What really matters

It's a fucked-up world. I struggle to make sense of it. Haven't watched the Grammy Awards for years, and after tuning in for two minutes last night I remember why. That's not my world. There's a local outfit called the Beckett Family. They do traditional country stuff that predates Nashville. They're fiddle-heavy and utterly old-school, and you ain't gonna see any bearded ladies. Can't imagine they'll ever appear at the Grammy Awards. They keep it simple. That's important to simpletons like me. Out here everybody has a few acres and everybody grows food or keeps chickens or grazes beef cattle. Throughout my teaching career I lost most of my students during deer hunting season. Hard to imagine going hungry. When I look at that Grammy crowd of beautiful people, I wonder how many will be able to feed themselves once their supermarkets have been looted. That won't be a problem out here.

Farting on the front stoop

I'm in the process of transitioning to a gluten and dairy free diet. That process has consequences. Just moments ago I stepped out on the stoop for a breath of fresh air. I have enough confidence in my gluten-free digestive tract these days that I'm comfortable making a call on whether that's a fart bubbling up or whether it's something more serious. So while I'm out there, I issue forth a series of frrraaaaaps that could easily be heard a hundred yards away. Fortunately, my nearest neighbour is a quarter mile away. This is why I don't fancy moving back to the city. If we moved to a townhouse in town, the nearest neighbor would be about three feet away. Step out for a smoke and rip forth a few frrraaaaps, you're gonna be heard at least three or four doors over on either side. And you can bet their hearing isn't the only sense the neighbours will feel I've violated. Nosiree... country living is the life for me.

Ukraine war is greatest catastrophe in US history

I’ve said from the beginning of the Ukraine boondoggle that this war has little to do with Ukraine, and everything to do with America’s desperation to maintain its role as world hegemon. That’s not been a popular perspective these past eleven months, but I get the sense more folks are starting to smell the coffee. Not at the Globe & Mail, though. They’re still in full narrative-management mode at Canada’s newspaper of record. Saturday’s paper featured two of their top pontificators pontificating on the urgency of providing Ukraine with more and better weapons weapons weapons, faster faster faster. Andrew Coyne serves up the stale bullshit of how Ukraine is actually fighting for all of Europe, and indeed, the entire free world! If Ukraine is willing to sacrifice a quarter of its population to save freedom and democracy, the least we can do is send them a quarter of our GDP. In a full page op-ed, he reminds us that Putin is a crazed megalomaniac who wants to resurrect the Russian Empire. His greatest fear has been the existence of a flourishing democracy next door to Russia. Ya, right! Ukraine was once the most prosperous Soviet state. Since the collapse of the USSR, its GDP per capita has fallen to a third of Russia, and that was before the Americans pushed this war on Ukraine. Most of that decline is due to the rapacious corruption of their oligarchs. Most of these guys are on first-name BFF terms with our deputy PM, if you’re wondering where our entirely counter-productive and wantonly reckless Ukraine policy comes from. A few pages later, Konrad Yakabuski offers this eye-grabbing headline; “We need a “Big Bang” approach in Ukraine.” Big Bang? You mean the kind of big bang that just got the Doomsday Clock pushed forward to 90 seconds from Armageddon? This is the kind of lunatic war propaganda served up by our leading media outlets. You’d never know it if you limit your news consumption to CBC and the Globe, but the facts are that Russia is not isolated, more and more global trade is finding its way around the US dollar, and American prestige, credibility, and power are shrinking every day this war goes on.

Trigger Alert; Happy Jack was whacking smack

Happy Jack was a dude I worked with out Vancouver Island way back in the dark days of the '70s. Interesting guy. Had great welding skills and a heroin habit. Told me he had a welding gig in Angola, building a bridge, but backed out when he learned he'd be issued a machine-gun along with his welding gear. Probably a good call. Trigger Alert; Happy Jack was shacked up with a fourteen year old runaway teen from California. The title is a line from a poem I penned in his honour back in the day. Happy Jack was crowding 30 at the time. Him trying to get his 14 yo girlfriend on the company benefit plan was a source of endless bemusement for the rest of us. It was the seventies. Things were different then. Trigger Alert; girls were girls back then and boys were keen to fuck them. While I never got around to boinking Happy Jack's girlfriend, we had some great times in somebody's Econoline van parked on a pier at the waterfront at the Victoria Harbour, not too far from the Empress Hotel. We'd head out there at lunch break to burn a couple of fatties and down a few pints. "Crazy little thing called love" would be blasting on the stereo in the van. The stereo was worth more than the Econoline. Those were the days...

Big-Lips Bruno goes to Home Depot

In the odessey of my bathroom reno, Bruno, our Italian mastiff, has many times waited in the car while I went in the store to ask 100 stupid questions about what I need next. Today being Saturday, the Farm Manager was with us, and we thought, what the heck, they allow dogs at Home Depot, lets see how it goes. Bruno is a striking gray brindle. We are routinely accosted by random strangers who tell us we have a beautiful dog and want to pet him. We got pretty much what we expected when we took him in to Home Depot. At one point there were at least a half dozen Home Depot employees clustered around him, marvelling at his silky fur and his exquisite good looks. He is one good-looking boy, I have to admit. We're at the stage of trimming out our newly refurbished bathroom. I had all the time I wanted to inspect various trim options as the crowd of employees continued to grow. Made it kind of difficult to find help in the trim aisle, though. And probably at least a half dozen other aisles too. But overall, I have to say his visit boosted employee morale. They would do well to hire me just to walk around the store with Big-Lips Bruno.

Wealthy G7 nation wants to poach nurses from Zimbabwe

The thought leaders at The Globe and Mail had a front pager today about how the evil dictator who rules Zimbabwe is oppressing nurses who’d rather make big bucks working in a rich country like Canada. No shit. Who wouldn’t? On the other hand, here’s a couple of facts to consider. In the depths of Canada’s nurse shortage, we have 10 nurses per 1000 population. Due to decades of underfunding, Canada is a laggard in nurse to pop stats among rich countries. Most of our peers in the G7 are in the 15-18 range. Zimbabwe has 2 nurses per 1000 population. Yup, that’s where we should be recruiting nurses! Bear in mind that Canada has a GDP per capita over $50k. In Zimbabwe, it’s under $2k. How does that jive with Canada's much trumpeted "feminist" foreign policy? Women and girls in Zimbabwe don't need nurses and midwives? We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Ukraine: Thanks for the tanks, but if you don't fork over F-16s and submarines DEMOCRACY IS DOOMED!

Have you noticed that every time we give in to Vlodimyr Churchill-Mandella Zelensky's demands, he ups the ante? No sooner had Berlin and Washington caved to the tanks demand, which was last week's game-changer, when oops... no point having tanks if they don't have air cover. A squadron of F-16s are essential and don't be slow about it; the future of freedom and democracy hangs in the balance, don't you know. And most recently, numerous news outlets report that the spear-head of the free world also needs subs and warships! We've been giving Ukraine a few more months and a few more billions and lots of weapons weapons weapons for almost a year now, and still they need a few more months and a few more billions and more weapons weapons weapons. I smell a rat. Zelensky is an actor. Actors read scripts. Zelensky's script is written in Washington, not Ukraine. The script-writers are in the employ of America's military-industial complex. Next to selling over-processed junk food to fat people, weapons weapons weapons are one of the few thriving businesses in the USA. For Ukraine, this war is an unmitigated disaster. Zelensky knew that last March when he was pursuing peace talks in Istanbul. Unfortunately, the script-writers had other plans...