The three Franks

Back in the day a couple of Franks were casting quite a shadow over the Royal City. A third Frank was probably casting an even bigger shadow in certain neighbourhoods, but I'm talking about the other guys, the German-speaking ones who got off the boat in the middle fifties to make their way in the new world.

And make their way they did!

By the time I hit high-school age, Frank's place was where you could land a job the day you dropped out of high-school at age 15. Frank had a little machine shop out the Silvercreek Extension which was rapidly becoming a factory. He needed factory hands, and those hands didn't need to be holding no damned high-school diploma, thank-you very much!

Nosiree! Frank built his business on square dealing and rock bottom wages. That's not as bad as it sounds. Back in the day you could buy a house and raise a family on a rock bottom wage.

Other Frank was from out of town but still cast a shadow in my hometown. Other Frank was busy buying up damned near everything auto-parts related. One of the local guys sold him his fledgling press-building business for ten million. A few years later, when Magna was on the ropes, he bought it back for one million.

But don't shed any tears for other Frank, he's done OK. More than OK. That's why it's so sad to see his name in the news today. He's suing his daughter for half a billion, accusing her of messing up the family fortune. That's gotta be a heartbreak for all concerned.

Makes you wonder, don't it? You generally want to believe that a stand-up guy raised up stand-up kids. I still want to believe that about him. Makes you wonder if he's still got all the marbles rolling in the same direction.

Other Frank hasn't had the ignominious distinction of suing his daughter for half a billion, but he's had his own tragedy in what was supposed to be his golden years. Spent five years putting up a fabulous mansion right in behind his old mansion out on the Silvercreek Extension. Not that there was anything wrong with the first one, but rumour had it he wanted a house in the same league as Stronach's. He got it.

Unfortunately, his wife passed on before it was finished. He's got ten thousand feet of neo-classical European villa all to himself now.  That's gotta suck.

Third Frank didn't live to suffer the indignities of advanced years. He passed on while out for a jog while still in his early fifties. That was a humbling end to a hard-edged life. I guess every "end" is humbling in its way.

But it must have been especially humbling for third Frank. Not that he would give a shit; he was dead! I knew a guy who had a bit of a disagreement with Frank. Frank called him in for a chat. That was a nice gesture on Frank's part. It meant he really deep-down liked you. Otherwise he'd just send a couple of guys over to bust your legs.

So in the course of the chat Frank reached into a drawer and pulled out a fistful of thousand dollar bills. This was when a thousand bucks was still serious money. He ripped them in half and handed one handful to the guy who told me this story.

"I'll give you the other half when you do what I'm asking you to do," he says.

Not long after, he went for his last jog.

Who does the CBC imagine they're speaking to?

For the past few days the top story every hour on the hour at CBC News has been the Kavanaugh hearings.

Why should any Canadian, let alone Canada's public broadcaster, give a shit about Kavanaugh?

How many Canadians can name any SCOTUS members?

How many Canadians know which SCOTUS member Kavanaugh is replacing?

I'd guess next to none in both cases.

He's replacing the "liberal" Anthony Kennedy. He's the guy who spearheaded the Citizens United decision.

That was where the supreme court of the USA determined that corporations are people too.

That's a "liberal" in America's scheme of things.

That's the guy Kavanaugh is replacing.

And according to the CBC, that's been the most important story in the world this past week.

Bullsh@t alert: Right-wing extremism on the rise across Canada

That's a front-page story in the Sunday Star today. Yup, the fascists and neo-nazis are on the rise!

There was a Sociology prof at the U of G in the early '80's who specialized in tracking right-wing extremism. Guess what? It was on the rise then, too! In fact, it's been perpetually on the rise forever!

Today's scary story informs us that when the many extremist hate groups called a mass rally in Ottawa last July, fewer than 100 people showed up. That's a bit vague. Ninety-nine is fewer than 100. So is nine...

I'm pretty sure Canada's got more academics studying extremist hate groups than it has actual hate group members. It's not till you're ten paragraphs in that you hit this disclaimer; "In fact, it may be misleading to call it a "movement" at all..."

Yes, it is in fact very misleading, so why keep doing it?

Giving thanks for trade agreements

I see where Tiffany Gooch, full-time Liberal Party strategist and part-time Toronto Star op-ed writer, has crafted a paean to the derring-do of the Trudeau-Freeland negotiating team for their masterful take-down of Team Trump in the USMCA negotiations.

Yup, "our prime minister aimed high and held true to his commitment that he would only sign a deal that was good for Canadians."

Well, maybe, but I guess you'd have to ask yourself, which Canadians? The first NAFTA deal was good for some Canadians too, mainly the ones in the corner offices and on the shareholder roll. For Canadians on the shop floor, not so much.

Canadian auto-parts giant Magna built their first Mexican factory in the early '90s. Today they've got thirty-two plants in Mexico employing 28,000 Mexicans. That's the logical result of making a free-trade agreement with a third world economy. Why pay a Canadian twenty bucks an hour when a Mexican will do the same work for twenty bucks a day?

But our media and the political class still tell us every chance they get that NAFTA was good for us, and so of course this "new" deal will be too.

Being a Liberal Party shill means Gooch has to toss in the obligatory bit of virtue signalling re: this being a "progressive" trade agreement. Why, it defends the rights of workers against gender-based discrimination, don't ya know!

Protection against gender discrimination has been enshrined in Canadian law since the Charter of Rights, which predates the original NAFTA, so this is hardly a win for Canadian workers.

But isn't it nice that we're doing something for those 28,000 Mexicans working at Canadian owned auto plants in Mexico!

Thanksgiving again

Made it down to Guelph where my dear octogenarian parents were hosting Turkey Day.

It was a stellar day for them; they had all five of their kids and seven of nine grandchildren at the table.

Not to mention the assorted boyfriends, girlfriends, and spouses in the mix. So it was obviously a big table.

It was also five hours of driving for a three-hour get-together. I do not appreciate that kind of math, which is one reason me and the Farm Manager have been toying with the idea of upping sticks and moving a little ways south.

One reason it was only a five hour round trip was we made exceptional time on the return run. It was late in the evening, there was little to no traffic, and you could therefore maintain a good speed. Otherwise it would have been six hours of driving, and as much as I love my family, that's starting to push the limits.

The night driving is a bit of a drag. I'm a couple weeks away from cataract surgery, and I gotta say it'll be nice to be able to tell tail-lights from stoplights.

So we scoped out a place in Allan Park. About an hour north of Guelph, and within 45 minutes of Bubby's retirement home. Ticked a lot of boxes, it did. Ten heavily wooded acres. You can't see the house from the road. A long uphill driveway takes you to a killer view.

So we thought about it.

Then we thought about it again, and after that, we thought about it some more.

After a couple of weeks of thinking about it, we sat down to talk about it. We talked about it for a couple of hours. We concluded that we'd best think about it some more.

On the way down to Guelph we took a modest departure from our normal route for a drive-by.

There's a sold sticker on the sign...

Shit!


But you know what? I'm pretty okay right here at Falling Downs. There's an abundance of things to be thankful for, and I am.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The wages of sin

Sin doesn't always pay a wage. Quite a lot of us have been conditioned into sinning for no recompense whatsoever.

We're sinning for free!

That's gotta stop. It's no wonder sin doesn't pay a wage; we're putting out for nothing.


I loved those old school British comedies.

Doctor in the House. What a hilarious show!

Are you being served?...

Monty Python, the Carry on crowd... they're all part of a Brit tradition.

And they'd none of them have a chance in hell of getting on the big stage today.


Not in this era of political correctitude.

We'll all be Gazans soon enough

It's quite amazing what Israel has been getting a free pass on recently. The spectacle of professional army snipers using unarmed civilians for target practice at the Gaza fence passes without comment in the West.

Oh shush now... that's the most moral army in the world... and don't you think Israel has a right to defend itself? What are you, some kind of anti-Semite? Snap out of it man.

The Greatest Leader since Moses hasn't a clue what he's in the process of unleashing. It seems folly to invite a death match with an adversary who has nothing to lose. Then again, Bibi and his enablers in DC have never yet suffered a setback in the pursuit of their genocidal agenda, to wit, cleansing Judea and Samaria of the Palestinians.

And in the age of Trump they can be forgiven for thinking they're home free.


But maybe what we're seeing here is a glimpse into the future. Perhaps this is the new normal in dealing with inconvenient populations. The new normal looks a lot like the good old days, when the powerful could annihilate the weak simply because they were more powerful and they could. That was just the way the world worked.

For a few hundred years we tried to believe we were better than that.

That's why we don't want to look at Gaza today. We'd rather look away...