You ‘Murricans are Scaring Me to Death!

I’ve watched politics in both our countries for a good long time now. What’s going on these days in the US of A is just so frightening I have trouble believing that I haven’t somehow strayed into a novel while I’m reading the news.

All these years of silliness, non-co-operation, inflamed rhetoric and lack of logic and common sense that has assailed both our countries and I still had the faith that somehow, it would all work out – that the highest impulses would win out over greed and chicanery.

After all, we’re democracies, right? The ideals of civic education, rational dialogue, and working together for the good of society are supposed to be part of the basics of what we’ve defined as the type of society we want to live in. So what on earth has happened with this health-care business?

Sure, I’m prejudiced as to the outcome. Living in a country where “free” basic health care is a right for everyone, I’ve been astonished that there is a democratic country that doesn’t see that as a necessity. I’ve been appalled at the stories friends have told of losing their homes to necessary health care costs, of being dropped from their health insurance for inexplicable reasons just when they actually needed it, of health insurance companies claiming bankruptcy and leaving everyone with no care. And what is the estimate? Forty million people there without any kind of care insurance at all?

And this thing you have where someone else can tell you what doctor you have to use? Good grief! That would be the day, for anyone in Canada!

But finally someone comes along in your government and seriously tries to initiate some kind of change and you’ve got the whole world wondering if someone has spiked the water supply with rabies! And fearing it might spread to other areas of your public discourse.

Certainly nothing in the past half-century of politics has come anywhere near the hysteria, irrationality and falsifying of facts that is so evident right now. Edited video, photoshopped pictures and outright lying about the facts and figures is so overwhelmingly prevalent – and neither side is entirely innocent – that the rest of the world is aghast, and frankly quite frightened, that the world’s major super-power has erupted into a banshee-shrieking, saliva-spitting, unthinking, fractured mob scene.

And nobody’s listening either. There is no chance, it seems, for a reasoned discussion of the facts, or even a civilised exchange on the interpretation of the facts. Open your mouth on the subject and immediately your audience closes it’s mind and likely starts hurling insults and inane slogans.

What on earth is going on with you people?

There are three major candidates for some kind of reason (or excuse) for all of this, and I expect it is a combination, with different factors having different weights depending on the weigher.

So tell me what you see and honestly think. Is it racism, fear, or greed?

Certainly some people seem to be having a hard time dealing with your first black President, and for those folks, no matter what the poor man does, they will attempt to vilify him and veto his plans.

Is it fear of the unknown? Combined, of course with a lack of what could truly be called facts in any meaningful discussion?

Or is greed the main motivator here, and pushing both of the other excuses and any other thing they can get hold of to make people behave like lunatics? Certainly the medical insurance lobby has to be almost as powerful as the petro lobby, and they certainly have the money to throw around. They stand to perhaps lose a big chunk of that income, along with the heady power of life and death over their subscribers if there are significant changes. You already have “death panels”, and those insurance companies run them, nevermind the silliness that was put forth by some of the preposterous anti-change groups.

So, can anyone tell me – just what is it that you’re so afraid of anyway?

And when do you expect that you will start behaving in a manner that won’t have the rest of the world – but especially those close to your borders – wondering what nightmare-inducing lunacy might next break out within your borders and spill over to affect the rest of the world?

Who makes your jeans?

I just saw the most amazing documentary called China Blue.

It follows the lives of two young girls (not yet really women) who come from the country to work in a blue jeans factory in the city.  It chronicles the 7-day-a-week, sometimes round the clock for 36 or more hours if there is a big order, working life of these women.  Their pitiful pay and the attitudes of the factory owners and management are shown at length too.

Fantastically enlightened management in this part of the world seems to be shown if you give the workers a free bun and cup of tea at midnight when you’re forcing them to work all night with no overtime pay.  The owner’s rants about lazy workers who will cheat him if they have a chance are amazing to us who see workers too exhausted to work any more, but who are prodded awake and urged to glue their eyelids open to stay awake (doesn’t work).

The horrible thing is, that even though our clothing manufacturers here are telling us that they’re on top of the situation as far as child labour and exploitation are concerned, it’s just not so.  They pay the factories so little per order that for the boss to make his expected profit the workers get unfairly paid.  The factories are notified ahead of time, either formally or through the grapevine, when an inspection is coming so they can temporarily improve things and give the workers scripts to spout about how wonderful their job is.

One of the very best things about this movie though is the way it focuses on the girls as whole human beings with dreams and aspirations.  Their thoughts, diaries and curiosity about the world are amazing.  I’m not sure I’d have energy for any of that if I worked those hours in those conditions.

You know though – we are all, each one of us that supports any company manufacturing its goods in China, responsible for this situation.  Look at the profits of these companies – they’re well able to afford to pay enough in China or elsewhere to get their jeans and whatever else made within reasonable hours and at a living wage.  If you buy things Made in China, until both the retailers here and the Chinese factory owners behave in a more humane fashion, you are as responsible for the unacceptable working conditions these people face as anyone else in the chain.

Money talks!! The only way we can change anything in this world is by “voting with our pocketbooks” and not giving our money to those who put profit – and excessive profit at that – before human well-being and dignity.

So, read your labels and tell your retailers you want alternative goods NOT “Made in China”.  And see this documentary if you ever get the chance!

A couple of reviews of this documentary:

“China Blue is more than an exercise in cinematic activism…the film develops a natural dramatic structure that’s profoundly affecting. Mr. Peled doesn’t just record the girl’s indignities, he listens to their dreams…China Blue examines the plight of the world’s largest pool of cheap labor and traces its exploitation to a retail outlet near you.” THE NEW YORK TIMES

“The most heartbreaking, moving film in theaters right now is not “Babel,” “Letters From Iwo Jima” or “Little Children.” It is China Blue…This is an unforgettable film.” THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Is this FOOD??

Wow!  I was just cleaning out my fridge and decided that the litre of milk that I’d been saving (to make sour-milk pancakes) since I bought it at Christmas should probably be thrown out.

As I poured it down the sink, I noticed that it wasn’t even curdled yet, so decided to taste it – and it wasn’t even sour!

What kind of milk – or any food product – last for that length of time?  This stuff must be pure chemicals, or treated to the point where it couldn’t possible have any nutritional value left.

It’s “Dew-rag”, for Pete’s sake!!

That thing young people wear on their heads is called a dew-rag, NOT a do-rag.

And it’s NOT a ‘black thing’, it’s a farm thing – as is wearing your hat backwards.

I get so fed up with seeing the language butchered by folks who don’t seem to know anything about what they’re talking about.

I’m a (white) grandmother, and my grandmother wore a dew-rag, and that’s what she called it, as did all the women who worked on farms, or even did their own housecleaning, back in the day.

My grandmother explained to me that it was called a dew-rag, because women in those days weren’t allowed to do anything as vulgar as sweat – instead they “got all dewy”. And the rag was there to ’soak up the dew on their brows’.

And this whole thing with wearing your hat backwards – give me a break! Farms, plantations, road gangs – all those guys wore their hats backwards. Well, after billed caps were invented, and provided they were lucky enough to have a hat at all. The purpose was to protect their necks from the sun while they were bent over working. The boss wore his brim forward to shade his eyes so he could keep an eye on the workers.

I would see it as being more constructive to emulate something a bit more forward looking.

Neither of these clothing choices was invented by the current young generation, and both look back to a hard past – a time that is still being lived out in many countries. Just because we have been fortunate enough to leave much of that behind doesn’t seem to be a good reason to trivialize those customs.

And then there is the fad of wearing jail-house attire. Shoes flopping off the feet, great baggy clothes. Why are we allowing our youth (and Heaven forfend!, sometimes copying them) to glorify the criminal class, and then in the next breath whining about the crime rate? We can’t have it both ways – but that’s a whole other story, too . . .

Boycott Cuban Vacations and Travel!

I’ve just been alerted (by a Cuban-American friend) that Cuba has prematurely shut down the petroleum agreement they had with Canada.

Pebercan had prospected for the petroleum and signed an agreement with the Cuban government for shared development rights, from 1993 – 2018.  It was announced Friday in the Cuban business media and Reuters picked it up, that the Cubans have trashed the agreement.  My friend says the Cubans have made a new deal with the Russians.   What, they couldn’t wait until this deal ran its course?

I’ve got to say, I’m really ticked. I’d say anyone who vacations in Cuba after this is just telling the Cuban government that it doesn’t matter how Canada is treated, or whether they are honest in their dealings with us.

Was your cheap vacation partially funded by this act of dishonesty? Think about it . . . . and pass this on. (If new developments somehow vindicate the Cubans in this, I’ll be sure to pass on that information too.)

Gathering Herbs in Cuba

Looking for A Hero

Yeah, me and Bonnie.

Is anyone else tired of the “flawed” leading men in the TV drama series?  Those Oh-so-noble losers. Where are our heroes? The guys with the white hats?

I am so abysmally tired of trying to find some nice escapist entertainment, and being continually presented with “heroes” that booze, sleep around, avoid commitment, cut ethical corners and then whine about it all. And they’re everywhere! There isn’t a ‘leading man’ in any of the series I’ve seen lately that I would categorize as a decent human being.

If I wanted to spend my time watching gutless wonders get their tails caught in the door time after time, I would have trained as a psychiatrist.

And I guess when it gets right down to it, I’m not particularly interested in the personal life of any character in a TV drama. If I’m watching a cop show, I like to see the action, the procedures and the process. I could care less about who they’re sleeping with – or anything else that is peripheral to what the show is supposed to be about.

And don’t even get me started on “reality” television! Doesn’t anyone have a life of their own anymore? Do we so lack in initiative and imagination that we’re reduced to passively watching what passes for other people’s lives? I’ve tried watching some of it, but the small-minded, petty, mean-spirited content turns my stomach after only a few minutes.

If it wasn’t for PBS, TVO, Discovery and a few channels like that, I would have put the TV in storage long ago.  John Prine maybe had a point.

I’m just really glad I have a library card!

My NEW Amusement

Hoo-boy, am I ever having fun with this!

It started out from necessity, having my ears a bit plugged, so in order to catch the dialogue on the TV and not disturb the neighbours, I turned on the captioning option.  I’ve left it on just for fun, though some days it’s more a strain not to bang your head than it is a giggle.

If you ever want to see what kind of impoverished vocabularies people who have gone through our dumbed-down reading and English classes have got, then this is the way to do it.  Some of the mistakes are simply hilarious, as on one of Sir David Attenborough’s bird shows, where he was talking about a budgerigar, and it came up on the captioning as bugery guard.

Sometimes the captioning is so bad, that I wonder how those who rely on it solely have any clue as to what is really going on!  I’m not talking about the odd – or even more – typo, as I know if I had to keep up my keyboarding to the speeds some of those folks talk, it might look a lot like Hungarian.  But things like on the newscasts, countries’ and people’s names spelled so wrongly that if you didn’t already know what they were talking about, you’d never guess at all from what was written.

For those of you who need some cheap thrills and astonishments, turn on your captioning.  It can really be a hoot!!

It’s about time!

Just heard that the recently publicised report on Tazer use by the RCMP was highly critical, both of their usage and of the safety of the implement itself. And that was with 16 pages removed from the report that they wouldn’t make public.

It’s about time! I have written before about the seemingly indiscriminate use of Tazers by our police forces. Last year 22 people died after being tazed, and from what can be seen on the news reports, most of them weren’t doing anything that a translator, a doctor, or a bit of time wouldn’t have solved. There was no need for what they have been calling ‘non-lethal’ force. And as we can see, that force is clearly anything but non-lethal.

Now never let it be said that I’m unsympathetic to the job our police forces do. They daily face stresses and dangers that the rest of us can only imagine. BUT what seems to be in short supply in their training is a bit of common sense – or else a strong directive from on high that just because they have a new toy is no reason to use it for everything, everywhere.

I could say a lot more about the seeming inability of the adrenaline junkies on all the forces to remain rational during a rush, but that will be a topic for another day.

Keep well.

Getting grouchier about this

Here is a copy of an e-mail I sent to Orvis, after receiving their new clothing catalogue and scanning a few pages:

Please take me off your mailing list.

I will never buy clothng from a company who is ignorant of both proper style names and fabric names.  That would just be asking for trouble.

If you can’t take the care to name your garments properly, what expectation would I have that you would make them properly?

Mock neck sweaters and fine line corduroy just don’t cut it, either in proper names or proper English.

If I had a “mock neck” my head would fall off, for Pete’s sake!

You know what I mean??  I’m fed up with ignorance that is becoming so widespread, I don’t know how we manage to communicate at all some days!

Canadian Federal Election looming?

You know, even though I am not a fan of the present government, I really hope there isn’t an election this fall. I’ve gotten so dismayed by all of the major parties’ platforms and performance, that I’m just cynical enough to think that this minority government situation is a good thing.

They complain that they can’t get anything accomplished with a minority government, but given what any of them want to accomplish, I’d say that’s just fine.

Not a constructive attitude, I know, since there certainly are things that need doing. And electoral apathy in Canada is just huge now, and has been increasingly so for some decades. People don’t trust the government, or have any faith that those folks on The Hill are there to do what’s best for the country as opposed to what’s best for their friends or their own pockets. Public service has degenerated into self-service.

The only light I see at the end of this tunnel is the Green Party. They are, as far as I know, the only political party other than the Communist brands to be present in multiple countries. Elizabeth May, the Canadian leader, has extensive political experience. And they are the only party that seems to have a sound economic policy combined with an innovative environmental policy.

They are not NDP Light, as so many people seem to think. I had always liked that the NDP’s hearts were in the right place, but somehow, their economic policies not only left much to be desired, but also left whatever level and place they took the helm in bad shape financially. But all of the governments seem to do that now.

What’s really bugging me these days, and even since before the last federal election, is the refusal of the ruling committee to allow the Greens to participate in the formal debates. They set up a law that says that a party has to get 10% of the popular vote in an election, and then they can take part. That’s fine – you can’t have a debate with innumerable people who represent nothing that more than themselves or one or two others are interested in or agree with.  That happened with the Green Party two elections ago, and they’re still refusing to let them take part. This is unconscionable – and illegal, by their own rules. What’s up with this?

And you know, while I’m at it, I really have to address the concept of vote splitting. That’s what it’s called when folks try and convince you not to vote your conscience when you’re in favour of a small party, since the votes taken by those voting that way may allow the worst of the big, bad guys to gain power by taking votes from the lesser bad guy.

I’d like to point out two things about that. The first is that until people start voting their conscience and giving the smaller parties growing clout – and it will grow, since they’ll get more press, and more ‘followers’ will feel comfortable voting that way too – nothing is going to change. The big bad parties will feel increasingly smug about the lack of opposition to their flawed leadership (and that word’s a joke in this context!) and will continue to do as they please without reference to either the good of the country, the world or the people. But the most important thing, in the long run, is that voting your conscience makes a statement that will be heard increasingly throughout your network and others will begin, I hope, to see that there is a chance to change things if only we’ll stand up and be counted. Someone has to start, and if it means that for this time the wrong party gets elected, well then at least eventually there’ll be a chance for the right party to get elected. If no-one starts, it’ll never happen, so I might as well be one of those who starts – and maybe you, too.

With only about 30% of the population voting, it’s too easy for governments in all first world countries to discount the voter entirely, and govern only for the benefit of their own small cadre and to let malfeasance, dishonest and unethical behaviour slip by with only a “tsk, tsk, you shouldn’t have let yourself get caught”. And we’re seeing more and more of that. Members of government working hand-in-hand with big business, passing laws that are unfavourable to the general population, but get them cushy jobs with salaries that would support a small third-world nation when they decide to retire from government.

When I hear stories from new Canadian friends about those who are fighting and dieing in their home countries for the right to vote and have some say in government, I wonder when, how, and why we here let it get so far away from us. This is supposed to be a participatory democracy – so for Pete’s sake, participate!!

There’s a saying that you get the government you deserve, but what’s sad is that the small percentage that are working to try and better the condition of all have to sit and suffer through the governments that the majority have deserved for their lack of caring.

I know that when you take “The Government” as a whole, it’s enormously overwhelming, and it’s easy to think that you can’t do anything to change things.  But you can!!  If everyone did just one small thing to help their party, or even to educate themselves about one or two of the major issues and figure out which party really represented their thought on those issues and could be trusted to follow through, it would make a remarkable difference. And that difference would grow exponentially over time to influence some large changes. And if we let our elected representatives know that we are watching them, and their performance, and expect them to be working towards our best interests, that too, would make a huge difference.

Let’s pull up our socks, Canada! Get involved! It’s your life.