Three things that took my mind off the madness this week

We live in a fucked-up world, do we not? There seems to be a whole lot of folks who should know better flirting with WWIII. Because why? Because we can win? Let's get real. As Canadians we are charter members of Uncle Sam's Club. The Nations of Virtue! NATO, G7, EU, Israel and Japan, and the "Five Eyes;" Uncle Sam's bumboys one and all. This is what our media refer to as the "international community." Meanwhile, somewhere out there in the rest of the world, there's about 7 billion people who don't see things the way the golden billion of the Nations of Virtue do. That's why there was such a sparse uptake of those Russia sanctions that Apocalypse Joe promised would turn the ruble into rubble. "Ruble into rubble?..." That's almost poetic! But I digress. I'm finding my screens saturated with propaganda and hate speech. I'm just a senior citizen wanting a quiet life, but my entire information infrastructure wants me marinating in hatred and fear. Lucky for me, three things took my mind off the madness and saved, at least for now, my mental health. Thing 1; Birds. You can't step out on the stoop without meeting the birds. That's a big crew, and includes everything from the geese and Sandhill cranes congregating for their Florida vacations, to the wrens and finches who will hang back and take their chances on our bird-feeders. Here's the key thing. None of these birds have screens, so they don't give a shit about Ukraine or Gaza or THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY!!! Thing 2; Cattle and coyotes. We've got week-old calves galivanting in the pasture across the road. And every night we hear the coyote choir raising their voices to heaven. Neither calves nor coyotes are addicted to anxiety-inducing news feeds. They just eat and poop and do their thing. Thing 3; Babies. On their own terms, babies aren't that big a deal. After all, a calf is wandering around on their own legs within a couple of hours of leaving the womb. My grand-daughter at six months is still struggling to do what that calf did on day one. The reason babies give me hope is because there's still well-educated and responsible young people willing to have them. If they're smart, they'll keep them away from the screens as long as possible.