Stop Hating my Elf on the Shelf

There is an Elf on the Shelf in my household, and for some reason that draws criticism.

                Last year was our first year being visited by Russel, and his evening activities range from Lego prisons to marshmallow snowball fights to tormenting our betta fish Seamus to chandelier yarn bungee jumps with the cast of Toy Story. Russel adds a lot of fun to a chaotic time of year.

                It’s a fairly recent trend, this—it’s the fact that it’s a trend that I think is the real source of its ridicule—where your children are visited daily by a red elf who then goes to the North Pole every evening to report on the behaviour witnessed. A way of further shoring up the Nice list, I suppose.

The initial idea was kids would search the house for the tricky elf, but more and more the elves are setting themselves up in elaborate, Pinterest-inspired action scenes.

I’ve noticed a lot of bad-mouthing the Elves on Shelves this year. There are parents who find it a chore, and parents who find that smug little face just a touch too creepy. Fine and good, you don’t have to do it. We don’t have a nativity scene . . .

But it’s getting out of hand. There are articles everywhere you look decrying the Elf as promoting Big Brother totalitarianism (http://www.canadianliving.com/moms/blog/editors-desk/the-elf-on-the-shelf-is-creepy-and-possibly-promoting-a-totalitarian-regime), and academics coming out on reputable news shows (http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2014/12/22/elf-on-the-shelf-normalizes-surveillance-state-for-kids-says-academic/) telling us that the Elf is “normalizing surveillance,” and thus traumatic to our children. The long-term psychological damage can only be guessed at!

Take a step back and give your heads a shake. It’s a magic toy.

This, this is the Christmas tradition that bothers you? A playful elf that tells your kids, “Hey, be good, I’ve got a direct line to the big man”?

Seriously, this is a concern?

We’re talking about a holiday of Celtic/Norse/Saxon origin that was commandeered by Christianity and then commandeered by Coke, and this is what bothers you? This?

This bothers you, on a holiday based around the human form of a deity born to a virgin in a stable causing great fanfare and royal visits because one day his claim to fame would be getting brutally executed?

                A holiday where a supersonic overweight geriatric commits millions of break and enters while scarfing pastries and possibly making out with your mom?

                A holiday that causes you to nail tube socks up next to gas fire places?

                A holiday where millions of perfectly good fir trees are annually hacked down, shoved inside, whored up as fire hazards, loved dearly for three weeks, then hucked out the door?

                A holiday that sees energy costs quadruple as neighbours try to outdo each other with outside lighting visible from space in an orgy of un-Christmasy competition?

                A holiday that sees consumers dive deeply into debt just to stuff electronics into said tube socks?

                A holiday where god help you and call your lawyer and prepare for assault charges if your kid wants the latest battery-powered fluffy toy?

                A holiday where we insist on buying people we don’t really like things they don’t really need in the hopes of achieving that one moment of eye-opening bliss when we are briefly acknowledged for not screwing up?

                This, this is what worries you on our most incomprehensible and idiotic of holidays: a stuffed elf?

                Maybe we should just admit that it’s a growing trend and the only thing more certain than a growing trend is hipsters and pseudo-intellects picking it apart. Because we wouldn’t want something innocent and fun to be just that for the very few years we can enjoy it with our children.

                No, wouldn’t want something fun to happen at Christmas, no sir.

                

Man Up: Tyler Durden 2014

For Arjay and Kev

     

Idol of the Inferior

Many men my age assess ourselves based on Fight Club. Not the book, the film. The book did its part but it was the movie that truly decided us for who we are as a generation. Or maybe just who we were, because the assessment has changed. 

                There are two sets of us now, we men who survived the non-war of the 1990s, that less than forgotten time: a period of brief bliss when our heroes were gangsters and our priests wore black ties, that period of ever so unbelievable peace yet war, hope yet genocide, progress yet status quo, between the Cold War and 9/11. To think about it recklessly you run the risk of painting it as a fiary tale it wasn't. But, hey, the music was pretty good. 

                We are two kinds of men. We tell ourselves the truth: we’re the unimportant unnamed narrator. Our other self is Tyler Durden. Naturally, Tyler is a superhuman. He’s the dad who left, he’s the man we adore and wish we were, he’s the us we wish we were if we could be who we are without all of these mortal trappings.              

                In 1999 he was the volatile hippy because we perhaps didn’t understand what he would be when we let ourselves open to the fascism that is the 21^stCentury. It’s not Tyler’s fault. He was created during a time when we needed something to be angry about and fight against because we couldn’t accept that life was possibly so damned good when we still had dads. So we made them leave even if it was just to upstairs.

                Men our age have gone one of these two ways, and there are a whole damn lot of them who think that they’re Tyler because they think he’s what a man should be. Tough, virile, uncompromising. A Man’s man. Well, there is a reason that when they’re on the bus looking at the underwear ad the unnamed narrator asks if that’s “what a real man looks like.” Because Tyler isn’t one. A real man is one who asks himself what he is, and daily doubts he is one. 

                These new men have convinced themselves that they are Tyler. They've missed the point, missed that he's a conception of grandeur, and archetype. Literally a figment of the imagination. These men have so deluded themselves that they could be this grand dream--and forgetting that it was a nightmare in the first place--that they believe their own lies. 

                Today, men are men because they reach further back to some uncompromising John Wayne, Johnny Cash wannabe sense of self. They define themselves by tobacco, whiskey, misogyny. Oil, money, and enjoying having no vulnerability. Let's not confuse that with a lack of weakness, though. 

               Who it means to be the man on the other side of Tyler Durden is too frightening so they have taken a gigantic, deliberate, pathetic step backwards.

                The man I am is the man I am now, not then. We are men because we move on, because we survive after the revelation, we don't pull the curtain back after the secret's revealed, pretending we never learned the truth.
                Man up. 

A Response to the Coz: I'm ALSO Tired. But Not Too Tired.

This little rant that’s attributed to an old and tired Bill Cosby has been getting a lot of circulation on the social media re-feeds. I sincerely hope it didn’t originate with the Cos. It reads like it didn’t, especially the last couple of lines. But it bothers the hell out of me and I thought I’d write a point-for-point response.

I'm 83 and I'm Tired

I'm 83. Except for brief period in the 50's when I was doing my National Service, I've worked hard since I was 17. Except for some serious health challenges, I put in 50-hour weeks, and didn't call in sick in nearly 40 years. I made a reasonable salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, it looks as though retirement was a bad idea, and I'm tired. Very tired!

I’m 36. I’ve had a steady job since I was 16, and before that I worked on the family farm. Before and after school, all summer long. It gave me a work ethic I’m proud of, but I recall being called lazy by my elders, and being judged for having possessions. I have a great job with a summer break that I have never not worked through in thirteen years. During the year I sometimes work fourteen, fifteen, sixteen hour days, and a lot of weekends. However, it's one of the only professions in the world where someone will tell you in the same breath how easy you've got it and how they could never do your it. But that’s okay. I like my job.  That’s why I got the education I did: to get a job I find fulfilling. The pay is good but not great, but the rewards are better. Given the economy, I’m glad my job is not dependent on a non-renewable resource. Or Jell-O stocks.

I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.

I’m tired of people who think they are the best judges of the work ethic of others, or of who is the most deserving of social services. I wonder how your mentality would have played in the Depression? I mean, those folks lining up for the indignity of soup kitchens or who had to debase themselves before receiving the dole sure must’ve been lazy to end up in that situation, right, o wise one?

I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Sharia law tells them to.

I’m tired of everyone always making broad generalizations about everything all the time everywhere. It’s sure a good thing that no Christian or white or both has ever committed any crime or act of hatred in history with one hand on the bible, isn’t it? Listen, every religion has its radicals, every religion has its faults, and before condemning the faults of one, take a second to read up on the hypocrisy of your own “peaceful” faith. (Incidentally, know where jihad comes from? A Muslim response to watching Crusaders butcher every man, woman, and child in Jerusalem while screaming their god’s name. Read up.)

I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries use our oil money to fund mosques and madrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in Australia, New Zealand UK, America and Canada, while no one from these countries are allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia or any other Arab country to teach love and tolerance.

I’m tired of hazy understandings of economy, and bigotry. There are Christian churches that promote homophobia and gender inequality. I’d say most. But I’m with ya. My opinion is no church should receive government funding, not one. But that’s just me.

I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.

I’m tired of hearing that global warming is the fantasy of hippies and radicals, and we shouldn’t question any process that creates wealth now at the possible expense of the future. That oil is king and should not bechallenged. Your oh-so-precious standard of living is dependent on wasteful and out-dated exploitive methods of attainment that create world-altering exhaust and run-off. Debate doesn’t mean refusing to ask questions, just accepting the status quo. Read up. I’m tired of hearing this sort of tripe from people too lazy or too selfish to change.

I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses or stick a needle in their arm while they tried to fight it off?

I’m tired of people not being allowed to make a mistake or to have their stories heard because the rest of you are just so dang perfect. I’m tired of humans being written off. Addiction is a disease. Sorry. If you don’t suffer from one—or if yours are more socially-acceptable—thank your lucky stars, get on with your day, and let the people get help.

I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of all parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.

I’m tired of hypocrisy. Everything you’ve talked about so far is so steeped in entitlement and privilege that this statement is ridiculous. You’re feeling entitled to judge others based on poorly-informed opinions and weak stereotypes. And how do you know what we all know?

I'm really tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.

I’m really tired of people born into privilege refusing to challenge entrenched authorities, racism and sexism, and to question what they’re sold by big-whatevers.

I'm also tired and fed up with seeing young men and women in their teens and early 20's be-deck themselves in tattoos and face studs, thereby making themselves un-employable and claiming money from the Government.

I’m also tired and fed up of hearing from old people who’ve forgotten what it was like to be young. You never had a haircut or outfit that an elder questioned? And as for fleecing the government, don’t worry, tattoos and piercings are expensive. They want to keep it up, they’ll need real jobs. Maybe in TV . . .

Yes, I'm tired. But I'm also glad to be 83... Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughter and their children. Thank God I'm on the way out and not on the way in; there is no way this will be widely publicized, unless each of us sends it on!
This is your chance to make a difference.

Yes, I’m also tired. But I’m really glad to not be 83, because I want to see the world you’re going to be missing. I’m also sorry for your granddaughter, because you’re so willing to give up on her generation’s hope to make the world better than you leave it. Who knows, maybe she or her children will discover a cure for nosing into other people’s business and spouting off about it.

"I'm 83 and I'm tired. If you don't forward this you are part of the problem."

I’m 36 and also tired. But I’m more than happy to be a part of anything someone like you would call “a problem.”

On A Day Like This . . .

"I do not know much of myself, save this: I seek."----Tyler Knott Gregson

This morning I'm teaching my students about the FLQ Crisis. I did not choose this in the wake of one

(Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

of the only other significant terrorist attacks in our nation's history. I'm actually right there in the curriculum. It's merely coincidence. But sometimes coincidence brings me a pause, like the coincidence that saw me put on a blazer yesterday morning that I've only worn a handful of times, a blazer I bought at the Bay in the Rideau Centre in Ottawa, a blazer I bought just a few hours after laying a Canadian flag in honour of a veteran friend on the very spot where, three years later, Nathan Cirillo would be shot.

It's hard to know how to respond to yesterday and that's one of the darkly significant parts of this. It's hard, but it's become a little familiar. Not that I believe terror is becoming more prevalent, but because as an adult I've seen 9/11, Utoya in Norway, the London bombings, innumerable school and public shootings, the Boston bombing. Not knowing how to respond is a sign that these events have yet to suck away my humanity--I've not grown numb to the sensation.

In not knowing how to respond, I have tried not to judge how others are reacting. From the guy who asked on Twitter what the status of the Sens/Leafs game would be just minutes after the gunman was killed in Parliament, to those (who I'll admit I agree with) who voiced concern on how Harper will exploit this for political gain, to those who reminded us to also honour Patrice Vincent, to those brave voices of reason who asked us, desperately, to control our passions and logically ask what led to this--to avoid the herd mentality.

I won't lie, this sort of thing gets to me. I find myself unable to go about my routine properly. I reach for a drink, listen to over-loud music, get lost in news feeds. I cried once. I hugged my sleeping children a little longer than usual. Last night I had a dream that my wife had died and I woke up shaken.

We must assess and continue to think. Stop thinking, and simply react or follow, then we abandon hope.

What we must consider:

-This is going to be spun as a part of the "global terrorism" story, but the attacks in Quebec and Ottawa are actually stories of mental illness. Zehaf-Bibeau and Roleau-Couture were both desperate, isolated men with histories of mental illness. Their recent conversions to Islam and their "radicalizations" are tied to their illnesses. Their connections to ISIS/ISIL follow from this, but are not the cause. I hope that will be considered in the days that follow.

-When four mounties were killed in Mayerthorpe in 2005, one of my Brazilian students remarked on how amazing it was that a whole nation was pausing to grieve over this. He claimed it wouldn't even make the news in Sao Paulo. It's a sad beauty that Canada is rocked by events that may seem small to other nations. I hope that remains, because the only way it could change is if we experienced greater tragedy or grew immune to its effects.

-ISIS/ISIL has killed more Muslims than non-Muslims. After every event of this kind, the entire Islamic community waits and prays that the perpetrator is not associated with them, because everyone always assumes he is, even before they know. There's going to be backlash against the many for the actions of the few. I hope that we as Canadians can remain tolerant and accepting and most of all supporting of the People of Islam who live in Canada, because they are Canadians.

-Every time there's a shooting of any kind I lament how easy it is to acquire firearms in North America. When we're asking "How could he do this?" let's also ask "How did he get a gun?" Zehaf-Bibeau's passport had been revoked. The man couldn't board an air-plane, but he could get his hands on an automatic rifle. I hope we will empty the hands of citizens in this country.

-We have a bad prime minister. I'm sorry to be partisan at a time like this, but we do, and to hear him speak last night of national unity when he has been hell-bent on driving wedges in that unity, in vilifying any opposition he faces, is to try your own desires for solidarity. Like George W. Bush after 9/11, Harper is a poor leader who will exploit tragedy for his own gains. This was already clear in the jingoist rhetoric he spouted last night. I hope Canadians don't think that having the "fortune" of leading during tragedy a good leader makes.

-The tough questions will be asked. I maintain that these attacks came as a result of mental illness rather than ideology, but ISIS/ISIL did call out Canada specifically recently. This terrorist sect needs to be opposed, but what have Canada and our allies done in the Middle East to provoke such targeting? Our track record of the past thirty years has been to bomb civilian targets where suspected enemies are hidden. The Americans have eradicated whole villages in the hopes of eliminating one "bad guy." What has led us to this? I hope we are still allowing ourselves to think and ask.

-As there always are at times like this, people are crying about what this world is coming to. This is defeatist. The world can be made better, and one event like this is not enough to "steal Canada's innocence." It will change us, true, but we can respond to it, rise to it, and make it a change for the better. I hope that we don't give up hoping that we can do better than this.

I truly hope so.

The Muddled Befuddled Giving of Thanks

     When asked what you're thankful for, the wild list of cliches that flashes across your brain is only slightly less cliched than the question itself.
     Thankful? For what? To whom? Of which? On when?
     Your wine glass getting a little heavy, you scan that mental list and blurt out something to your table more canned than Auntie Peg's secret cranberry sauce.
     It's hard to know who to thank for what. I suppose if you have a good job and a decent bird on your table, and you believe in [G]od, and that he took a hand in the above, good, you're done. Thanks, God, for this here feast before me and the fact that I can rack up debt at my own pace.
     If you're sliding more into the agnostic or atheist camp, I guess maybe you could thank the universe, but then you're saying it's cosmic luck that got you this stuffed Hutterite gobbler and that 75 cent raise at Staples.
     So, play it safe and thank the boss and the cook then?
     Great. This would be the only time you thank your boss for employing you? On a stat? And this would be the only time worth thanking someone for cooking you a meal? You must be a joy at restaurants. And what if you cooked the meal yourself? Call up the good people at Sears for selling a functioning oven to you, or drop a "Thankya" to the Maytag man?
      Maybe you decide to be more general.
      Thanks for my family. You're glad basic genetics work and that you weren't abandoned. Do you thank them all the time? Are you not holding a quiet resentment toward your sister for hosting this fine meal at her house AGAIN because nobody will drive the extra half hour to your place?
     My parents. Thanks to my parents for bringing me up right in a tough world.
     How non-First World of you! Tell me, if your peer has been better--that is, more excessively--provided for than you (wealth, nurturing, boat trips), would that mean you shouldn't be as thankful because your parents didn't go far enough? Does that mean your children should only provide you with Thanks Lite if you can't do as well for them as your parents did for you?
     Freedom. Thankful for my freedom.
     Well, ignoring my last post's look at the duality of freedom, where did you get said freedom? Who you gonna thank, exactly? Elected officials? Lawmakers? Good-hearted cops? Libertarians?
     Veterans. I'm gonna thank the veterans. The ones who fought in the morally-clear wars.
     I'm completely in favour of this. Thank a veteran. That's a good reason to be thankful and a good person to thank. My worry is that you get it out of your system now, and then come November 1st, when Halloween is over and the long march to Christmas is foisted on us by Tim Horton's and Wal-Mart, you will skip that two minute pause on November 11 that the veterans most deserve. It's like you're going to do it now in case you forget later.
 
      I'm all for saying thanks. I like good manners and I like to show appreciation when it's owed. But the giving of thanks requires a sort of symbiosis: thanker and thankee.
      If you're going to insist on parading out your "I'm thankful for" list in speech, toast, Facebook post, better to find the person you thank, look 'em dead straight in the eye and tell 'em what exactly it is you're thanking 'em for. Mean it.
      Seek your god, call your mom, applaud your cook.
      Too many of our few good English phrases (I love you, I'm sorry, I'm proud of you) have been watered down by over-use and under-appreciation. Giving thanks is easy, and requires no risk of effort.
     So mean it, turkey.
     (Thanks very, very much for reading.)

Freedom Over All, Against All Sense

"Y'can take our land . . ."

I was staying on a ranch in the Foothills south of Calgary. The rancher, who I had just met this August weekend, was a jovial and gracious host. In his presence, neither ear nor cup was empty for long. He was opinionated and proud, and never more the latter than when he took me for an afternoon hike in his sprawling back forty.

                I am in love with this region. A Saskatchewan immigrant, I’ve always been awed by the Rockies, but the Foothills have just the right blend of home and away that they tug insistently at me.

                An hour up into the hills and grass, we found a valley with bush on one side and sandstone cliffs on the other. We stopped to drink from a spring, around which he’d build as retaining wall for a pipe.

                “This is the water I use to make my wine,” he said, and handed me the A&W mug he left out here. I drank, and truly I had a short list of comparisons for such purity. Especially given the lingering effects of the wine he used this water to produce, proudly poured out in excess the night before.

                We were far enough away that, turning my back on the construction around the spring, I could see no sign of humanity. No fence, road, telephone pole. This prairie was nearly untouched—ignoring the hundred years of cattle grazing—as pristine a patch as you’ll fine in the West. As it appeared to the buffalo and the hunter, before the white man. Perhaps I was kidding myself, but I wanted to believe it very badly just then.

                He told me of the forthcoming deal that he and seventy-one other ranchers were brokering with the Nature Conservancy of Canada, a deal intended to keep this prairie as prairie. That is, free from development. He was in favour of the idea to an extent, but said, “That is unless Mulcair or Trudeau gets in. Or depending how I’m told to use my own land.”  

                I didn’t comment. First, as someone who traditionally votes for the left-wing federal parties, I’ve learned to pick my battles in ultra-conservative S.A., where people tend to look at political parties like sports teams: always stick to your guns and root for the one you always have. And second, because I was a little shocked at how his personal freedom from the intervention of a government—pending, even—or its offices mattered more to him than the preservation at all costs of the nearest thing we have to the untouched out here.

                Freedom over all, against all sense.

               

                The $40 million deal that the NCC signed with the seventy-two ranchers of the Waldron Grazing Co-op (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-ranchers-to-conserve-huge-tract-of-native-grassland-1.2781482) won’t hang in the news for long. It’s not the sort of news that generally interests most Albertans. That 12 000 hectares was purchased for preservation rather than production, to maintain rather than make money. Lack of development doesn’t make big news out here. Those of us who celebrate a piece of undeveloped, unsullied, undrilled (mostly. Let’s not go nuts, it’s Southern Alberta) prairie want to get up and dance. It reads like a great victory against the scar of urban sprawl that has taken the prairies and made it into a wasteland of industry and suburbia. But you can’t avoid the detractors, no matter how insane their arguments. There’s the matter of freedom to consider.

                The rancher I visited is one, a second on the radio yesterday morning also has reservations. If there are two, there are likely more. They signed on, but with questions. They can graze their cattle, but they can’t parcel their land off to be the next suburb of bloated acreages.

                “By saying there will be no development, they’re limiting our freedom.”

                Freedom, ah yes. We’ve got an over-entitled sense of freedom in this province, and an over-active cynicism in the role authority should play in our lives. There’s a vocal Libertarian minority at work out here, railing against any sort of infringement upon our cowboy autonomy. Must be all the American TV. It smacks of the anti-gun control rallies of the 90s. Freedom.

                How can the government dare to horn in on my self-determination?

                Because freedom can be a very bad thing.

                But you should feel blessed, freedom-advocates. Depending on your municipality, if you live in Alberta, you’re likely governed by three levels of government who all claim to stand for your personal liberty in the face of nasty socialist concepts like equality, free health care, and public broadcasting. That is, unless you want to be free to oppose unchecked development, or get an abortion, or have a sexual orientation. Freedom, as defined.

                This little corner of prairie is being preserved by an office that the Harper Government has hardly supported, tried to run off the rails, tried to muzzle, and the ranchers who have made this great step in the right direction are some of them more concerned about their personal land rights (ie, How much they can make off the land at a later date, at triple the price they got from the NCC) than what they’ve done for the good of us all.

                I have a news flash for the Libertarians and self-righteous Braveheart-screamers: your freedom should be limited because it’s not coming for free. Your liberty is costing us dear, and I for one want to see it reigned right in.

                It’s the freedom of unchecked capitalism that that has led this province to allow oil and gas to putrefy our land and water, sicken our people and animals, for the sake of nothing but dollars and excuses and a little bit of nose-thumbing at the hippies. Freedom has convinced us that living in a rich now is worth ignoring environmental repercussions, post-growth crashes, worth torpedoing Heritage Funds in favour of that now.

                It’s freedom to own weaponry for weaponry’s sake that’s led us to believe that we have a right to own instruments that serve no other purpose—not one—but to kill. As many as we want, and in great variety.

                It’s freedom that has created a disparity between entitled wealth and crippling poverty in this country, seeing the rich buy themselves into doctor’s clinics while the poor work full-time and can’t afford prescriptions.

                It’s freedom to think that race, gender, and financial inequality are the fault of the victim, that somehow mental illness and addiction and not being born into a blue chip Mount Royal family are solved by pulling up one’s bootstraps.

                Freedom is the problem. Too much freedom—or, perhaps, the belief that freedom is owed not earned—has seen this land preservation purchase go under-celebrated. Instead of it being a victory for tomorrow (“tomorrow” is a dirty word in Alberta, like “environmental” and “sustainable"), it’s been drug into the mud of personal liberty.

                Tax me, bind me, disarm me, film me. Do it equally across the board. Use the tax money for infrastructure and social services, keep me to the same laws as you do Imperial Oil execs, take away weaponry I never have and never will need, give me evidence to support me if I’m right, to damn me if I’m wrong.

                Because freedom hasn’t been good for us.

An Open Letter to Jim Prentice

Dear Mr. Prentice,

                First off, allow me to congratulate you on your new position as Alberta’s premier designate. Designate, not “elect,” because the latter would suggest that something democratic happened here. Far from it. But, regardless, congratulations on winning the leadership “race.”

                (You’ll pardon my use of sarcastic quotations, indicative of my cynicism with the state of Alberta’s “democracy.” There’s going to be some cynicism in this letter, but hopefully it will not overshadow the plain speak and precious, quivering hope.)

                Because, of course, this was not a leadership race. It was a farce. Far more of a farce than those that saw Ed Stelmach and Allison Redford elected by the people of Alberta, rather than by your party. Those two instances I purchased a PC membership to vote for the lesser of three evils. It was exciting. Those were the only times since moving to Alberta that I have felt my vote counted for anything provincially or nationally. There was no point in doing so this time.

                That’s because when you declared your intention to govern this province—with any due respect to misters Lukaszuk and McIver—it became a long, drawn-out, forgone conclusion. First, because of your celebrity, and secondly because your party—that is the government, which is one and the same in Alberta, as certainly as it was in Soviet Russia—adjusted the rules of leadership races to make sure it is the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta that chooses the premier of Alberta, rather than Albertans.

                Fine and well. As a man who does not usually find his values represented by the PC Party, I am used to being frustrated by what our democracy has degraded to in this province. I roll with it. Your party is so deeply entrenched that when its members are caught doing something questionable, underhanded, immoral, perhaps even illegal (thousands of tax dollars spent on private phone calls; marching with religious groups that promote hate; giving away free party memberships) it is rarely admitted to, never apologized for. You are, after all, the mighty PC Party of Alberta. Your only threat comes from those who feel you aren't extreme right enough, heaven help us.

                But, to my point.

                In your acceptance speech last night you spoke of “new beginnings,” of having “no excuses,” of “re-earning trust,” of “accountability.”

                Forgive me my quotation marks, but I doubt you.

                For you see, Mr. P-D, you've been “elected” head of a government and a party which threw its last leader under the bus for getting caught following party policy (and an itty bit for being a woman, let’s be honest). This is a party that ever-so-briefly under Redford looked as if it might finally live up to the P part of PC, riding many plugged-nose left-wing votes for fear of the Wildrose Party (which there are still conspiracy theorists who believe is a construct of your own party to keep you in power through leftist propping. Silly, no?) But once in power, Ms. Redford proved just another PC power monger, appointing inflammatory ministers like Jeff Johnson to the Education portfolio so she could swoop in like some sort of deus ex machina to put out his fires and save the union from itself. That is, until the party/government needed a scapegoat.

                The second source of my doubt, sir, is in your history as a minister in the cabinet of the most anti-democratic, anti-Canadian, and dictatorial national government in our history. You were a part of the Harper machine, a government more concerned with McCarthyian fear mongering of its opposition than good governing, a prime minister who has gone to war with our national institutions, our very Canadian identity, a party that has broken the laws of this nation repeatedly, a leader who has tried to hide his past of hate-ads against homosexuals so as to stay in power by appearing to stand for everything as he stands for nothing, a party that felt Rob Anders was the sort of person who could represent it. In short, the worst government in Canadian history. And you were a part of its inner circle. And then you left it for a bank—hardly a saintly transition for us armchair quotation cynics.

                But you did leave, so here’s hoping.

                Mr. Prentice, you speak of a new future for Alberta. You say this as the head of a party/government supported by voters who appear to only live for today (as an homage to the past 43 years). Our cities grow outward hilariously, acreages are the new suburbia, oil companies exploit our resources with no regard for environmental, health, or Aboriginal impact, and our health and education systems are overworked to the breaking point in order to stir sympathy for privatization. Alberta is a land where tomorrow hasn't existed since 1971.

                So, sir, consider: Those of us who are not willing to be complacent, who do not shrug our shoulders and accept our government and our governance as “the way it is and always had been” have more power than many may think, for good or ill. We brought Ms. Redford her majority. Our disgust with your party could see us return to voting with our hearts for small parties which have little hope of forming the next government, but whose grabbing of our votes could cost your party its Red Tory support and thus allow your extreme right opposition to unseat your bloated, entitled party. This would be to the detriment of us all, for a Wildrose Alberta would be worse for the future than a Harper Canada. (Which explains why Stevie likes them better than you.)

But it’s your own party’s fault.  

My plea, Mr. Prentice, is that you put your money where your mouth is. Your party/government has dug a rut and furnished it. It would be easy for you to align yourself with the status quo, to continue to pile filth on Redford’s reputation, and pander to the Right to bleed off more of those fanatical votes.

Alberta deserves better. Many feel that today is fine here in this lovely land of ours, but we must accept that the future exists and it will come no matter how much this government/party and its voters deny it. You have addressed the future, mister designated premier, now you must accept it. That job begins tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Paul 

Patriotic Despite

                I have been fortunate enough to make up for a relatively static first two decades of life with a constant travel in the time since. Journey is my drug, destination my addiction, and I’m lucky enough to have a spouse and children who share them.

                I experienced something unique returning from a summer European venture this year. I had been to Greece in April, and came home to a familiar appreciation of all things Canadian, and a lamenting of the ways in which Canada is inferior to Greece—and outside of the weather, it’s a satisfyingly short list. When you travel, coming home is an experience in itself.

                Summer was a Norway trip, and for me that’s very special. Norway is my ancestral home, and the first country I ever visited outside of the North American continent.

                I have a reputation among my Norwegian and my Canadian friends and relatives as being the Viking guy. I have always been hooked by medieval Norse history, have read all of Snorri’s work, and can reference most of the main kings in order from Heimskringla. You’d think I would have come back from that trip more fired up than ever for all things Viking, all things stereotypically Norse. Not so.

                A month after returning I still find myself missing the good sense of roundabouts, and my vindication that socialism is the only sensible form of democracy is strengthened. Norway is a country capitalistic enough to exploit its oil reserves but progressive enough to save a portion of them for the future, something those of us who live for a little bit more than today wish Albert was capable of.

                But I did not come back preaching the grandeur of Norway, wishing there were some way I could leave Canada behind and hide behind my Nordic last name forever. I love squeeze bottle caviar, but I love Canada more.

                I came home with a passion for my own country. I have always had a historical and cultural interest in Canada—certainly more than your average Canadian, might I say—but spending time with those Norwegians inspired something greater. Everyone there, young or old, passionate or not, knows so much more about their own country, culture, and history and expresses it with much greater pride than we Canadians do. We simply just “aw shucks” our own national tale for fear of sounding too much like Grandpa shouting answers at Front Page Challenge.

                I am a proud Canadian still, despite. Despite our environmental track record, despite our creeping capitalistic values, despite out American-patterned static and wasteful lifestyles. Despite or (barely) elected national government and its oh-so-rotten head. Despite a disunity among 34 million very diverse individuals living in a colossal landmass no sensible person would try to paint with the same regional or cultural brush.

                Nevertheless, I am proud.

                And so when I came home with a few weeks of holiday remaining, I was able to dedicate some of my time to some exploration of the Foothills, of the Crowsnest Pass, of Calgary, in an attempt to soften my relationship with a city I love so dearly despite its being the epicentre of all that could ruin this country.

                I approached this venture as a tourist, like an outsider. I shelved my previous knowledge and set about learning this place from scratch. And in this way I learned so much about us, because I didn’t let my preconceived judgments cloud my understanding. I learned so much about how Calgary grew and the area around fed it.

                I was left excited about this place, and saddened because I think I am in the minority. We Canadians are ignorant of ourselves. We could say that we are less so than our American cousins who have ignored the truth of their own story in the crafting of their myth, but at least in that false story they have a sense of something and a pride.

                I declare that this land is worth such an interest, because it’s only an interest in where we came from that we can learn who we truly are, and in learning who we are can we prevent ourselves from continuing where we’re going. Ignorance of the mass is a powerful tool for its leaders to use against that mass, and for a decade we have been allowing this to happen. If we as Canadians dedicated ourselves to a better understanding of ourselves, the pride would no longer be forced, or relegated to curling and hockey scores.

                

Time

                We’re wrong about time.

                I love humanity. I’m a humanist. I think our greatest achievements are when people really and truly do great things for the sake of doing great things and are celebrated for it. For the glory of us-kind.

                But time is a mistake.

As a guy who handles himself rather decently around the language—a bunch of curls and loops meant to encapsulate all range of feelings and deeds—I’m a bit intimidated by Math. Sure, I appreciate its rigid straight-line logic, its absolute unflinching absolutism. But, despite those who claim its universality, it’s just as much a human fabrication as language. And this is nowhere clearer than when we talk about time.

We have imposed our own Math on human experience and forced it to make sense, even though every experience we have says otherwise.

Think: the worst experience you ever had—say, that time you wet yourself in front of your Grade 4 class—was about as long as the very best summer of your life. True, the seconds and minutes and hours and days belie this, but those are the human imposition. Your experience is the truth.

Time is a human creation. It actually goes slower when you’re younger than when you’re older. I have a best friend who is twenty years older than me. I have peers who seem like children. I know teenagers who are right to consider me naïve.

Because time is a lie. As with words, we have tried to catch our understanding of this experience that is humanity and express it in a nicely-wrapped little package of digits and dials. It’s not that. Life is what we live, and time, as words, fails to express what we are living.  

Hope on Canada Day

     It's become a habit of mine to write a sort of state of the union composition on our country's birthday. I
may not always post them on this blog, but July 1 has become a day for me to assess and look outward across our country and culture.
     That sounds grand, but it's not intended to be. Really, this is just a blog about wanting to be hopeful.
     Last year I was still haunted by visions of rushing water, of streets turned to brown sludge riverways, of military trucks screaming down the QE2, embarking on the most un-winnable of battles, of that now infamous shot of a mud-splattered red Canada hat. Last year in Southern Alberta, Canada Day was about clean up. That evening, as we always do--and will again tonight--my band took the stage before the local fireworks. I introduced a Big Sugar tune and thought the words "All Hell for a Basement" had a bit different meaning that day in this song Gordie Johnson wrote about Alberta.
     Today, I'm thinking about hope. And its loss, or at least its weakening in Canada today.
     For some reason, after a drink or two the other night I got thumbing through YouTube music videos from my youth. Deeply down the rabbit hole, I let fly the Scorpions' "Wind of Change," that hair-rock power ballad from the tail end of the hair-rock era, that whistle-solo piece of schlock that was one of the go-to closers of high school dances (along with Extreme's "More Than Words," of course).
     I was moved with the cheeseiness of the song, its over-dramatic nature juxtaposed against eighties rockers in their greasy finery, with far away eyes and slowly swaying hips. But it'd been twenty years at least since I'd seen the video, and I'd forgotten the images of the fall of the Wall, of the toppling of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe. For those of us alive then, there was this overwhelming sense that we were going somewhere right, that the world may actually be getting some peace. Growing up as a kid in the tail-end of the Cold War, some of its most volatile years thanks to the idiocy of the Western Powers and their Cowboy Actors and Bassy Irishmen and Iron Ladies, I and most kids my age had lived in an unannounced fear most of our childhood. Nuclear war seemed an unreal specter, but it was a specter that was there. It could happen, we believed that we believed.
     Then, at the turn of the 90s there was a feeling that we'd finally lifted the weight that started back in 1914, that a century of war and strife and human depravity had finally been shaken off. That finally, we were moving towards peace.
     You'll forgive my optimism. I was twelve when the Wall fell in Berlin, and my own innocence parallels nicely with the dawning of what the nostalgist in me wants to see as the best ten years because they were a pretty good ten years for me. I would be ignorant to ignore the strife in Bosnia, Kosovo, the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Rwandan genocide, Oka, Oklahoma City. I have not forgotten.
     And yet, there was still hope. This summer, as I watch the sun rise over this Dinosaur Valley I call home every July, I'm thinking about what's on our minds as a nation and as a world. There are flood clean-ups in Southern Alberta again; granted, on a much smaller scale, but tell that to anyone who has lost their house. My home province of Saskatchewan has a dozen communities under severe flood threat. Ontario's been suffering tornadoes.
     This summer marks one hundred years since the great celebrations and mass enlistments as Canadians prepared to proudly and patriotically--as Britons--embark on the greatest stupidity the world had yet seen in the trenches of France and Belgium. One hundred years. One hundred years of those battles over the next few years, of Ypres, the Somme, of course Vimy, of a nation we were told was forged in those trenches--war doesn't make nations, not ever--and then of victory. Of the folly, the idiocy of 1919, and how it acted as a guarantor of the coming strife that has not shown a single year of pause since the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.
     The news has been thick with fear of Putin's Russia, and twenty years of convincing ourselves that so much has changed from the fall of the Soviet Union has proved mostly a lie. Our own boob prime minister postures and puffs against the Russian bear, while raising his fists out our cultural and legal institutions, and pushing for pipelines across Treaty Land. 2014 is the year that Harper finally and truly rang the death knell of the CBC, a Canadian institution I value like no other for its public interests, and for its import as OURS. When the dust settles, when the damage of this past decade of Conservative depravity has been assessed, that is one victim I hope we morn the loudest, for it was one of the most significant things that made us what we are.
     The past fifteen years have been hard. We've grown cynical. We see a world full of the next awful thing and the hope we felt at the end of the last century--even as ignorant a hope t it was--has long washed away. We find it easier to stomp quickly and heavily on the thoughts and opinions of others, as the speed we can respond to each other and the digital safety--a brand new Wall--allow us to sometimes be truly awful to each other.
     I'm never one to be given over to "the world is getting worse" thinking--tell that to anyone in a trench nintey-nine years ago--but I do wonder where are hope has gone.
     I'm not sure what Canada Day stands for, really. After the pancakes and fireworks and flags, what are we celebrating? Our history? Our culture? How we are feeling right now? Above I've listed how all of those can be dubious sources of pride.
     But--and this is the father in me talking--I think it's an important day for hope. In a province and a country and a world where sober cynicism is often touted as a mature reality, I think there's more than a little room for some hair straight back hope. From hope, we can stand and look at the awful in the world and work better against it, because we can see another side where the problems are solved. I would much rather count myself there, than amongst those who shrug their shoulders and tell the rest of us that that's how it is and we're immature not to accept it.
    Happy and hopeful Canada Day.

Your Childhood Is a Lie

Your childhood was nothing like you say.

                You see it on the social media updates, memes posted here and there, opinion pieces in the news. At times it gets heavy enough that it’s given features in credible news magazines, time on radio or television, bloated, stat-heavy reports. Jokes, commentaries, studies. Attacks, basically—because they’re rarely disguised as anything else—on these gat dam KIDS these days.

                Yes. Kids. Those spoiled, egocentric, entitled, obese, lazy, sheltered, narcissistic, shallow kids. Oh, and their phones.

                You can’t thumb through any news feed without seeing something ridiculing them, their values, their parents, their music (okay, sometimes that’s gotta be said), or their world. Their world.

                At some point in the past ten years we appear to have reached an agreement to say that Millenials are the very worst generation and everyone just sort of accepted it. Even them.

How could they not?

They were hearing about our childhoods. So simple. So pure. So hardworking and outdoorsy and satisfied with what we earned—nothing was given—so full of respect for durn near everyone. A time of values and motivations, goodness and manners.

Utter bullshit.

When I was a kid, I was pretty sure that my parents and grandparents were making their childhood suffering sound worse, their innocence sound purer, and their appreciation of everything greater. I know that we are doing the same. We are lying to them and to ourselves, and for once both are believing it.

Did we drink from garden hoses? Sure. Play outside? Lots. Have a single rotary phone and a party line? Damn straight.

But weren’t we also told that our feelings mattered and that we were each of us special? Wasn’t there winter eight months of the year? Did every household not have a Nintendo? Would we not have been all over smart phones had they been offered to us in Dukes of Hazard cases?

(And anyone who’s telling you smart phones are a Millennial problem has never attended a staff meeting or dinner party in a decade. No one pays attention to anyone else, not just them dag-blamed kids.)

Our hypocrisy is paper thin. We claim to have spent twelve hours a day outside unsupervised in a country where winter lasts until May, and yet we also managed to watch Goonies and Ghostbusters  eighty times each, as well as enough Transformers, He-Man, and G.I.Joe to choke a cat. We finished Mario Bros 1-3, a couple of Zeldas, and we managed to have every tape transitioning from hair metal to grunge.

We’re full of it. It’s a fantasy. And we expect kids to buy it because we’re buying it ourselves.

It’s gotta make you feel for kids these days. They are being told that they’ve inherited a dystopia that they're pretty much responsible for ruining. And yet, somehow, they also don’t appreciate it. They hear our lies of a gentler, nicer era (during the Cold War where our grandparents had once beaten up the town's one Chinese kid and parents disowned their pregnant daughters) and I guess they must think when they live extra especially sucks. Based on what they’re told.

Fact is, there were stupid and spoiled and selfish people when we were kids. And when our grandparents were.

This world we’re describing to them never happened. I don’t know if it’s built on resentment or  it’s built on self-delusion, but it’s balderdash and that’s that.

There are always going to be kids these days.   

We Went to Greece

Dedicated to the all those intrepid riders of the Sonstebus.

 

Athens. Pleasant surprise.

                We went to Greece. Me, m’wife, m’mom, and over 130 of our closest friends. Packed days, waking up at hours that most of us have never seen from the backside, funny food, ill-advised throwing star purchases, and food, food, food.

                Here, then, is Greece as seen through the journal I took so much good-natured abuse for. I will continue to attest that it’s stickers and word-smithing, not scrap-booking.

The notorious journal. 

                Reading someone write about a trip is about as painful as the one-time practice of holiday slide shows, so I’m simply going to break each day down into the best part and worst part and let you go from there.

Saturday, April 19^th

Easter in Glyfada.

J            Watching a midnight Greek Orthodox Mass ringing in Easter in Athens is special, and a lot more exciting than I remember Catholic masses being. Must’ve been the fireworks and kissing. . .

L            Jet lag sucks, but when you go travelling in Europe, do stuff! Sleep is for planes, buses, and home.

Sunday, 20^th April (Easter and m’wife’s birthday)

J            Athens is a much nicer and cleaner city than I had been led to believe. It’s a lovely place to explore on foot, especially on a 20+ April day, and extra-especially when you know it’s snowing in Calgary.

L            A 45-minute train ride with 130 people plus locals is an awful experience in a country where 20 degrees is cold and thus the heat is on.

Monday, 21^st April

J            If you’re going to tour Greece, see the islands. Cruise ships are decent and the Louis Olympia was dated but respectable. Mykonos has the best sea food on the Mediterranean.

L            Mykonos is also a labyrinth. Leave yourself lots of time to get back to your tender boat. Especially at night. Extra-especially when your wife falls in love with every second shop on the way back.

Tuesday, 22^nd April

J            A taste test of Turkey reveals that its culture is mostly parallel to Greece’s, just like it’s history.

Turkish apple tea. High-pressure rug sales. 

More lush than you’d think, but that wonderful culture is superseded by Roman, Greek, and Christian sites drawing most tourists. Ephesus is impressive. Apple tea is good.

L            Why is it every time I’m in an Islamic country I get caught in a high-pressure rug store?

Wednesday, 23^rd April

J            Rhodes is my personal favourite island. The Acropolis in lovely Lindos, the Old (Medieval) Town of Rhodes itself. It is a destination all on its own, and they drink beer out of three litre glass boots. My kinda place. Also, wine tastings are served in full glasses. Be warned.

L            There will always be people who choose beaches over culture, shopping over conversation.

Thursday, 24^th April

J            Santorini is all it’s billed to be. Gorgeous blue and white buildings hanging off of the side of a mountain. It’s what you’ve always imagined Greece to be.

L            The Island of Crete proved the greatest let-down of the trip. Knossos is interesting, but an ill-advised reconstruction of King Minos’ palace leaves the experience far lesser than most of the rest of Greece’s ancient sites.

Friday, 25^th April

J            Even if you find 2000 other tourists there, including those loud-mouthed-pointing-out-the-obvious American groups that seem to show up everywhere, at Delphi you will find beauty and you will find peace. I

The Delphiselfie.

guarantee it.

L            No matter what you tell some people, they still only see rocks and trees. Also, sea legs are much harder to lose than to gain.

Saturday, 26^th April

J            The Acropolis of Athens is crowded, hot, in rough shape, and a hike up. It’s also one of the most worthwhile postcards you can visit. I picked a poppy off the ground and put it in my journal.

L            The coastline drive to Sounio is worth it, but too many will stop at busy beaches before reaching the point where Aegeaus threw himself into the sea he would give his name to when Theseus mistakenly flew the wrong sails.

Sunday, 27^th April

J            Windsor is a heckuva place to spend a layover.

L            I have crossed the Atlantic ten times and the Pacific four, and I still haven’t got a fool-proof cure for jet lag. 

The Acropolis by night.