When spastic twitching devoured pop culture

Don't quote me on this, but I think it was in the Jimmy Carter era. The seventies are a blurr to me, for the most part. There I was, hanging out with a gang of religious wankers who had reinvented themselves as "Jesus People." Early 70's had a lot of hippy-dippy shit going on. We were still recovering from the death of the sixties. We didn't want to believe Altamont had put paid to "the revolotion." Oh ya, all the true believers believed we were living the revolution! Then the Ramones took to the stage at the presciently named Rainbow in '76, and pop culture has never been the same. But you gotta admit "now I wanna sniff some glue" reset the bar for pop culture. We've been in a never-ending downward spiral ever since.

They'll be snorting fentanyl off your bloated dead belly

Five years ago I posted a blog about retirement. The inexorable slide into decreptitude. As 2018 hobbles towards its ignominious end, it's once again time for a stock-taking of sorts.

The Farm Manager thinks Wiarton might make a nice retirement venue. I was absently driving around the place this morning. There's lots of folks out walking those poofy little dogs that retired people get themselves for company. They've probably got family somewhere, but you know how it goes these days; the younger generations are way too busy clawing their way forward in this cutthroat world to make time for their elders. Besides, it's a long drive to Wiarton no matter where you are.

They could fly in, I suppose. The "Wiarton International Airport" is an actual thing, after all. An international airport with exactly zero scheduled flights arriving and departing on any given day. So they'd have to charter a plane, and unfortunately none of the next generation of my acquaintance have thus far clawed themselves forward sufficiently for such an undertaking.

Retirement. I'm not sure it's for me. I try to picture what a day in the life of me (retired) might look like.

Six a.m. - Wake up. Take morning meds. Take poofy dog for walk.  Pick up Globe and Mail at Korean Extortionist's place on way home.

Seven-thirty to tenish - Read Globe and Mail.

Ten till noon - Compose and post pithy rejoinders to whatever twattery I found most objectionable in the Globe. There's almost always something.

Afternoon - The empty hours are upon me. Too soon to visit the liquor store. Too early for a toke, at least if you're harbouring any illusions about doing something useful before nightfall. How many useful things need doing in Wiarton is an open question. There's already a guy wandering around town collecting empties out of recycling bins. There's probably not enough empties to make that worthwhile for both of us. Besides, is that actually "retirement?"

Evening - time to get comfortably numb and reflect on the day. What did I accomplish? I walked the dog and wrote a blog.


Nah!... don't think I'm ready. __________ That was five years ago. Since then I had a detached retina and we all had the Covid thing, and like it or not, I'm retired. So the Farm Manager, on the cusp of retirement herself, is reading out a list of former students currently working in the "long term care" field. We name-checked the list and concluded that if we had the right care-givers, we might enjoy a dignified twilight. On the other hand, if we end up in the care of some of our more marginal charges, they'd be snorting fentanyl off our bloated dead bodies. Well, times sure have changed. All I ask is that when they're snorting stuff off my bloated belly, they're doing it respectfully.

Russia is winning, NATO is losing, Ukraine is paying the price

The “counter-offensive” is approaching its one month anniversary. The Ukrainian casualty count is approaching 100,00 killed and wounded in that time. We are told this is a “success” because Ukraine has “liberated” several hundred square kilometers of occupied territory. We know this to be true because we regularly see pictures of Ukrainian troops hoisting their flag over formerly occupied villages. What we are not told by CBC or The Globe and Mail is that these villages are in the no-man’s-land well outside the forward Russian defensive line. In almost a month of counter-offensive, the Ukrainian forces have failed to reach that line, let alone breach it. The counter-offensive has been a catastrophic failure. It’s time to walk away from the ludicrous “whatever it takes for as long as it takes” rhetoric that has marked Canada’s approach to this war. While our military support has been largely irrelevant, the $8Billion + financial commitment has only served to prolong it. The further we help prolong it, the more Ukrainian conscripts are slaughtered. We are part of the problem that is breathing life into the cliché that NATO intends to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. This policy is costing Ukrainian lives by the thousands. Our NATO game-changing weaponry is being revealed as not fit for purpose. Russia is winning. NATO is losing. Ukrainians are paying the price. Stop the slaughter now!

I almost had to deliver a calf today

Key word is almost. Let me give you some context. This is cattle country. There's not a politician who gets elected in these parts whithout bragging up how many times they delivered a calf by pulling it out of the cow with a necktie. Bill Murdoch would be a prime example. Bill was our MPP for a few hundred years, and he was a lawyer. He was also a beef farmer. To get elected again and again he downplayed the lawyer part and focussed on the many times he had to pull a calf out with his necktie. So I'm sitting on the stoop this afternoon. On the other side of the fence there's fourteen cows, and only four have had their babies. That means there's ten cows gonna pop any day. I've had a couple of beers and fired up the vape for my daily vacation, and I'm hearing all sorts of bawling and moaning and carrying on. That moaning and bawling gets under your skin after a while. Makes it hard to enjoy the vacation. I'm thinking, there's a cow giving birth and she's in distress. I gotta see if I can help out. I know this could be an ugly business. I don't have a necktie handy, so I brace myself for the possibility I may have to reach up a cow's arse, grab whatever I can get hold of, and help it into this world. I climb the fence, and wobble down to the creek in flip-flops and shorts, determined to find the source of all that bawling and moaning. Just before the bridge there's four cows and two calves lying in the shade. No bawling. No moaning. I make my way upstream. I can still hear the ruckus. It's getting louder. I'm getting closer! Finally I spot her, the source of all that bawling and moaning. She's on the other side of the creek. I almost lose my sandals on the treacherous trek over. Oh my god, what's that hanging from her hind end? Wait a minute... that's not a cow... it's a bull! There's something hanging allright; testicles! I walked a quarter mile up the creek to help a bull birth a calf? Needless to say, he didn't need any help. All that bawling and moaning was just a horny bull looking for his next target.

Coup in Russia!

Hearts across Natostan were aflutter this morning at the news that Prigozhin had pulled his Wagner forces out of Ukraine and was marching on Moscow! Let the gloating begin! Unfortunately, we are now advised that, thanks to the intervention of well-known peace-maker Belarus pres Lukashenko, Priggy decided not to take Moscow after all... Putin is no doubt breathing a sigh of relief! I don't know what to think. Prigozhin taking on Moscow is akin to Erik Prince taking on Washington, ie highly unlikely. But one thing is 100% certain; Priggy's alleged coup sure took our minds off the catastrophic failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive. I'm sure there's much more to come.

Long bamboozled by their own bullshit, Uncle Sam's bumboys in Ottawa shocked at China developments

For how long has Canada’s foreign policy been a reflexive “me too” as we ape whatever Washington deems the priority of the moment? From the liberation of Libya to the democratization of Afghanistan, when our DC masters say “jump” we ask only “how high?” We haven’t had a whiff of independent foreign policy since Jean Chretien declined the invitation to join the shock and awe campaign against Iraq. Nowhere have we been keener to follow US dictats than in America’s attempts to provoke war with China. If US-funded NGOs tell us human rights violations are rampant in China, we’ll take their word for it. If Uncle Sam tells us to abduct the CFO of China’s premier telecom company, we don’t even think about asking questions even after the two Michaels get abducted in response. If the US sends Nancy Pelosi and other establishment worthies to Taiwan to piss off China, well, we’re eager to send our own parliamentary delegation just to stand with our allies. If the US insists on sending warships through the Taiwan Strait on “freedom of navigation” missions, the least we can do is send along one of our obsolete frigates. We’ve been doing everything in our obviously limited power to poke China in the eye, because we stand with the Empire of Virtue against the forces of darkness, or something… So it must be quite a shock for the me-too crowd in Ottawa to see Blinken emerge from a brief meeting with Xi and announce that the US isn’t for Taiwan independence after all! Makes me wonder what Xi might have said to the unctuous twat. I’m guessing it was something along the lines of “if you insist on this nonsense we’ll start freedom of navigation missions between Cuba and Florida.” Kinda leaves the ass-kissers in Ottawa up a stump, doesn’t it?

Animals I've seen from the stoop

We have multiple bird-feeders hanging nearby the stoop, so we see birds galore. We get the big boys too, the ones who don't bother with the feeders. Like buzzards, herons, and sandhill cranes. Ducks and geese are so common they're just background noise. Cows, of course. The cow-calf pairs show up in May, and migrate back to their home barn come October. Saw a black bear gamboling along the creek one year. Crossed the road and went into the other pasture where the aforementioned cows were grazing with their babies. That was a sight to behold! The Mama cows split into two groups when Mr. Bear climbed over the fence. One group gathered up the calves while the rest put the run to the bear. Squirrels and chipmunks are a daily occurrence. I think there's also a rat that tries to blend in with them, but the skinny tail gives him away. And never mind seeing raccoons - they've come right up on the stoop to keep me company! Most years you don't see the snapping turtles from here, but every three or four years or so you'll get one burying her eggs right there at the end of the driveway. Usually it doesn't take long for the raccoons to dig them up. But the one thing I've never seen until tonight is a rabbit. I see them often on my daily walks, but I've never actually had one right by the house, but there he was. Which reminds me... it's been a long time since I've seen a coyote.

Blinky goes to China to offer unconditional surrender

Think about it. Is there anyone on Planet Earth who imagines we are negotiating with China from a position of strength? Hell no! If there's one thing the past year of our Ukraine fiasco makes plain, it's that threats from Washington can be ignored. Ya, Uncle Sam's gonna bust your ass and kill your kids if you don't dance to his tune... and while we're still good at killing kids and bombing wedding parties, the reputation of US arms and US power has taken a shit-kicking this past year. There's more and more renegade nations saying "nein danke" to Empire. Now the "free world," aka "the Nations of Virtue," aka EU/US/NATO, aka "Uncle Sam's bumboys," are up a stump. US/NATO training, guidance, and hardware are clearly not up to the job. They've been revealed as worthless for all the world to see. So what's Blinken imagine he might be negotiating, other than surrender?

The best decision my father ever made

When my dad was a boy not yet ten years old, his father had been conscripted into the Wehrmacht and German tanks were heading east through Ukraine. That adventure didn't end well for the German army or for my grandfather, who spent the next five years as a POW. At least he came back alive, which perhaps inspired a maxim my father is still fond of trotting out; things are never so bad that they couldn't be worse. By the end of the war, Germany was a smouldering ruin and Dad was a displaced person (DP) living in a refugee camp in Denmark. That's where he first met my mother. Her father had also been conscripted. He went to the Eastern front and never came home. In the mid 1950's they were married and had a son, me. They had been repatriated to a Germany quite foreign to them, and were considering emigrating to improve their (and my) prospects. At the time, the US Army still had conscription. Canada did not. Having had more than a "Schnauze voll" of all things military, they wisely chose Canada. Thanks, Dad! Happy Father's Day!

Pot-addled hillbilly big in Singapore

In the early days of this blog I often had monthly views getting close to the 10k mark. Then algorithms came along, and it's been a never-ending downward spiral ever since. Apparently I spout a lot of unacceptable opinions that run afoul of the algos. So what the fuck goes on in Singapore? I've been upwards of a thousand looks per day for almost a week now, and a few days over 2k. I'm over 15k on the month and it's only half over! That's by a wide margin the best numbers this blog has seen. What gives? I don't want to annoy ya with my paranoia, but I figure it's probably the RCMP using a Singapore-based server to go through the blog with a fine-tooth comb and build a case to deport me back to Germany. But that's just a theory. Just in case it turns out to be true, I should go over to the Deutsche Welle site and tuck into some German language lessons, since I've been an English speaker for well over fifty years.

Doing the Woke Watusi right

On page B7 of today's Globe and Mail there is a full page advert placed by one of Canada's lesser known business schools, Goodman at Brock University. "Congratulations to the Goodman School of Business Class of 2023." And congrats to Brock's ad agency for doing the Woke Watusi right! The ad provides no names with pictures of any grads, but instead has a generic photo of a highly diverse (3 women 1 guy, at least 3 of the four "grads" are non-white) group of supposed graduates. That's a damned fine look in the Age of Woke; here at the Goodman School of Business we're 75% female and 75% BIPOC! Meanwhile, on B5 we find a full page ad from Ivey Business School at Western, rated by Bloomberg as the top business school in all of Canada. The folks at Ivey want to brag up Canada's top entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, they chose to provide names and photos of their Class of 2023 top entrepreneurs, and talk about an epic diversity fail! 41 photos. 10 women and 31 dudes, one of whom is non-white. Over 75% male and 97.5% white isn't a good look at all! Western obviously remains mired in institutionalized systemic racism!

Urban planning destroys cities

I know I'm going contra the prevailing wisdom here, but it seems to me that city planners and the entire urban planning cult have succeeded in totally fucking up what might have been a lot of fine cities, had they been allowed to grow organically. Instead, we turned things over to a new crew of university-educated experts. That was the fatal mistake. The highwater mark in the Canadian context was when U of T brought in planning guru Richard Florida. Here was a world class urban planning theorist deigning to bless us with his insights! Oh, he's had some great theories about how the new creative classes will blah blah blah, but the fact is Toronto's livability quotient has done nothing but go downhill since he arrived. I think what cities need to flourish is a little less planning. There are signs we may be shifting in that direction. Many jurisdictions are loosening zoning bylaws. You'll soon be able to put up a sixplex on a lot previously zoned as single family. Everybody except the immediate neighbours agrees that's a good thing. Here's another policy I'd like to see implemented. In the post-war period when suburbs took off, you had 900 sq ft homes built on 50' lots. Over the years, lots got smaller and houses got bigger. Now we're building 3000 sq ft Mcmansions on 30 foot lots. In between we built a lot of houses that are simply too large for young families and too expensive to buy. A four-bed four-bath Mcmansion from 1990 could relatively easily become four housing units. As an added bonus, because such a policy change would greatly reduce the capital required to become a landlord, entrepreneurs from marginalized communities would soon be joining the ranks of real estate millionaires! That fact should get the diveristy-equity-inclusion crowd behind this idea. After all, we're just recycling history. Once upon a time, prosperous merchants built large brick homes close to the commercial core of their towns. When the town grew too hectic the prosperous merchants moved to the countyside, and their city homes were subdivided into apartments. Look at the Kensington Market neighbourhood for example. That's repeated in cities all over the land. We've adapted to housing crises before, we'll handle them again. Just leave the urban planners out of the equation.

Trudeau flees to Ukraine in desperate bid to escape stench of "Chinese interference" fiasco

While Trudeau pal David Johnston was busy falling on his sword and walking away from his "special rapporteur" role, Justin was nowhere to be seen... Oh look! There he is... in Ukraine! Alas, Churchill-Mandela Zelensky seems to have bigger fish to fry, as he apparently didn't have time for a photo-op with Fluffy. We know this because otherwise CBC would have prominently featured such evidence of the close brotherly bond between the two dynamic leaders. Zelly is no doubt deep in a bunker, surrounded by battlefield maps, plotting every move in the most-anticipated counter-offensive in the history of warfare. Judging by the many images of destroyed Leopard tanks floating around the internet, the counter-offensive seems to be off to a slow start. This is bad news not just for Ukraine, but for the entire democratic world. It was just a few days ago that the main editorial in The Globe and Mail reminded us that we in the freedom-loving Nations of Virtue, owe an immense debt of gratitude to the selfless Ukrainian troops giving their lives so that we may continue to live free. Unfortunately, Zelensky can't run this war on gratitude alone; he needs weapons, weapons, weapons, and preferably also some ammo to go with them. Under the circumstances, you can see why he might be too busy for a guy who brings nothing but best wishes and a pat on the back, and is clearly using this Kiyv jaunt to burnish his cred back home.

Economists reveal politicians are morons

Ian McGugan has a long-overdue piece in the Globe today about Canada's disasterous immigration policy. Apparently some professors sporting Doctor Phils from prestigeous schools now say what I've been saying for over a decade; that continuously ramping up immigration without investing in the health care and educational infrastructure, let alone the housing to accomodate them, will not end well. Our housing crisis keeps getting worse. The health care system is on the verge of collapse. Too many high school graduates have grade school math skills but outrageously optomistic expectations about what society owes them. Canada's "strategy" going forward is to double down on failed policies. Keep bringing in unskilled labour to do the "dirty jobs" Canadians refuse to do. According to the article 60% of immigrants fall into that category. There's a reason Canadians don't want to do certain jobs. If you're going to live in abject poverty anyway, why bother? You can live in poverty without working! At the same time, those jobs look different if you're a Somali who's spent the last five years living ten to a 10x12 tent in a refugee camp in Kenya. Alas, looking to illiterate fruit pickers and chicken catchers to boost our economy seems a frightfully moronic policy. So, are our politicians morons? Or are they deliberately destroying our country?

Canada sees the rise of mall cities

That's the headline for a story in the real estate section of today's Globe & Mail. Apparently mall owners are developing the space over their malls for condos. What a concept! In the mid-80's I used to have occassional meetings with Joey Wolfond at his office in the basement of the Willow West Mall. That was Guelph's first enclosed shopping mall, and it had been developed by Joey's grampa, Joe Wolfond. Joey and I were close to the same age, and he was an amicable converstionalist. We ostensibly met to discuss the sale of a nearby strip mall his family owned, but our conversations veered all over the map, from caribbean cruises to fast cars to his grampa, who I had the pleasure of knowing ever since my gas jockey days at John's Supertest in my teens. Occasionally the discussion turned to real estate, and I remember debating the pros and cons of adding apartments in the space above the mall. The Willow West Mall had a huge parking lot, that never came near full capacity except for the week before Christmas. Why couldn't you put twelve stories of rentals overtop the mall? You already own the mall, so it's basically a free building site. Joey told me why they couldn't. Zoning. Bylaws. Rules. Regulations. That was forty years ago. Today it's newsworthy that mall owners are building out residential over their properties.

When the world is going down the shitter, it's more important than ever to count your blessings

Gotta say things are looking bleak. The Ukraine shit-show has a good chance of turning us all into radioactive dust. The AI wave that is all the rage has it's creators warning their Frankenstein could make humans extinct. Focus your lens on the local picture and there's more folks than ever living their lives and voiding their bowels on the street. Literally. It's ugly times we live in. My personal secret to maintaining sanity is to appreciate the small stuff. Time with friends. Meals with family. Paying it forward at Timmies... and being mindfull of what good fortune permits you all of the above. I was blessed with a grandchild recently, and must raise a toast to the youngsters who are brave enough to take a chance on reproduction in these perilous times. But day in and day out, the blessing I used to take for granted is hanging out with my dog, and I've learned to pay attention to how much he adds to the quality of my life. He has no concerns re Ukraine, artificial intelligence, American exceptionalism, the climate crisis, the housing crisis, racism, fascism, sexism, feminism, capitalism, communism... a simple companion for complicated times. All I have to do is feed him and he rewards me with unconditional love. That's a blessing.