Duck, I mean..not the other one.)

A Great Start For a Monday

Oh, the days, the long and fruitful days, (when butchered prose gets caught, in my throat sideways)… haha. It is with sub? human effort that the keyboard resounds of clicking and scratching noises. I have to force my fingers across the little plastic pieces that are physically connected to some of the electronics. I am a rut. Not in.

My job as overseer to the laneway has morphed into something awful. At first benign, my interest is now morbid. During this latest lockdown, i’ve little that is required of me to do. In the absence of any more worthy effort, I sit and notice things. I see, I know, I tell. I have to blab, now that the Mayor has released her firm grip and has some sort of grippe. She did grouse a bit when I cheerfully greeted her a day or two ago but she cannot gripe. She is wearing a mask. To get the laneway management done, it is up to me and whom am I to speak of the goings on about the area? Has M. Trudeau annointed me Governor General? No, he has not. It would require effort on my part to obtain privelege and position. I haven’t spent the time or money to inquire of the PMO about possibilities. Nothing has been granted. I stand alone and …Je me souviens! Next time there is an election…

In the meantime, I watch as any Mr. Ordinaire might do. It should be a casual overview. It is more serious. I approach old age and, as an elderly wanna be, I am reduced in everything but curiousity. That is all left remaining to me. I am a mere resident, a no-person, a non-ya business provocateur. I blend in with the community background, yet questions come to fore: Where is M. Pussycat? What is my neighbour doing? Why all the pounding and hammering? What is the source of the low hum noise? Shall I stick my head outdoors again? Where is sneaky-walk guy – in jail? Does that squirrel indeed have on a tiny hat? Hmmmm.

There are, of late, no pussycats where there were several. What happened, was it a mass migration? The squirrel is not wearing a hat, gloves, shoes or anything sensible. Why not? My youthful neighbour was not off for work until 8 a.m. after which time, he quickly returned. Has he been covided out, fired…is he just taking time off to work on his construction project? What is he building? Where does the Mayor sneak off to? Who is the ‘dog fancier Lady’ with the illegal fence? Is it going to rain or snow? Is any of this Gladys’ business? “Why, no..” comes the answer. Is there something I haven’t eaten yet? Yes. More coffecake.