Happy New Year from Falling Downs

I have to say, that year kinda sucked. But you have to make the best of it. We had a white Christmas but it's looking pretty green for the new year. There's so much melt-water the creek is near its all-time highs. You can hear the creek from the front porch. Right now we're fighting to stay awake till the midnight hour. It's a losing battle once you hit senior citizen status. It's coming down to setting the alarm so you can wake up and crack the champagne. Happy New Year!

Trump tax filings reveal rich people pay no taxes

Well there's a shocker! Who knew? Lose an imaginary billion here or there, and that's written off against real income in perpetuity! The US tax code truly is a thing of wonder. After all, it was tax lawyers who wrote it and revise it, ensuring it meets the needs of the best and the brightest who naturally rise to the top in the American meritocracy. Here's what's extra special. Legions of thousand-dollar-per-hour and up legal wizards have been duking it out over Trump's tax filings for about seven or eight years now. Donald Trump made billable hours great again!

Montana not a libertarian utopia after all

There's a lot to be said for Big Sky living. The views are amazing. There's hunting and fishing right out your door. Eight-year-olds can open carry... well, not sure that's true. But here's what I found out today. I'm watching this Montana real estate porn, and they're trying to find a property for a guy who plans to do a lot of snowmobiling. They show him this beauty place in the mountains. Nothing but deep powder for miles. The perfect world for a $40k mountain sled, and they say you can get five or six months of sledding up in the hills. Then the real estate agent says, "You're really close to the trails here. You don't have to trailer very far at all." Trailer? WTF? Around here you don't trailer anywhere. You can live in a condo in town, fire up your sled in the parking lot, and off you go! They don't believe in gun control, but you gotta trailer your sled to the official snowmobile trail? Get outta here!

Journalism or propaganda?

On Wednesday Global Affairs Canada issued a news release, in concert with the governments of Sweden, Ukraine and the UK, condemning Iran and demanding justice for the victims on flight PS752, the Ukrainian airliner shot down by Iranian missiles minutes after take-off from Tehran on January 8, 2020, resulting in the deaths of all 176 aboard. The news release runs a couple of hundred words. On Thursday The Globe and Mail reported on the news release. The story starts top left of the front page and gives you another dozen paragraphs on page 4. In a couple of thousand words it sheds no light on what may have transpired that day, but dwells on the suffering of the victims’ families and the odious malevolence of the Iranian regime. So what else was going on in Iran on January 8? While the Globe story doesn’t mention it, that was a dangerous day in Tehran. The Iranians had fired a barrage of cruise missiles at American military bases in Iraq that day, payback for the American assassination of Qasem Soleimani the previous week. That brazen hit, completely beyond the pale under international law, was authorized personally by America’s gangster-in-chief at the time, Donald Trump. So who can blame the Iranians for being a little jumpy? They were expecting imminent retaliation for the missile attack that killed no one but allegedly left over 100 US personnel with traumatic brain injuries. Shooting down a passenger airliner by mistake under those circumstances seems more than plausible. Oddly enough, that was also the excuse when the Americans shot down Iranian flight 655 in 1988, a passenger airliner, killing all 290 persons on board. These facts would have been considered essential in establishing context in the old days when The Globe and Mail used to do journalism. Now that they’ve re-invented themselves as a propaganda organ for American Exceptionalism, it’s become more important to avoid context.

Living Big Sky: is Montana the last refuge for white people?

Living Big Sky is basically a promo for the state of Montana. A relative newcomer in the genre of real estate porn, it draws its audience from people who fantasize about mountain views and fresh air. The Farm Manager has been binge-watching Living Big Sky, and I can see why. One rustic mountain horse farm after another. Every place has fresh air and mountain views and a rustic homestead. They're really big on rustic in Montana. We'd head on out ourselves if it wasn't for the grand-kids. I'm not binge-watching this schlock myself, but I'm binge-adjacent you could say, so I'm kinda following things. After about 12 episodes I enquire, have you seen any Black people yet? The FM is way more progressive than me. She ponders my query for a long moment, and realizes, to her horror, that she has been bingeing on a show that excludes Black people. Relax, I tell her. There's no Black people in a show about Montana because there's hardly any Black people in Montana to begin with. You can't exclude people who aren't there. A few episodes along, we met our first Black person in Montana. He was a real estate broker selling fresh air and mountain-view horse farms... To white people!

Canada needs to grow up

Bob Rae was a socialist once upon a time. Since 2020 he’s been Canada’s ambassador to the UN. Today he gets a half-page spread in The Globe and Mail; “World needs to grow up, Canada’s UN envoy says.” According to Bolshevik Bob, there remains a tendency for “governments to see the world as a chessboard on which national ambitions are played out… a global tendency not particular to Canada or the United States or anyone else.” Maybe so, but there’s only one country that claims to own the chessboard, and that’s the USA. I refer to Zbigniew Brzezinski’s The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. It’s a must read for anyone wanting to make sense of the last 25 years of US foreign policy, right up to the current disaster in Ukraine. While I don’t want to spoil it for you, the “geostrategic imperative” can be summed up thusly; America must strive to maintain full-spectrum dominance of any country or grouping of countries that could potentially threaten its role as global hegemon. America has been striving mightily indeed. After a series of lopsided victories over a string of upstarts (Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria) America is now on the cusp of victory over Putin’s Russia. America’s Ukrainian proxies have dealt the Russians “heavy military blows” and garnered “a groundswell of international opinion on their side.” The reality is that Ukraine is on life-support provided primarily by American tax-payers, and the US-designed sanctions are taking a far greater toll on the economies of America’s allies than they are on Russia. And while just a few more months and a few more hundred billions in weapons may or may not cement our victory, Bob bemoans the fact that this challenge has been more difficult, militarily and economically, than many had expected. It’s sad to see a former man of principle reduced to shilling for American Exceptionalism. Hey Bob, maybe we should do a little growing up before we lecture the rest of the planet.

Pitch for new Netflix series... this one's a winner!

Had this brainwave, not sure where it came from, but outta the blue, I said to the Farm Manager; "you know what would make a good show?" I figure I'd bounce it off her on account she watches Netflix all the time, whereas I rarely get past Al Jazeera and Jay Leno's Garage. "Follow the adventures of a guy who's coming to terms with mortality. You know; one foot on a banana peel an the other foot on the gas as he's steering that Dodge Hellcat down the Alzheimer Highway at 200mph. You could follow him through life as he grapples with one existential crisis after another. The solutions are always readily at hand by he never recognizes them. Instead, he is constantly forced to MacGyver his way out of calamities largely of his own makeing." Yup, I think that could be a winner all right! I'm a planner, not a doer, so I'm not looking for a starring role or anything. But I do have quite a range of story ideas, and could be persuaded to take a consulting role.

Elon Musk and the Great (Twitter) Reset

If you've been paying attention, you've figured out what Musk got for the 44 billions he overpaid for Twitter; the once-in-a-lifetime chance to make the so-called "liberal establishment" poop their collective drawers. Seems our deep state betters have literally been calling the shots at Twitter and the other social media behemoths for years. You've been getting all the news approved by Washington's alphabet soup of spook agencies - and none of the news they'd rather you not see! That's gotta hurt if you're one of the gullible who still believe, against all evidence, that mainstream media are committed to truth and transparency. There's way too much sewage bubbling to the surface now for the gate-keepers to hold it back. Alas, it's a mistake to assume that Musk is a fresh broom sweeping out the "deep state." Musk is himself an integral part of the show. He's the point-man for a deep state rebranding exercise. What, you thought an outsider was going to be allowed to take over the privatized US space program? Not likely!

Motorists are encouraged to avoid driving on roads that are closed

I saw that scroll by at the Ontario 511 website when I was checking out road conditions. The condition of roads across Grey and Bruce counties at this moment is they're all officially closed. Apparently that doesn't prevent folks from driving on closed roads. Hence the pleading title. We're about 24 hours into the Christmas Blizzard of '22. Cops are out on snowmobiles ferrying supplies to stranded motorists. How about you ferry them to the clink and tow their cars to the impound lot instead. Maybe that would impress on these folks that closed means stay off. Seems like we're rewarding foolish behavior. We didn't see any traffic go by here till mid=afternoon, when a three car convoy crawled by with their four-way flashers on. The storm has changed a lot of holiday plans, but what can you do? We lost power for four hours today, and then you can do even less. I pulled a chair to the window and spent the afternoon watching the storm. It's just like a live webcam, but it's for real!

The Toronto 8; teen girl gang kills man for bottle of booze

We're getting down to motive in the sordid Toronto case of the 59 year old homeless man knifed to death by a gaggle of teens. Seems there was an altercation over a bottle of booze. Perfectly understandable then... after all, it seems a clear breach of human rights to deny alcohol to teenagers. As a veteran high-school teacher, I've gleaned some insights into teens and booze. Overall, I'd say teens and booze is not a positive combo. It seldom ends well. Although there are exeptions. I recall one of my students showing up well before class, in distress bordering on hysteria. "Oh Mr. Neumann, I'm going to jail," she wailed. "I don't know what to do!" I tried to calm her and get to the bottom of the story. Seems she and another teen girl had befriended an older chap and persuaded him to procure them a little something from the liquor store. Mission accomplished, but then the unlucky older chap thought he might get lucky and insisted on accompanying his new teen friends back to their home. Then he wouldn't leave. "So what could I do, Mr. Neumann?" she sobbed. "I smashed him in the head with a bottle and he fell down the stairs. Then the ambulance came, and the police. Now I'm going to jail because I'm already on probation... WHaaaAW!!!" Let's think this through, kid. Buddy buys booze for under-age girls, then sexually harrasses them. They beat him up. What do you think he's gonna tell the cops?

The Holy Grail of air defense systems goes to Ukraine

The news readers at CBC have been referring to the Patriot missile system in those terms. Yup, the "Holy Grail" of anti-missile missile defence. One of the few places where Patriots see action is in Saudi Arabia, who have invested billions in this anti-missile missile system. The result? The towel-heads 'o terror they are fighting over there in Houti-land, who are marginally less primitive than the Taliban who ran the US Army out of Afghanistan, routinely manage to get missiles past the Holy Grail of air defense systems. Hard to imagine this is going to be a game-changer. A single Patriot battery requires three tractor-trailers to move it, and a crew of 90, who require extensive training. It most likely won't arrive before this war is over, and if it does, it won't last a week. But at least Zelensky was able to go home and talk about a successful trip to plead for more weapons from the people who pushed this war on him.

Stupified by our own stupidity

I see where the latest off-broadway production in democracy theatre has ended its run. The Jan 6 show was an embarrassing attempt to promote the twin theses that a) America is a democracy, and b) Donald Trump remains a grave threat to said democracy. First of all, America's democracy bona fides are somewhat lacking. This is not democracy. This is a leadership clique comprised of the best and the brightest of career politicians and the best and the brightest in tech, academia, big business, and the military-industrial complex looking to curry favour. "Best and brightest" is of course a euphemism for best funded and favoured by the Davos crowd. In other words, the textbook definition of a fascist state. If the American public can't see that, what else can't they see? A lot of them haven't even figured out Trump is just part of the show. Nor have they figured out that the Zelensky fever that engulfed the free world these last 10 months has been a PR campaign of epic proportions, run by folks who otherwise might be coaxing you to buy a Toyota or a Big Mac. It's all PR and bullshit, folks, brought to you by the usual crowd of corrupt corporate lobbyists shilling for the Big Five defense contractors. The defence lobbyists even sponsored a party at the Ukr embassy in Washington last week. Why not? Ukraine's war has been an absolute bonanza for them! For Ukraine, not so much.

Count your blessings, not your grievances

It's sad how the default mode for too many of us has become that we focus on our grievances rather than our blessings. I see that in my own life, and more than likely you've been there too. You've been denied a promotion, or you didn't get that contract, or that grant, or that tenure-track opportunity... life's not fair! No, it isn't. But life is life, and you can fight it or make peace with it. Injustice abounds, and we must push back at every opportunity. At the same time, if you have a job that pays the bills, if you have a roof over your head, if you and yours enjoy decent health, remember to count your blessings too.

Every woman wants a man who sits down to pee

I gleaned that nugget of wisdom from the Farm Manager this evening. Apparently, men are notorious for spraying all over the place when they stand up to pee, and for some mysterious reason, linked in some unspecified way to patriarchy, it falls to women to clean the bathroom. It's not that mysterious unless the person cleaning the bathroom is also the person shovelling the driveway, mowing the lawn, etc. From my personal perspective, I find that as I get older, I need to pee more often, but it can take some time to get anything going. Who wants to stand there that long? So I take the opportunity to sit down and relax, and catch up on some of those Atlantic magazines that came the year my dear daughter got me an Atlantic subscription as a birthday gift. It's a win-win.

Something angry is blowing in

Stepped out on the stoop a moment ago, for a breath of fresh air, and the sky was raging. There's an angry wind blowing in. The prelude to a storm that promises us a good dose of freezing rain and snow over the next 48 hours. Then again, maybe the "angry wind blowing in" is just a metaphor for what's facing America in the not-too-distant future. The charade of American Democracy hangs by the thinnest of threads. As more Americans wake up and see what their country has become, support for the status quo will continue to diminish. American polls by American experts have proved time after time that Americans don't trust their major institutions, especially the media. Hope lives!

Progress marches on: soft-close toilet seats

Until this week, I had no idea there was such a thing as a soft-close toilet seat. Now I'm proud to say I own one! Perhaps I shouldn't be so boastful. Maybe they've been around for 20 years, and I'm not the early adapter I think. In my world, toilet seats were affixed with a couple of bolts. It was an exquisitely simple and elegant solution. The lid could be moved up or down according to the needs or preferences of the person doing their business. Problem was, when you dropped the seat, gravity took over, causing a jarring noise completely incompatible with a proper bathroom zen experience. Hence, the soft-close toilet seat. Alas, whilst installing this technical marvel, I couldn't help but notice that 2 bolts have been replaced by a "soft-close hinge" which has at least two dozen parts. Little bitty parts mostly made of plastic with some wee springs in there as well. What could go wrong? I suppose the good news is gravity will still be available when those itty-bitty springs lose their spring. The bad news? A society that invests money and brain-power on innovations such as the soft-close toilet seat, while its education and health-care systems are on the verge of collapse, is a society that has its priorities askew.

Zen, sh!t, and bathroom renos

It's been an up and down couple of days here at Falling Downs, largely on account of the impromtu bathroom reno I embarked on, what seems like six months ago. Yesterday I was close to a heart attack, or possibly a suicide attempt, when we suddenly found there was no water pressure, hence no water coming out the taps. I immediately assumed this calamity was on me. After all, I've been making "plumbing improvements" for several weeks now. Turns out a running toilet drained the water tank and one or the other of the electronic gizmos that regulate water pressure was out of breath. An hour later, having caught their breath, we were back in business! But I have to say, that was one of the most stressful hours in my life. I was calling around to find local motels that take Neopolitan mastiffs. And I was sweating bullets on breaking the news of my latest screw-up to the Farm Manager. That scare bumped "new toilet" to the top of the priority list. Headed in bright and early to pick up the new one the FM picked out at the Home Depot website. They allegedly had 24 of the favoured model in stock, aisle 34. An hour later, I'm back home. Picked up a Globe and Mail on the way and fixed myself breakfast. Then a leisurely read-through of the Globe. Pretty much a waste of $4.20. Around noon I thought I'd best get to the task at hand. No rush after all; right on the box of my Glacier Bay toilet it tells me it's a ten minute installation. I know that's bullshit. It's gonna take me at least an hour, maybe two. You gotta wonder how "Glacier Bay" became the name of a toilet brand. Obviously marketing experts were involved. Shlepped the 129 pound toilet into the house, only to discover, ten minutes into the unpacking, the toilet bowl was shattered! Back to Home Depot. A round trip runs over an hour just in drive time, plus however long you spend in the store. They were good about the refund. I go for another toilet. Find a worker to help me load it on the cart. I explain I just returned the one I bought this morning, and if he doesn't mind, could we open the box and make certain this one is intact. It was in multiple shards, way more shards than my first purchase. Third time lucky, I finally get the new unit back to Falling Downs around 2 pm. Ten minute installation? It was 8 by the time I advised the FM that she wouldn't have to pee in that 5 gal Home Depot bucket I picked up just in case. I know! Am I a sensitive guy or what? While this did mightily please the FM, it also brought me to higher levels of understanding and wisdom. I learned that the FM wants her bathroom to be a "zen space," which makes you feel good whenever you're there. To me, a bathroom is just a place to take a dump and have a shower. I felt more than enough zen in the old bathroom, even with the drippy taps and the running toilet.

Talking to Bev

When I was negotiating the sale of a couple of surplus parts cars to a scrap dealer, I was told to call Bev at the tow company. I call the number. A dude answers the phone. "Can I speak to Bev please." "This is Bev, how can I help you?" Momentary pause. "Oh sorry Bev, my mistake... " Next day Bev rolls up in a big drop-deck unit. He's a rotund middle age dude. I apologize again for having thoughtlessly misgendered him. "Sorry man. I guess it's like that Johny Cash song. Did having a girly name make you stronger?" "Actually, it worked out pretty good. When I was in high school, girls would tell their parents they're going to Bev's place to study for the test. That went way better for me than it did for any of my buddies."

What trading a basketball player for an arms dealer says about US-Russia power dynamics

What it says to me is that one side holds a significantly more potent hand than the other. This exchange is a symbolic manifestation of American decline. Americans generally won’t notice. After all, every American knows Putin is evil, and freeing a Black lesbian from the clutches of an evil homophobic dictator can be sold to the US public as a triumph of Western values. You know; democracy, human rights, freedom of speech… all that good stuff that our ruling elite squelch at home but promote abroad. PM Fluffy is all for anti-government protests in Iran and China, but God forbid, not in freedom-loving democratic Canada. By all accounts, the Russian arms dealer was a serious person. He made serious money arranging the delivery of serious weapons to a variety of the enemies of Western values, resistance groups all over the world. The American basketball player was just a basketball player. This exchange occurs in the shadow of the US/NATO-Russia war in Ukraine. Western media have assured us Ukraine has been winning this war since February. It is considered impolite in the American vassalsphere to question that fundamental truth. After all, we have been treated non-stop to reportage praising the many glorious imaginary victories of the UAF. They drove the Russians out of Kyiv and Kharkiv and Kherson. They have the momentum! Momentum or not, their geography has shrunk by 20% and their GDP by 40%. How is that “winning?” How is that momentum? Ukraine lost this war in February. The collective “West,” the aforementioned vassalsphere, orchestrated by Washington, has invested many billions of dollars in keeping it going. If our US masters, leaders of the “free world,” trade a basketball player for an international arms trafficker, I’m reading weakness on the cusp of disintegration. American exceptionalism and the empire it spawned are well past their stale date. Canadians should consider how tightly they want to tie their ship of state to an empire in obvious decline.

My kids already know I'm a slob, so why would I tidy up on their account?

The Farm Manager and I have found ourselves on opposite sides of the question; do you tidy the house when the kids are coming over? To me, the answer is clear and clear-cut. My kids know I'm a guy who has a jar of pickles and three bottles of beer in the fridge and nothing else. They know Dad's vacuum cleaner stalled out before they were born. They know Dad's place and they know Dad never puts on a show. What you see, three bottles of beer and a jar of pickles, is what you get. On top of a generous diet of KFC and Mickey D of course. On the other side, the FM will spend days tidying up the joint if kids are dropping in. Who does she think she's fooling?

Man electrocuted by heated car seat

The Owen Sound Sun-Times reports that one Gustav Wagner has succumbed to injuries from an electrical fire in his car. In a scenario reminiscent of Adam Sandler's famous song, "Piece of Shit Car," the seat springs poked him in the balls just as he experienced some routine bladder leakage on account of his enlarged prostrate. Unfortunately for Mr. Wagner, unlike in Adam Sandler's day, cars now come with "heated" seats. Electrified seats, in other words. Can you say "electric chair?" After reading that, you can bet I'm gonna pay the extra for the shock-proof adult diapers.

What World Cup fans in Doha have in common

Aside from being football fans, what they have in common is they can afford the discretionary expenditure of several thousand dollars. Even when they come from the poorest countries in the world, where the vast majority of the populations live in grinding poverty. That goes double for the many fans from the poorest countries, where folks live on $2 a day, who are chilling in Doha for the duration. They're spending tens of thousands, and often hundreds, to stay in five star hotels for the entire month of the competition. The World Cup may be the pinnacle of the beautiful game, but for those who actually found their way to Qatar this is just another circus for rich people. Another thing they have in common is they're not easily swayed by appeals to social justice. So Qatar cancels gays and treats foreign workers as slaves? No worries! The Beautiful People demand the show go on.

How to have fun while embracing decrepitude

My old pal Kipling gave a ring the other day, so we could coordinate the next breakfast at the Teviotdale truck stop. We got around to comparing notes on the toll the years are taking. He recently fell off a storage bin he was filling with firewood. Hasn't been able to lift his left arm over his head since. Time to let go of the dream of operating a muffler shop, I guess. For my part, between the eye surgery and the shakey hands, my bathroom reno looks way different than the last bathroom reno I did 30 years ago. It's taking three times as long too. You mighta been a git-r-done kinda guy somewhere in the past, if only in your imagination, but once the get up and go has got up and left it seems to take forever to get nothing much done. So where's the fun in all this? "Fun" is perhaps too glib a word. But you can get a lot of satisfaction out of staying the course, never giving up, learning from your mistakes, keeping your nose to the grindstone and the pedal to the metal, and 101 other cliches. Point is, at our age we win just by being here, so let the fun times roll... Savor and celebrate! Just book your hip replacement early.

Lesson #1 for the elderly: never trust a fart

You know you're getting old when you can't trust a fart. Time was, you could rip 'em forth on demand. Farting was, at root, a competitive sport, at least for guys. I saw this play out during my career as a high-school sports coach. Take a bus trip with the boys soccer team, and the lads were constantly one-upping one another with the lethality of their farts. On the girls bus they didn't fart half as much, and when they did, it didn't smell near as bad. So you grow up confident in your ability to fart at will. You can even use a well-timed fart to make a political statement. Drop something silent but violent at the next all-candidates meeting just when the Green candidate is speaking and see what happens. I'm pretty sure that's what derailed their last couple of leadership hopefulls. Then you get old. You find yourself in a place where farting isn't just fun and games anymore. You're at that all-candidates meeting thinking you're making a political statement, and whoopsie... What's that running down my leg?