The Age of the War on Reason

In a recent read of T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, I was moved as I’m sure all readers are by the novel’s chief theme: that reason is the greatest of all human qualities. Reason as opposed to force. Intelligence over might. And even in his own 1940s as he wrote about a Norman Conquest of another timeline, he was worried about its loss, about the war—figurative and literal—that was being fought against reason by might in his own days.

            Were he alive today. The war against reason is full-fledged again and it looks like the brutes have got the brains on the run. Not even specific to Donald Trump, in the past few weeks I’ve heard political correctness demonised for its stifling of free speech, the traditional media decried for inciting opposition to opinions that would like to be held freely without justification, and various other no-longer-even-thinly-veiled statements of sexism, racism, climate change denial, obtuse views that exist and so are true. People have become of the opinion that having an opinion automatically validates that opinion. Sorry?

            It’s a war against reason, Mr White.

Recently, my own Member of Alberta's Legislative Assembly penned a rambling opinion piece in our local newspapers in which he was very careful to say that he was not (exactly) endorsing Trump, but it’s the fault of an enemy he attacks with alarming fervour—the vague “leftists”—because the new president-elect is the product of a backlash to political correctness. The American voter lashed out against PC because it prevented politicians like Trump (I know, just go with it) from speaking their minds, from adhering to that holiest of mantras: Telling It Like It Is.

Pause for a second. This is an elected official (I didn’t vote for him but whatchagonnado?) saying that the problem for him is having to choose his words carefully, to not offend, to not be blunt or crude or sexist or racist or stupid intentionally or accidentally. Geez, man, get outta public life if that’s how you feel.

Any stupid ignorance bubble does not need to gain flight, and my MLA and his ilk insist that not only should it be allowed to rise aloft, but it should do so without being held to the rigours of decent language. People need to be able to tell it like it is where IT is equal to whatever non-censored rant they feel is justified. It needs to be able to spurt and fly without a second’s consideration for potential offenses in it or potential un-truths.

It’s a battle against decent—or even moderately intelligent—language in the war against reason.

Preserving the right to offend is just the sort of policy you would expect to see from people and politicians who only have enough of a grasp on ideas to see anyone who doesn’t agree with them as enemies. Apparently T.I.L.I.I. results in a closed mind, in creating camps, battle lines, platoons of the ignorant, battalions of blowhards.

And if they’re not busy telling us how angry they are at not being able to say what they want with the when and how disregarded, they’re grumbling about journalists making their stories under the rigours of language that is correct, both grammatically and politically. Hearing someone’s opinion on traditional media has suddenly become as polarizing as the same on abortion or transgender bathroom choices. The “liberal media” has long been vilified by the Newt Gingriches, Stephen Harpers, Brad Walls, and Fox News producers of the world because that so-called media with it’s so-called bias doesn’t present IT like IT is, as in with the plaintiff’s desired spin put on it. No bias there, though. Of course, they rage this way while ignoring the same claims made over time by the Pierre Trudeaus, Bill Clintons, and Paul Martins out there.

This trend—again championed by the US president-elect—is to approach journalism with all of its trained reporters, vetted stories, multi-sided opinions, as completely flawed with completely awful intent in order to completely discredit politicians (I know, maybe it’ll grow on us) like him. People like Trump hate how the media presents them, though blame is far easier to make in this world beyond reason than a person asking himself how he is presenting himself to the world. But I don’t want to over-stress it.

              Trump—like my unfortunate MLA—hates the media because he can’t control it. Frankly, he won the election because of the war on reason. He’s a major victory for the forces of ignorance. People believed his post-truths (first try: did I use it correctly?) on Twitter, his “by-the-way” outright lies, and they loaded Facebook and blogs and any other (anti-)social medium they could with tripe. If my understanding of the Oxford English Dictionary’s new darling is correct, all you have to do is yell stupidity louder and more frequently and no number of facts can disprove you. The media (or anyone with better than a Grade 4 education and the ability to consult more than one news app) can’t contradict you.

It’s stupid. Literally, not colloquially. Stupid reigns. Again. The end of reason didn’t come in White’s own time, but the legacy of the Goebbles of that era just needed a few more decades to take firmly.

Male Feminists: Trump Demands Action

              Even though I’m still capable of passions—in this case, deep and overwhelming despair—

I’ve long outgrown being surprised when people think differently than me. I don’t mean they like ketchup and I like mustard, I mean they believe things that I know are morally wrong; you can always tell such things because of how long it takes to explain the supposed logic.

              Sorry for the soapboxing but those of us who live by moral codes, who have what we believe is a decent sense of right and wrong, took it on the chin pretty hard last week. Yes, this is yet another opinion piece about Donald Trump. No, I won’t try to encompass the scope of the danger the world now faces with this man (and the frightening torch-carriers that support him) in here. It’s too big. Racism, sexism, the rise of blatant ignorance, the attack on the media, the attack on truth—it overwhelms me. But it’s not new with Trump, it’s just gone from being the sad thing we don’t talk about enough to the horrifying thing that put such a man in power.

              They’re all bad, these topics, and anyone saying they’re isolated to the United States is living a very deluded existence. But that seems to be catching lately.

              All of these horrors exist north of the 49^th, and Trump’s election is just giving them entitlement to go from seething to screaming. Just like the folks we’ve seen interviewed at Trump rallies going “He tells it like it is and, uh, tells it like it is.” Yes he does. And just what it is will define a generation of pigs.

              Enough preamble, had to choose one subject to decry. This one’s on sexism.

              Look at the news in Southern Alberta and you won’t have to bump around long before you encounter three examples:

1)      The PC Leadership race, in which the only two female hopefuls pulled out after what Sandra Jansen described as attacks on her character and her sex—specifically in regards to LGBQT rights. Favoured to win, Jason Kenney could only say it’s the way things work at leadership conventions and rallies. If two women drop out of the race because of bullying does this former federal politician “man” up and say he will root out the problem? No, because that’s not the way his party works, especially if it wants to appeal to the extreme right Wild Rose voters. Let’s not forget that this is the party that’s responsible for the Allison Redford smear and Rachel Notley memes. The support base—and I’d argue much of the party’s brass—have just never cottoned to women in authority

2)       Red Deer MLA Barb Miller suffers trolling when fake Facebook and Twitter accounts are created and then inflammatory comments posted. This is nothing new, but the backlash against these comments from people who believed the ruse were embarrassing, even for online comment boards, which have replaced reality TV as the place humanity shows itself at its most deplorable. These trolls couldn’t resist jabs at Miller’s gender, because one thing Albertans seem to hate more than a socialist or liberal is a female socialist or liberal. What’s next? Native or Muslim?

3)      Calgary city councilor Dianne Colley-Urquhart meets privately with female members of Calgary’s police force to hear about the constant sexual harassment they have received. An ugly topic that keeps coming up regarding our police force and military. We can handle letting women die for us, but they better be ready to be called “honey” and grabbed by the, well, I’m sorry—couldn’t quite say it.

These three examples are just the ones in the news today. Rachel Notley is daily degraded in

some way online and it is rare that her gender is not attributed even indirectly to her fitness to lead. And I’m saying that politely. These are just the politicians, this is just Alberta. The disease is far more pervasive than that.

              Here’s the worse news: Alberta is really just a sexist province in what is still a fairly sexist country in a world where sexism (along with the other moral crimes outlined above) just got a loud and traumatizing endorsement. The Women’s Liberation movement just took a fifty year backwards step and those that defend the decision can only thump their tubs and say “Hillary bad.” I am not her biggest fan, but far too many of those who voted against her are from the same establishments and social classes as those fanning the sexist flames here in Alberta, and her gender was all the justification they needed to vote for a man with the hormones of a 14 year old, the vocabulary of an 8 year old, and the values of an ape.

              So, fellas, we have some work ahead of us. Those of us who are men and who say we are not sexist and try through our actions to not be sexist have done so too quietly. As a friend of mine said, speaking to me in her utter despair for women everywhere, we as men can no longer approach this with just a “do-no-harm” attitude. We can’t simply try not to marginalize and persecute women because they are marginalized and persecuted. Ship sailed. We need to be proactive than that. We as men have to strike out against it, have to attack the sexist agenda of any men who support Trump-thinking (oxymoron if there ever was one) and see no wrong in the three cases I listed above, or in the millions like them.

              In every way we need to get louder. Feminism is being undermined by a form of chauvinism that’s seeing young men adopt the outlooks of their grandfathers on their worst days. Spend twenty minutes in a club on a Saturday and tell me I’m wrong. Attend any board meeting or staff meeting and listen for ten minutes before a woman’s sex—even if it’s intended as a compliment—becomes the key to her identity. The very tem “nasty woman” that Trump used for Hillary shows this: an adjective and a gender pronoun, all you need to know about her fitness to lead.

              Men need to be feminist, and we need to do it quick, to be just as loud in the face of the dinosaurs as they are with us, yet without stooping to the outright garbage these “locker-room” jokers will. Sadly, we can no longer side with women, bravely call ourselves feminist, and risk the jibes of other men and call it enough. This calls for action, not standing aside atop the moral high ground. This needs to be confronted head on.

              It’s not just about not being sexist. It’s about being brazenly and loudly feminist--though I have to admit we can't call ourselves feminists, we can only be called that by women who see solidarity from our actions. But if the idea of being called a feminist makes you squirmy, guys, it just shows how far we smug Canadians had grown before the Americans voted themselves and us back to the Stone Age.     

Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/11/12/jason-kenney-bullying-alberta-pc_n_12928246.html?utm_hp_ref=canada-alberta&ir=Canada+Alberta

http://globalnews.ca/news/3064626/alberta-ndp-mla-says-she-was-victim-of-facebook-imposter/

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/diane-colley-urquhart-police-comments-integrity-1.3850889

Is Listening Reading?

              A few years back I started putting Teacher/Author on any sort of form that asked for my profession. I started saying it too. “Profession? Teacher slash author.” In time I started stressing the and. Sort of like: “Surprise, there’s more to me.” I started doing this because as I started seeing more of my pieces get published, including a book, I wanted to embrace the fact that I had a second job. Perhaps someday I’ll write Author/Teacher but that feels a bit like crossing a line. It may be pompous to use a two-career title, but besides the publications I decided that anything that pays regularly needs credit as a career. Teacher stays first because it’s my career and my chief obsession, the place where I currently do the most good for society (and that matters). Teaching pays the bills, writing pays my ego. One a passion, one an obsession. 

              The thing about being a Jack of Two Trades is I’m not pretending at night I’m something I’m not by day. I am an English teacher and an author in the English language, I’ll point out the obvious and say that both of my jobs involve the understanding of, mastery of, and refined usage of English. All of my working hours are spent involved in the craft of our communication. Books, stories, poems, plays, articles, blogs, rants, raves—I read, write, and teach all of these. Every single day. It’s a pretty cool dual-vocation, challenging and exhilarating, and best of all what I do in one informs upon the other. Oh sure, somedays I wish I was a Teacher/Plumber because both of my jobs suffer the judgment of not being “real work” in the eyes of those who judge how hard some work than others—which is everyone—but I’m being oversensitive and digressive.

              A hat I wear inside the hat of being an English teacher is a teacher of English Language Learners, students and immigrants and international students who are the cluster-bomb of a language to their linguistic arsenal. During a novel study with an ESL group I played my students the first chapter on audiobook, as a change from me reading it to start and to sort of whet their appetite for the novel. (Yes, English Teachers/Authors believe Students/Readers can have literary appetites whetted.) My ELLs loved this, finding it much more approachable, and asking if they could have the whole novel read to them this way, or failing that, for me to do it. I told them it wasn’t going to be possible as this was an accommodation, and not actual reading, in the strictest sense. In my heart it felt a bit like cheating.

              So what is our opinion on the audiobook, oh rhetorically-addressed readers? In recent years I’ve started to listen to them more often because life’s just too damn busy (especially when your career has a slash in the middle) for a guy to keep four or five books on the go anymore. But when you listen to them, are you actually reading them. It’s a literal and philosophical quandary—the sort that appeal a lot to us English two-job types. So let’s ponder it further, shall we?

              In my journal, I’ve been keeping a list of books for well over a decade. Rather creatively, I call it my Booklist. I think it started when I saw one of those lists of the best books of all time and it got me thinking about how many of them I had read, and how many remained to be read. See, with an English degree, a teaching degree specializing in English, and an already-healthy appetite for reading, a lot of those subjective “great” books had already passed my vision. So I created a list of the remaining dozen or so. The list got added to, but I’ve been working it down over the years.

              In early 2016, I realized that I had fewer than ten left. One was War and Peace, another was Moby Dick. Big books, difficult books, dated books. In some cases books you’re more likely to want to say you’ve read than to have read, though there are always surprises. When your reading time is as limited as I’ve already shown you mine is, tackling these big suckers—many of them more work to read than is worth what you gain from them—facing the challenge doesn’t always seem worth the while. So over the year I’ve worked through audio versions of some of them. Let me tell you, that was the only way to read Moby Dick, take my word for it.

              Those bragging rights got me thinking once again, though. Could I say that I had actually read the books. Is listening to a book be read the same as reading? In many ways I was more attentive than I would’ve been with a dull book like Melville’s by having it read to me than reading it myself and having mind wander off as the dead prose lulled me, more than reading it on my own. But you could argue that just sitting (or running, driving, cycling, working in the garage) and listening to a book isn’t reading because it isn’t as dedicated to the book. But isn’t the bragging attached to the accomplishment of having actually read it.

              Back to my classes now. I mark provincial exams and to have a reader or CD is considered a pretty major accommodation because of how sacred the actual act of reading is. The main thrust of the exam is still that you gave read it, not that you have had it read to you.   

              Just what exactly do we mean by “reading?” The simplest definition that strikes me is that reading is the uncovering of meaning by decoding phonetic symbols that have been formed into words, which through their combinations create a text. The audiobook removes that decoding by at least removing the difficulty of interpreting the words. This is no small thing. I consider myself a fairly verbose guy but I have more than once been surprised by an audio reader/performer’s delivery of a new word, or a word I had always pronounced wrong and never had the notice to correct despite nearly four decades as a reader.

              There’s some credibility, then, to saying that listening to an audiobook is not reading because it skips a step. The reader herself is not doing the part where she must encounter text, interact with it, decode it, (enjoy it, hopefully), and master it.

              And speaking of interaction, how you do it is now dictated by a surrogate. I gave up on e-readers after my first go not on some sort of honour for the smell and the feel of books (although that matters to me) but because I can’t interact with a text as I like to that way. I flip around, go back over passages, I write down quotes, I underline passages. A name looks different to me than when I hear it; I stare for a long time at proper nouns. I try to guess the etymology of some words. All of this I have to suspend while listening to (note I didn’t say reading) an audiobook.

              Maybe it sounds like I’m moving towards decrying audiobooks. I’m not. What I am doing is trying to decide if listening can count as reading in the face of all of this evidence that says it cannot. I’m not sure an answer is coming. Is listening to an audiobook the same as reading a book? No. But how different is it? Enough.

              Does that mean I’ll stop listening to audiobooks? No. Beyond that make what you will.  

The Tragically Hip: Canada's Band

Serindipitous Canadiana

For Kev, for Colin, for the Pulse boys, for Canada

      FIRST: I am and always will be a Pearl Jam man first, but there are times I think it would be more appropriate if the Tragically Hip was my very favourite band.

      SECOND: I wasn’t going to see the Hip on their farewell tour. Intentionally not.

I’ve become aware that I’m awfully Canadian. Painfully, irreparably, pridefully (so, humbly), cynically, critically, wonderfully, adjectatively Canadian. Eh! I read Pierre Berton on purpose because he brings me joy, I support local breweries (really, really support) and think Bud and Bud Light are swill. Maple Walnut is one of my favourite flavours. On a recent road trip I painstakingly developed my family a 200-song playlist called the Great Canadian Sonsteby Road Trip. I’m obsessed with our history, culture, politics. Municipal, regional, historical. I effing loved Beachcombers. I take pride (not the correcting and patronizing type of pride, real, honest pride) in the fact that we are a nation forged by more sensible things than war and revolution. I love the Jays, the CFL (Riders!), the Raptors, and the Habs. Because I’m a hockey fan I can’t in good sensibility like the Leafs. They don’t play hockey.

I have three fish on my desk and they’re all named Gord. (Lightfoot, Downie, and Howe).

So the Hip would be the fit for my favourite band, because they are the most Canadian band. But maybe it’s best that I share them. As all good Canadians know, what’s good for one of us is good for all of us. Like health care, Canadians are equal before the Hip. Almost socialist (he said, admiring the word and the fact he typed it in Southern Alberta and didn’t combust into flames) eh? I love the Hip a lot along with the rest of you.

And the reason I wasn’t going to see the Hip on this farewell tour is because I’ve seen them several times, just recently on the Fully Completely 20^th anniversary tour (duuuuuude). But the main reason was they’re a happy and good band and I wasn’t sure I wanted to see them under unhappy circumstances. The idea of watching them while Gord Downie’s brain cancer hovers in the room, while it’s all tears and farewells, I just wasn’t sure I wanted to be a part of it. The pariah scalpers made it worse (let’s not forget them a-holes after this, right?) and I solidly sat back in my happy memories and full (-ish, this is Canada, and we have taxes that pay for roads and health care) wallet.

Then, two days before the second of the two Calgary shows I caved. I needed to be there for the Hip’s farewell tour. I needed to go with my best friend who is the biggest Hip fan (he’s the only one who can have them to himself). I was shaken by how emotional it was for me. Cathartic.

And because I went at short notice I had a ticket by myself in a good spot and I paid below face value for it. Suck it, scalpers. (I was able to go in with Kev, go home with Kev, and trade a couple of “I love you, man” texts with Kev during the show, so all good to being alone with 15,000 pals.)

So I went, and even though it was at the crappy Saddledome with it’s odd-gawful sound, it was one of the very best concerts I’ve been to. It reminded me why I like concerts. The crowd and its responses to Gordie, his bandmates and their pure love for the man. It was a wholesome group, a crew, a plural. The most Canadian of bands because it was a group centered around an individual but an individual and I know the grammar of this sucker abandoned us in about the second period but hayzoos! what a pure thing to see and here comes the final period: .

No onstage douchebaggery. No douchebaggery in the stands. People shouted “I love you Gordie!” and “Fuck cancer!” between songs. The last time I ever felt this joyful in a crowd of my peers was at my first Hip concert. Craven, 1995, Another Roadside Attraction. The night “Pigeon Camera” and “Grace, Too” shook my soul and have forever since.

This was like being in church with 15,000 very likeable and like-minded people. And good church. Celebration church. Yes, it was grim. No, Gordie couldn’t adlib and tell awesome stories like “Killer Whale Tank” (and do yourself a favour and get the live Calgary version of “Grace, Too” which is a bonus on Now for Plan A and shows a man in the throes of not being able to start a song for being lost in his own onstage storytelling) mid-song and that was sad. But it was beautiful as well, and when Gordie sang, “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you” at the end of “Scared,” mugging the camera for the screens—dude, even Tie Domi would’ve balled if his tear ducts hadn’t been punched shut by Bob Probert.

It hit us, deep in our Canadian hearts and our Canadian identities and in our Canadian us-ness.

After all, this is the Tragically Hip we’re talking here. The most Canadian band. The band with the clever Canadian lyrics, and a name that’s still pretty damn clever nearly (ONLY!) thirty years later. There were those who had trouble figuring them in the early days—Gordie’s tremolo an acquired taste—although nobody could fail to toe-tap at the meat and potatoes rock and roll of their first three albums. Fully Completely did it for me. But they grew, and even those who don’t love them respect them.

‘Cause they’re the Hip. Canada’s band.

So let’s get morbid, shall we? Tell me that you, like me, didn’t pray to the cancer gods to choose another victim. Take Celine! Take Bryan! Take Anne! Hell, Lightfoot’s had a good run, take him! Take Jann--no wait, she's an awesome singer and funny in a world needing laughter. Take Paul Brandt! He actually sucks life from this country. Big Sugar’s reunion appears to be a flop, take that Gordie. Imagine the blues he could write in heaven! Blues? Even Colin James, man! Bieber, Bieber, a thousand times BIEBER!

Leave us Gordie! You’ve taken Howe, leave us Downie. How many of that most Canadian of names do you need?

Incidentally, don’t you think it will be awesome if there’s a rush of babies named Gordon over the next coupla years? Seriously, mebbe we need to have us another boy . . .

 Two days after I saw the Hip I saw Blue Rodeo. They played “Bobcaygeon” and dedicated it to their friend. On Canada Day my band played our every Hip cover in a glorious medley recognizing that the Hip were the reason we are a band, the glue, the bridge that Pearl Jam, Alabama, Van Halen, and U2 couldn’t be. Our band’s band. I figure it’s the duty of every Canadian band from here on out to carry the torch, a little light of Hip flame. Drake better learn himself some “Hundredth Meridian.”

This tour and this loss, this tragedy, this Kingston show on August 20^th, these are all national experiences. That’s why our broadcaster is carrying a rock concert. That’s why every community in this country has an event for that night. This is ours. It’s going to be hard. So, in my most humble and Canadian of ways, I’d like to end with the fine and oh so Canadian words (“deke” in a love song, fella) of the boys themselves:

I hear your voice cross a frozen lake
A voice from the end of a leaf
Saying, “You won’t die of a thousand fakes
Or be beaten by the sweetest of dekes”

                                                                               (“The Lonely End of the Rink”)

Faking Me

              For thirteen consecutive summers I’ve been faking it. For three weeks every July since 2004 I’ve been posing as a drama teacher, exploring art and its meanings, and tolerating Christianity and homeschooling. Well, at least not saying anything about them. I’ve taught performing arts at this summer school since before I was married, before I was a father, since I could still say emphatically that I was young, and it has become a major part of my life. For several years I did not know how to let it go. Family needs and my own growth have called for me to end my time at in in 2016, when even in 2015 I had openly wondered how I could quit it at all.          

              As a means of catharsis I’m going to talk through that most were holding me in, and without dwelling on the personal reasons I have left, will speak further on one aspect I’m mostly happy to leave behind.

1)      Art. As I said, this was a performing arts school in a camp environment. The days were long, with classes and then rehearsals extending into the very late and sometimes wee hours. Three solid weeks. The down times—usually between classes or late at night—I buried myself in my own art. Writing, reading, studying. I felt like I was always operating on a higher plain of cognition. For years I was concerned that I couldn’t abandon this because my art would suffer. However, I’ve grown as an artist, matured, blossomed. I am confident every day that I wake up as an artist and lay my head down as one, no matter what happens between. I no longer need the prop, though I am grateful for its place in my growth.

2)      Going back to the well. You can live as artfully as you want but if the demands of career and family mean you can’t give time to your art, just what sort of an artist are you? And when you’re only scratching out a few minutes per day (week?) for your art it become frustrating. You need the selfish binging once in a while. Staying out of town at this Summer School allowed me to do that. I know how to make time for myself—not three weeks, certainly, but time—my wife knows I need it, we’re both fine when I take it. And when I do, it’s just for me all day. No school in the mean time.

3)      Friendship. The staff at this school have all been involved for a long time. They’re some of my best, most respected friends. The junior staff are every one of them former students of mine. I always marvel at how respected I am there, how much authority my word carries, how much people internalize my words and ideas and advice. I don’t know anywhere that I am that unquestioningly loved. For the longest time this was the one I worried I could never replace. Then I got to think about my full-time best friends. They do love me, but they also question me. And this grows me. Friendship means you can be yourself, but if it’s only a sycophantic relationship for your own ego, it doesn’t grow you. Friendship should grow you as a person, evolve you, challenge you. And as much as I love these former people, because the friendships were such short bursts of our lives, it could only be ratifying. Another sort of return to the well.

4)      Jesus. I am not a Christian, and this is a Christian school. Part of it is supporting a Passion Play. The majority of the students are from actively Christian families, and many of those from wide-eyed fundamentalists. Many of the students are regularly homeschooled, a form of education I’ve always been very against. Very little of what I’m doing at this school—other than the art itself—lines up with my views of education. I am happy to leave that aspect behind, of biting my tongue and pretending to be—or maybe better put, of allowing myself to be thought without disagreeing openly—something I’m not. I’ve gained a lot of tolerance for religious diversity over the years, but haven’t gained any for those who are not. I remain the Good Samaritan amongst Philistines.

Thirteen summers is a third of my life. It’s a pretty big deal for me to finally be walking away. But it’s time, long since. I’m better for having it, and better for leaving when I’m on top.

A Call to Arms Against the Wilfully Ignorant

I Googled "white people" and this was way too close to the top.

This is not exactly a political rant. I'm much too angry for that.

              Politics will be referenced, oh yes, but after the good people of Canada sent the despicable Stephen Harper packing last October, I swore off political blogs for a year. The enemy was vanquished.

              No, this is a blog about our world, and politicians often reflect our world’s sentiments. And so what I'm trying to say is those sentiments are effed up.

              So, it’s with Harper I’d like to begin. When our great country fired that very worst of prime ministers—and so decisively, mind—why, I was quite proud of us. He’d done a lot of damage to our nation, our institutions, our morals, our identity, and some we may never undo. But worst of all and most of all he built a case for fear-mongering, marginalising, and whatever the gerund is for creating enemies. “If you’re not with me you’re against me.” One thing the dude understood is if you say things simply you need not trouble yourself with facts.

              And yet I fear that after ten years of saying it, I discovered that he wasn’t completely the disease. He was a very grievous symptom. Worse, this disease was not and is not confined to Canada, in truth its rot is much worse in the USA and the UK; indeed, there it may prove fatal.

              And I’m not speaking about Donald Trump or Boris Johnson, about Kevin O’Leary or Jason Kenney, about Brad Wall or the entire Wild Rose Party. I’m talking about their people, those who prop them up. I’m talking about those who believe what they say, who say that the inanity and hate they spew reflects their own values.

              Values?!

              The phenomenon that is Donald Trump is of course a joke. It’s been a joke since he ran and lost in the primaries in 2012, and it’s been a joke every step of the way this time. But as the world watches in disbelief that hilarity is twisting itself into fear as a scenario The Simpsons couldn’t have dreamed up unfolds, as he gets closer and closer to his goal. The joke isn’t funny anymore. As it stands of this writing, the worst this man could do is come in second for the most powerful office in the world.

              Donald Geedee Trump. A brash, loud, uninformed, poorly-spoken, racist, sexist, possibly unbalanced, orange twit who speaks in broad generalisations and chest-thumping nothings based on hazy understanding of the world and at the very best half-truths could be riding this wave of stupid to the oval office or second place. Only he could make a Clinton look appealing.

              Now consider Brexit. A continental shift so major that only a properly idiotic moniker can sum up how stupid it is. In the hopes of uniting a divided party, David Cameron invites the entire country to sound off on national policy and because in England the very thinnest of margins is apparently binding. The results are catastrophic, as "staying in the EU" turns into "keeping 'em refugees out," costing the man his career and leaving the door open for another badly-coiffed yell-talker to spew idiocy to the people in the form of the moronic Boris Johnson. (Wait, what? He's not? Why? Because he's not racist enough?! Lord . . .)

              Ah, but if you’re still with me you’ll recall I said that this was not about politics.

              And it’s not. I use these two examples because they’re the best and biggest, the loudest and the scariest, but there are thousands of others I could apply. The root issue is the same. They’re both born of the same problem: scared old white people. Many of them dumb. The rest trying really hard to pretend to be.

              Bernie Sanders’ staying power in the democratic primaries came from his appeal to America’s youth. That’s a demograph that rarely counts for much in US politics, so it was invigorating, and if his disillusioned supporters reluctantly follow him to Hillary’s banner, they could be Trump’s third greatest weakness after Hispanics and women whose husbands let them out of the kitchen.

              Brexit was a vote of old Brits versus young Brits, with just enough ignorant in the middle voting Leave to swing it, some to their immediate regret as they saw their protests become policy. Oops.

              Stupid, scared white people. Or perhaps it’s scared stupid white people. Whichever, let’s be clear that when you peel off the rhetoric, when you remove all of what these issues don’t share, the commonalities are fantastically simple: fear of change, fear of difference.

              They’re people who don’t like that the world has moved on and isn’t the one they lived in when young. People who don’t mind new white neighbours but despise Nigerians or Syrians or Hispanic or Filipino moving to this (any) country to do the jobs they refuse to but depend on. They’re angry and hateful because it’s not 1975 anymore.

              I’ve said this before on this page, but the greatest threat this generation isn’t ISIS or terrorism, it isn’t dependence on technology or even global warming. It’s wilful ignorance, because with ignorance comes a worsening of all of the above.

              People—and typically it’s older, blue-collar, and oh-so white people—want the right to form and spout opinions that are dependent on decades’ old ideologies and be able to do so without bothering themselves with, y’know, facts.

              People of any faith still pick and choose what aspects of their religion allow them to strategically hate and judge. Any excuse is found to ignore altogether the basic things a god or prophet was telling you. Never let your religion get in the way of your right to be a dumb-ass bigot.

              Owning weaponry is propped up as a right by twits who can say with a straight face that having more guns doesn’t mean more shooting. That’s the actual math. In fact, those with the truly pronounced brows would see us arm everyone because they say that leads to fewer shootings. Do me a favour and pick the first two people you see. Now imagine them armed with a mechanism that’s sole purpose is to kill. And you have one too. So does the bag-boy who crushed your bread. And the guy in the Audi who cut you off yesterday. And your ex. All armed.

              Add to that the three dumbest people you know. What could go wrong.

              Hay-zoose, how long until we’re re-writing textbooks?

              And this sentiment from the old and stupid is being passed to their young, who are encouraged to think what their elders think—that is, to not think at all—to have their biases and prejudices inherited, to blame phantom enemies for change seen as ruin, to steer clear of anything that might mean evolution in a society.

              Trump says he will make America “great again.” Whatever that means. The Brexit Leave-ers say “Now we have our country back.” Whatever that means. Anti-Arab sentiment is rolling over the EU and North America. Anti-Hispanics in the US. Anti-LGBTQ in the church. Nations being defined as races and cultures rather than geographical lines bearing diverse peoples.

              Nationalism, hatred, fear. Scapegoats. Simplified answers to complex questions. Ludicrous propaganda taken at face value. An economy and a world unwilling to diversify, its people unwilling to embrace change.

              Jesus, it’s 1939.

              It’s time to stop pulling punches. The wilfully stupid are mad as hell and acting on their half-baked understandings of how the world works. Intelligent and educated (or at least informed) people find themselves asking how can what we’re seeing be happening. How do you stand up to this wave of crushing dumb when your only weapons are knowledge and facts, and when those you’d seek to educate are standing with their eyes closed and ear plugs in, holding up signs of hatred with the wrong pronouns?

              It’s become foolish not to be a fool.  

When Did We Get So Stupid?

              Stupid is a constant I have accepted living around. Like tinnitus or a chronic neck problem, I try to ignore it as best I can but sometimes it gets so bad I just need to give it voice. This is one of those times.

              I am tired of stupid being the norm, of the sort of willful ignorance, the suspension of logic, the ignoring of concrete data, the suspension of common sense that has led to something as comical as Donald Trump running for the presidency of the United States of America becoming reality.

              When did rational thinking become something decried and suspected, when did intelligence become a weapon, especially when coupled with learning? When did talking really loud and using blanketing untruths become the best way to conduct oneself?

              When did we become so stupid?

              I was quite moved by a commencement speech I recently saw President Obama give. In it, a president whose greatest failings have always been intelligence and compassion when leading a country and world growing short on either expressed his alarm at this growing acceptance of not knowing, embracing ignorance, firing blind, glorifying the stupid.

              Misinformation? Try no information. People want to maintain—no, celebrate—their right to stick their fingers in their ears, eyes pressed tight, heads buried deeply in the sand, while also spouting drivel based on gut feelings or interpretation of Facebook memes, and making decisions that can affect families, constituencies, nations, the world.

              Science and medicine are doubted. Street-vendor solutions see people killing their children because they mistrust advancements in modern medicine but willingly run to the natural healings of carnival hawkers. Climate and pollution concerns are divided by a partisan wall and denying fact, denying evidence as completely biased allows one to ignore anything one does not already agree with. Evidence is valued for its alignment with our own preconceptions, rather than knowledge being adjusted to reflect evidence.              

              Why? Why be so willfully dumb? Why is the most powerful man on the planet needing to remind us of our cultural and societal obligations for fear of being replaced by the political equivalent of a three-year-old having a tantrum? That is, Obama fears that his successor could be a maniacal buffoon who people—willfully stupid people—are embracing because he “tells it like it is.” Meaning he says whatever strikes him as appropriate and incendiary at the moment, and because he doesn’t trouble himself with silly things like research and facts he is applauded. He is celebrated for being stupid.

              I cannot tolerate it. I’m not the smartest man most people know, not an intellect when people first think of one. But I am starting to feel like an elitist because I consider issues before shooting my mouth off about them. This leaves me a step behind because one thing stupid is, it’s fast. Just check Facebook and Twitter.

              In a time we have access to the entire collection of human knowledge, I feel like the few of us who will not willingly be stupid, the wave of ignorance threatens to overwhelm us. The worry is, the solution appears to be to avoid all of this dumb rather than sift through it logically. Ignorance as the solution to over-stimulation by idiocy.

              But I can’t quit. That’s be stupid. 

Ceiling Unlimited (2 of 2)

Look it up.

In a way, I envy people who don’t have personal philosophies. I don’t wish to and couldn’t imagine being like that, but I guess it’s probably one less thing to worry about in life. But then, what sort of life are you having not caring about things?

                I positively struggle with my personal philosophies. I find myself constantly shifting definitions, sifting through them, adjusting them to find what best suits me. I often find myself on the line between camps of ideas, and I suppose this sort of searching, compromising, and readjusting can look like indecision, as my friend said like I’m looking for something. I am, but she mistakes a questioning nature for a lack of conviction. The wondering wanderer (or the wandering wonderer) plagued with doubt is typically the sort of person the church gobbles up.

                That’s not me. Though I’m constantly redefining what I am, I know what I am not.

                I’m not a humanist in the strictest sense. I once thought so, because as a rational man I’m all for the celebration of humanity’s accomplishments. I find myself rooted in the thinking of Renaissance Florence, not First Century Judea. And yet, I’m not a strict atheist, and only looking at the accomplishments of humanity ignores the artistic and philosophical triumphs of the spirit, and their monuments that so enthrall and confuse me. As someone smarter than me once said, “Atheists ain’t got no songs.”

                I suppose I see myself as more of an individualist, but that’s a term we must be careful with because it’s one as misinterpreted and misaligned as agnostic. As an individualist, I am not a Randian objectivist or a libertarian. I’m suspicious of both of these philosophies for they are essentially dangerous or at the very least anti-social, and I am a very social (and often socialist) being.

                I’m an individualist in that I strive to make myself a better person, the best person I can be. An individualist celebrates the accomplishments of others as well, celebrates others who succeed, push themselves, make themselves better. Something evolved, something elevated. But not at the expense of anyone, and my moral code has me celebrating when this individual accomplishment can benefit others in some way, even just through inspiration. Can one be as oxymoronical as a socialist individualist? Not to sound hipster, but maybe there’s no term for my philosophy . . .

                Back to the beginning. If I enter the architectural triumph that is a cathedral and I find peace and I am able to elevate myself, I may also feel a desire to celebrate the people who created the place.

                Those that dreamed it, those that built it. Not those who hallowed it or the god and saints to whom it’s dedicated. Some view such places as wasteful, but they grant peace and elevation of the self, even on the heathen level.

                And very often I leave them with a better sense of who I am and what I think. 

Ceiling Unlimited (1 of 2)

Up. Way up.

When I travel, I take a lot of pictures of ceilings. Particularly church ceilings.

              I’m sure this is nothing special. There must be books dedicated to church and mosque and cathedral and synagogue ceilings, just as there are books of doors and windows and toilets around the world. I’m not thinking that it makes me especially unique that when I enter a church it’s instinctive for me to look up, nor is it especially unique that I take a next step of capturing what I see as some form of art. In fact, that I do it means I’m part of the masses—pun partially intended—for a functioning house of worship is figuratively and literally serving its purpose if it’s figuratively and literally making you look up.

              No, where the conflict resides in me is resolving this pious up-looking with my own secular heathenism.

              I was gently offended recently by a friend who happens to be a born-again Christian. (From the perspective of the comfortably faithless, there’s nothing worse than the born-again. It's like someone who's never eaten asparagus has it once at a restaurant, loves it, and insists on it at every meal. Then all they can talk about is asparagus. You've eaten it and it's not for you, but they just have to tell you about asparagus. Over and over. Like you're going to come around and like it just because they have.) She offended me by saying that she thinks my love of churches and my moral code are signs that I’m searching for something. That my attraction to churches in general and the fact that I'm a decent guy means I'm a Christian even and simply haven't realized it yet. Bothered me to be so simplified.  She could only define this search by her own standards. It downplayed my nature because she could only measure it by her own ruler. Or crucifix.

              But back to my love of churches. I adore them. I love the peace and the smell and the stained glass and where things are stored. I love the sounds and the way the light comes in them and the way it doesn't. Love everything about them. How each is its own story, a corner of a community, unique and stuffy and lovely. They’re usually the best part of any urban area, city or small town. When I travel somewhere new I always mentally note churches and pubs; it's subconscious. 

              They are the highest combination of irony. I don’t buy what they’re selling—not directly, anyway—and yet they are made of and containers for art.

              Art is humanity’s greatest expression, the sign of a high-achieving society. When a society starts to falter, when the mob begins to reign, that’s when art fails. Religion on the other hand is the most basic of creations. The most basic society invents a god to thank, blame, and appease as soon as it gets its collective head together. Religion is humanity at its simplest.

              Art is greatness, religion is baseness, and church is where the two meet.

              On a particularly hectic day in Aix-en-Provence, France, just before I entered the cathedral, a friend of mine commented on the building’s combination of Gothic and Romanesque architecture.

              “Gothic,” she said, “like many other styles implores us to look up to God, to the heavens.”

              I was surprised to hear this coming without pessimism from my atheist friend. I thought about how I was always drawn up to the ceilings, to the bottom of the top of these buildings.

              “When you go in think about that,” she continued. “think about elevating yourself. To some this means in the Christian sense, or at least in the faithful sense. To others it’s in the secular sense, in the raising of self. If nothing else, it’s a place to gather yourself in peace. Take a moment, breathe. Think about the how you can rise, ascend as a person. Raise yourself by whatever means you define it.”

              See, despite it being art dedicated to humanity’s most basic creation—religion—it’s still some of our greatest art. And the greater the church, the greater its architectural art.

              I’m glad they exist, even if I don’t use them as they were intended. Yes, the resources could’ve been better spent feeding, clothing, educating people. The same could be said for the money spent on sports stadiums, shopping malls, and office towers. Sometimes it’s just good to be awed by a thing. I suppose that sounds like a rationalization, but we need to be impressed at times, and maybe you’re not always on the ocean or beside a mountain.

              And unlike stadiums, malls, or towers, a person can enter most churches at most times and just be. Experience and elevate.

              Faith aside, I’m glad churches exist. Faith aside, I love everything about them. Faith aside, it’s still possible to be elevated in them without strict faith inside.  

R-Rated Superhero Movies (Or: What Happened to the Fun?)

Christopher Reeves just stopped combines . . . 

I went to see Deadpool the other day. I probably shouldn’t have.

              I tried to go in with an open mind. I like Ryan Reynolds, but I forgot how much I hate the character. I was still reading comics when he first came out. I hated him then and I hate him now—I hate that this movie’s success means that somewhere, somehow, Rob Liefeld is making a buck.

              I hated the movie. I hated that this cheap Wolverine/Spider-Man rip-off, a relic of a fad-driven 1990s comic book industry was getting any representation. I hate that he’s the symbol of where comic book heroes are going. It’s either “Grimdark” (re: Man of Steel) or potty humour.

              I don’t want to make it too big a deal, but the success of Deadpool can be equated to the success of Donald Trump. Maybe people truly are getting stupider.

              The movie sucked. It had all of the depth and creativity of a Family Guy episode, and it’s an insult to twelve-year-old boys to say it’s full of their humour. It’s idiotic, but idiocy sells.

              I haven’t collected comics in almost twenty years. I know there are many people who still think of me when they think of a comic nerd. And although there’s something about their mythos that still appeals to my lizard brain, they’re mostly just a topic like Star Wars that I associate with my bond with my kids more than with myself. I guess I simply outgrew them, along with video games, three chord punk, and party as a verb instead of a noun. Nowadays the odd comic-inspired flick neatly serves the purpose, especially since most of the stories are based on what I read as a kid.

              I got into comics when I was very young, and so I understand that my kids are getting into them. Unfortunately, the only ones I can give them are mine from thirty years ago, because comics are no longer for them. And Deadpool and its whole R-rated superhero debate might be a sign that the movies are going to follow their source right into the toilet.

              The problem is that we’re lying to ourselves as to what comics are about, who they’re for.

              I have a graphic novel of 1970s Neal Adams Batman stories. Read it with my kids. Couldn’t believe it. Batman was telling jokes, playing a prank, even smiling. I mean, it wasn’t the camp of the TV show ten years prior, but nor was it the brooding, husky, grim character of the 80s and beyond. He was an actual human being. This is all the more poignant because the modern comics and their films with adult themes for adult readers are often praised for their realism. Which is asinine, but we’ll come to that.

              Those 1970s comics were a fine balance: Superman and Batman still wore their undies on the outside, Robin still had no pants, and the costumes of the Avengers and X-Men lineups looked like they’d been designed by Crayola. But it was also the time of the brutal death of Gwen Stacy, Green Arrow and Green Lantern teaming up to take on social issues and combat drug abuse, and the lamentable creation of the Punisher: a dude with a gun. The worst superhero creation ever and the door-opener for a long line of grim, pointless G.I. Joe-wannabes up to and including Mr. Pool.

              See, 1970s comics—and I’m too young to be saying this out of nostalgia—could be relevant and entertaining at once, and they understood they were still for kids. Smart kids, yes, but kids. Now they’re just for dumb adults.

              Generally, it’s a mistake to see comics as an art form. And before you get all worked up I say that having high regard for comics, at least for what they once were.

They are advertising-based entertainment. The 1980s saw the advent of comic books (Super Powers, G.I.Joe, Secret Wars, Micronauts, etc.) that existed just to sell toys. That is, to children. Only in the later part of that decade and in the 1990s did toy collection become a serious and seriously creepy business. As with comics themselves, weirdos were finding justification for remaining children into adulthood and buying their youth back at ten times the original cost. Toys became much less playable, more for posing on bookshelves next to books about talking to girls and losing weight on a dollar cheeseburger diet.

              No, strictly speaking, comics are not an art form. There have been moments where works of art have come from comics—The Watchmen, Ronin, The Dark Knight Returns, Arkham Asylum—but these were blips, mostly in the 80s, a time where the medium stretched its muscles before embarking into the territory of constant merchandising. The problem is these dark forays away from what comics truly are have become the rule. The audience aged and felt that it should still be the target. It’s like expecting Bugs Bunny to have a mortgage and taxes.

              Like video games, professional wrestling, horror films, and porn, comic books have their passionate followers who try to defend the artistic merits of capitalistic entertainment of little substance. Interestingly, the majority of the fans crossover between these media. Maybe that’s why the lines between them have become so blurred.

              See, the problem is guys around my age. I’ll admit it. We messed up. Those who defend comics as art thinking those few stellar exceptions should be the norm grew up and became creators themselves, feeling that their creations should reflect their own “maturity.” Funnybooks about dudes in tights with sketchy science and multiple religions and myths overlapping (Zeus and Odin  and the Archangel Michaelare drinking buddies) got dark, gritty, dirty. Adult. Real.

              Real. Comic book superheroes. People who get exposed to radiation and develop wild powers rather than cancer. Aliens who can do pretty much anything because of solar energy. More real you say? Consider the medium for a second. Its merits are its complete lack of reality, for it is grounded in the ludicrous, it has grown from the corner of a child’s mind where the question “How can this be?” is never uttered.

              Comics are for kids. Making them exclusive by adding grit, gore, or soft core porn and thus making them exclusive to adults (that is, adults stuck in teen mentality) is a disservice to that audience and an underestimation of what adults need for entertainment. Comics are created by manboys for manboys and Deadpool is a sign that the films are set to follow this unhappy trend.

              Let’s take the first and greatest of them all: Superman. Attempting to make him “real” and “dark” calls for us to ignore what is ridiculous about the character: everything. He’s a perfectly humanoid alien who has the powers of the entire X-men team, has the silliest of silly names, the silliest of silly disguises, and for the majority of his career wore bright red underpants and a yellow belt. In 2013’s Man of Steel Zack Snyder asked the audience what it would be like if Superman was grimdark (it’s a thing on the Internet), lacking any humour and with the colours so washed out that even the Academy of Motion Pictures couldn’t tell who was which race.

              Grimdark, utterly humourless, a hopeless movie that claims to be about hope. In no way was this a film for kids. Or even adults not suffering from clinical depression.

              And it was about a fella in a cape named Superman. Think on that.

              Man of Steel, Deadpool, Suicide Squad. Adult comic book fans are demanding superhero films that reflect their own eroding values. Rather than leave this medium to childhood, it’s been smeared with a reality while avoiding the simply ridiculous unreality of where it comes from. When did “It’s dark” become a compliment?

              What will happen in a decade, when we’ve depleted the fanbase completely by cutting it off at the roots, or worse, by corrupting that fanbase with joyless and graphic depictions of breakfast cereals?

              The superhero is supposed to be inspirational. Yes, he can be complex, conflicted, even troubled. But, man, since when did their films have to either resemble an emo band video or a romp through Larry Flynt’s basement?

              Time to grow up and stop taking things from the kids. 

Hostel Return

I used to stay in hostels all the time when I was a young backpacker. Time and responsibility have sort of made their necessity fade. However, recently I had the opportunity to stay at one in Edmonton, and one evening I appreciated the encapsulation of the hostel experience.

Booklist 2015

Booklist 2015

January 1-March 19

1.       Excalibur by Bernard Cornwell

2.       Neuromancer by William Gibson

3.       Watch You Bleed by Stephen Davis

4.       Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks

5.       Self by Yann Martel

6.       The Call of the Wild by Jack London

7.       My Best Stories by Alice Munro

8.       The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

9.       The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

10.   Writers Workshop in a Book by various.

11.   Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

March 20-June 21

12.   Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell

13.   Enter Night by Mick Wall

14.   A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

15.   15 Canadian Poets X2 Ed. By Gary Geddes

16.   The Right to Be Cold by Sheila Watt-Cloutier

17.   The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J.R.R. Tolkien

18.   Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) by Ann-Marie MacDonald

June 22-Sept 20

19.   The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

20.   Let the Elephants Run by David Usher

21.   The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

22.   The National Dream by Pierre Berton

23.   The Secret World of Og by Pierre Berton

24.   The Poets Corner by John Lithgow

25.   Supergods by Grant Morrison

26.   The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Sept 20-Dec 31

27.   Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

28.   The Martian by Andy Weir

29.   World Religions Thomas A. Robinson and Hillary P. Rodrigues

30.   No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

31.   The Last Spike by Pierre Berton

32.   Punishment by Linden MacIntyre

33.   Vimy by Pierre Berton

34.   Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White