June 2016 – frustratedboomers

DBAWIS – Fly Me High, Ken Tobias

“I remember being asked when I was very young what did I want to be when I grow up. I remember saying ” I want to be an artist, a singer, and a scientist.” ….well it turned out that I am a professional singer, an avid science fan, and yes an artist…painting in acrylics for 30 years.” Ken Tobias.

Many years ago I was in a roots rock/new country quintet called Delta Tango. A bunch of us, music lifers, recorded, tinkered with sounds, and recorded some more. When we had something that we thought might be marketable, we debuted and toured the CD around Ontario.

I can’t remember exactly when we met Tony Tobias – it may have been at a CMW gig, or perhaps at a showcase , but he was a lovely man, and, as we (the band) and he (Tony) showed each other our credentials, he revealed that he was the President/Executive Producer at Pangaea Media & Music Inc. – and manager and brother of the venerable Ken Tobias.

I make no attempt to conceal my folkie roots. Ken Tobias was an icon for me in the 70s. You may remember the song he wrote that put him .. and The Bells .. on the map … “Stay Awhile.”

Born and raised in New Brunswick seventy-one years ago this July 25th , Ken showed early promise as a draftsman AND a musician. In 1965, he left NB for Halifax, Nova Scotia, was part of CBC’s local Music Hop, ‘Frank’s Bandstand,’ and then went on to become a regular on Singalong Jubilee, often dueting with Anne Murray, and playing alongside of Gene MacLellan and John Allan Cameron.

“In 1968 Tobias met Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers who invited him to Los Angeles to record and write as a salaried songwriter. Under the management of Medley’s company, Tobias recorded his first single “You’re Not Even Going to the Fair” on Bell Records; like many of his early releases it was credited just to “Tobias”. The song won him his first Canadian BMI award for airplay. This was the first of many BMI, Procan and SOCAN awards.” (Wikipedia)

Ken was just getting started. In 1972 he established Glooscap Music with his brother, Tony, settling in Toronto for the next few decades, and releasing a string of hits including “Fly Me High“, and “Lady Luck“, and eventually receiving FIVE Socan Classics Awards for 100,000 airplays of the songs, “Stay Awhile”, “I Just Want To Make Music,” “Every Bit Of Love”, “Give A Little Love” and “Dream #2”.

His beautifully written songs speak of love, and the joy of making and listening to music. They dare the listener to believe in what might be. They also draw upon his artistic background, painting a mental picture that the listener can translate to their own imaginings. “I drew a picture of a pair of wings .. because I want to fly.“

Looking back at all that Ken Tobias has accomplished is like peering through a kaleidoscope … so many wonders to be seen! So many aspects to a lengthy and accomplished life!

His writing and producing credits are impressive, and include forays into television and film. From having his song “Good To Be Alive in the Country” in the hit TV series The Bionic Woman, to collaborating in the writing of the soundtrack for the Italian movie A Silver Saddle; writing, “Here You Are Today“, for Saint John, New Brunswick’s bicentennial as well as nabbing a CLIO Award for his Tourism New Brunswick commercial; to having his song “Friends” featured in the 2004 feature movie Chicks with Sticks; to being commissioned by Ballet Jorgen to create “Dreams of A Subtle World” for a feature segment in their ballet…

… to having several pages in Dave Bidini’s 1998 book, On A Cold Road: Tales of Adventure in Canadian Rock dedicated to his music … and then add to that his self-taught creative artistry that has seen over two hundred of his paintings sold throughout North America…

I don’t know how he’s done it. I’m exhausted just researching and writing about all of his accomplishments!

But there’s one more honour on its way, and a very worthy one indeed. Ken Tobias is about to be inducted into the 2016 Nova Scotia Music Hall of Fame, representing the province of New Brunswick.

From Tony’s recent press release: “KEN TOBIAS joins three other celebrated Atlantic Canadian music artists being inducted: Natalie MacMaster (Nova Scotia); Harry Hibbs (Newfoundland); Gene MacLellan (Prince Edward Island). Last year’s inaugural music inductees were: Rita MacNeil, John Allen Cameron, Portia White and Anne Murray. Ken comments about the news of his induction: “I am honoured and humbled to be inducted into the Nova Scotia Music Hall of Fame and representing my province of New Brunswick. I am especially moved to be in the company of my old friend Gene MacLellan. Gene and I were fellow cast members on the CBC show Singalong Jubilee and we both wrote songs for Anne Murray. And it is a great honour to be sharing the spotlight with the wonderful Natalie MacMaster and Harry Hibbs. Many thanks to Casino Nova Scotia, Music Nova Scotia, Music New Brunswick and all those who continue to support my music and art.””

Ken Tobias’ story continues to unfold in front of us, as unending as the galaxies he captures in his paintings.

Cheers, Ken Tobias! And thanks for inspiring so many Canadian writers, players, and artists to pursue their dreams.

Here’s a catchy summer tune from his latest CD, “From a Distance.”

Think of the Children!

I ‘get away’ so rarely that I hadn’t realized how proscribed most lives have become – when you only leave your house for short jaunts into civilization, interact with a select few, and then hurry back home on the last bus, people-watching changes from being a relaxing pastime to a zoological behavioral study.

It was fun to leave our stuffy bungalow for a jaunt up to Musselman’s Lake, in the Stouffville area. Our daughter recently bought a trailer, which is parked in the Cedar Beach resort.

The resort has been run by the same family since 1929, and generations of holidaying campers have enjoyed the lake and beach, along with other amenities. It’s a great place to bring a precocious 7 year old like my granddaughter, as the resort is like a small village, with 520 long-term trailer sites, most of which are as cared for as primary residences.

The casual atmosphere, highly regulated, and self-policed by the families themselves, allows kids to run freely, to play in the many playgrounds, and simply behave like kids did before the last twenty or thirty years of increasing parental paranoia.

You don’t realize just how controlled kids’ lives have become until you find yourself, as my husband did, panicking over the sight of a pair of 4 and 5 year old girls calmly walking a doll stroller on a one-way lane. “Anyone could snatch up those two, throw them in the back of a van, and speed away!” he said.

Good lord – is that what we’ve come to? That, even in a small space where entry is carefully controlled, where the speed limit is 10 kph, and most of those present are long-standing renters, in a space that is rife with parents, aunts, siblings and grandparents … even in a space this sheltered, we have to live in constant fear that our most vulnerable and precious could be snatched away at any time?

How has life become so seemingly perilous, even to we who have never known armed combat on our land? Are we now to live under constant fear, and the feeling that we could be attacked at any moment – by our neighbours, by a stranger, by a predator, always potentially lurking in the shadows? Are we now to live in constant dread of ‘what could happen?’ No wonder people in America are so protective of their right to own guns.

But the bigger question is – when did we develop this persistent fear, and why? In a civilization where anything can be deemed too harmful to be legal, (fireworks, lawn darts, unpasteurized cheese … even KinderEggs!) how have we gone from subconsciously knowing the possibility of a rare instance of unforeseen harm into a state of constant vigilance against possible marauders?

Certainly, there are now more people living on the planet than at any other time in history, and we feel that claustrophobia even in our suburbs and towns. But proportionately, rates of kidnaps, rapes and murders haven’t really risen. In fact, the instances of kidnapping of children in the U.S. by non-parental or family members intent on harming the child is about 115 per year … out of 340 million inhabitants.

To put that figure into perspective – during the Vietnam War, every American personally knew at least one of the 10,000 soldiers per year who had died in the conflict. But almost no one personally knows a child that was taken with criminal intent.

So who’s ramping up this fear? Well … it’s astounding how much of U.S. law enforcement is influenced not just by mass media coverage, but by the hysterics of tabloid media, who thrive on rehashing grisly incidents for as long as they can drag out the gory details. Police and politicians have their feet held to the fire to account for the panic brought on by those who profit from tragedy.

Statistics can be, and often are, manipulated by private interests and organizations, in an attempt to boost profits, be they donations to causes meant to comfort sufferers, or by the marketing of items meant to increase private citizens’ feeling of being protected.

A fearful society tends to prefer the status quo, allowing governments to stay in power for perhaps longer than they should be. They will look to the loud and the bombastic, because the posturings of the aggressive allow the frightened to shelter in place.

And it’s certainly no stretch of the imagination to realize that a country in a state of fear and panic is easily manipulated by governments with agendas that might have seemed too radical in times of peace. Look to America’s overly militarized Homeland Security, or Canada’s Bill C-51, an over-reaching bill designed to capitalize on the fear instilled in us, that trumps our free speech with a plan to capture – and indefinitely retain – all of our private phone calls and internet data.

The ripple of fear that circled the globe after the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers has never really subsided. Horrifying acts, including brutal torture and murders, were committed on suspects, whether innocent or guilty of crimes, and the attack on Iraq, which had long been a possibility for unrelated reasons, was used as an excuse to punish the masterminds wrongly believed to be behind the tragedy.

There must be a villain, there must be a reason, and so the net is cast further and further, vilifying those who are not exactly like us, the ‘others’ that we scapegoat to try and calm our jangled nerves. Something must be done! we cry … and done now! Save us from the unknown, no matter if it is ultimately we that are harmed in the process.

A fearful society will often turn to religion, and a reliance on a supernatural power to ensure that, even should they themselves be injured or killed, there will be a reward, post-mortem, from the deity of their choice. They will blame and reject progressive ideas and ideology, preferring to trust the writings of the ancients over the possibility that a science they can’t quite understand could hold a solution to their terrors.

A fearful society wraps it’s most vulnerable in emotional cotton batting and bubble wrap, too frightened to allow children to explore their world and learn both the good and bad of their environment, and to experience the emotions and understandings inherent in living in their social order. A fearful society looks with suspicion on anyone who’s not in their personal tribe, and passes that crippling fear on to their children.

Whenever changes meant to move our culture forward progressively are proposed, the rallying cry from those who are afraid of alterations to their reality is “Think of the children!” That plea, originally referring to children’s rights, and real dangers, such as child labour, has now become a plea for pity, and an appeal to emotion. It is a logical fallacy that substitutes emotion for reason, and indicates a culture in moral panic and relentless distress. It is, in fact, the antithesis of what children need – a feeling of security and of being protected.

And in believing that it is only by insulating children from all contact with ‘others’ and other ideas, it is a pious attempt to stop progress by effectively robbing children of their right to childhood. It seems a very high price to pay.

Our terror of the unknown, and our concern for the well-being of our children, must not be the justification of our need to inflict upon them a very real ‘nanny state’ created by our own neurotic anxiety.

Hackers, Bobby Curtola, and The Monkees

(first published on Bob Segarini’s “Don’t Believe A Word I Say” blog. “)

Got an urgent email this morning, informing me that 427 million MySpace passwords had been stolen, and were being offered for sale on an online hacker forum by Russian CyberHacker ‘Peace.’ I was shocked. People still use MySpace?

At any rate, it seems this hacker also got into LinkedIn and Tumblr and word has it that InstaGram is next on their list of targets.

If you’ve got accounts on any of those sites, you’re asked to log on and change your password tout suite. Even if your account is old, and you believe what you’ve left there to be obsolete, you could still land in trouble if someone uses your account to do something illegal. Kind of like when you don’t report your wallet stolen, and the thief uses your ID after being busted for trying to rob a bank – always wise to let the authorities know ahead of time.

*****

From everything I’ve read this week since the passing of Bobby Curtola, one thing is abundantly clear – – this was a man who loved life, music, and his fans.

Hearing of his death last week came as a real shock. I was just a kid the first time I heard his early recordings, but in the last few years, I came to know him as a lovely, funny and flirtatious man. French women always find kindred souls in flirtatious Italian men.

But I suspect he was born the sort of fellow that loves women. He may not have written his early hits, but the songs always presented Bobby as a hopeless romantic, who yearned for the girl “three rows over,” or begged a fortune teller to tell him where and when he’d meet his special love. “Will we meet on a busy corner? Will she know that I’m the one?”

Or maybe he was just a guy that fell in love with music early, as a kid in Thunder Bay (formerly Port Arthur, ON) through his successes in the Canadian west, and his conquering of Las Vegas, and never stopped feeling that joy.

Susan Jacks (The Poppy Family) remembers, “When I was in high school, just before becoming a regular on the national Canadian teen TV show, Music Hop/Let’s Go, I was totally in teenage love with Bobby Curtola. He was a pioneer in the Canadian music industry. Years later I would meet him and learn what a good person he was…we’ve been friends here on Facebook for quite a while as well. Sadly, this wonderful man passed away today at the age of 73. This is a tough one for me… We’ll miss you, Bobby.“

Although he was showered with awards throughout his career, beginning with winning the Best Male Singer award from RPM Magazine in 1965, through becoming a Member of the Order of Canada in 1997, and his induction to CHIN Radio’s Italian Walk of Fame in 2011, he remained a man of the people. Our first Canadian teen idol, the Bieber of his day, had no truck with tattoos and silly stunts, but rather preferred to work with dignity, establishing the first coast-to-coast touring circuit in Canada, lobbying for Canadian content rules for radio and TV, hosting telethons in Canada and the U.S., and raising money for charities and organizations around the world,

Had he moved to the States, like Ottawa’s Paul Anka, he might have made an even bigger splash, maybe even been recognized by the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, which has yet to do so. But I don’t think any amount of fame would have spoiled Bobby Curtola. He was a good man, sometimes naïve, sometimes following his heart rather than the money, but always giving it his all.

He could never resist jumping on stage and sharing his love of music with friends. In one of his last performances, he hijacks Sam Taylor and the East End Love at the Peppery Cat, May 7, 2016.

I’m gonna miss him. My last memory will be of laughing (and flirting) with him this past May, when we connected at Canadian Music Week, where he was hanging out with friends at the Cashbox Canada booth. When he was dragged away by his chums – off to shake a few more hands, to have yet more fun wherever he found himself – he kept blowing me kisses as he left … I can’t think of a lovelier way to remember Bobby Curtola than to think of him exuberantly blowing kisses to those lucky enough to have crossed his path.

*****

I fully intend to continue my lifelong obsession with The Monkees by writing about their new, 50^th anniversary release, Good Times! and upcoming tour. However I’ll need an entire column to talk about this record breaking album that’s burning up the charts, chock filled with songs written by the likes of Rivers Cuomo, Ben Gibbard, Noel Gallagher , Paul Weller, Andy Partridge and more … for now … feast your ears on this tune …

And here’s a nifty little song that’s become an earworm for me … “Davy Gets The Girl.” The Minus 5’s Scott McCaughey has been a fan of The Monkees since the age of 11. A few years ago, Scott gathered his like-minded Minus 5 cohorts for their latest album, Of Monkees And Men, crafting a song for each member as well as one for Boyce & Hart, the duo that wrote and produced many classic Monkees tracks.

Oh yes … there will be more Monkee repartee to come … but for now, get outside and grab yourself some of that good summer weather Toronto’s been enjoying, and make your own Good Times!

An Immodest Proposal (with apologies to Jonathan Swift)

In 1729, Jonathan Swift wrote “A Modest Proposal (for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick.)” His answer to the “Irish’ problem was to advise the poor to sell their children as ‘food for rich gentlemen and ladies’, and came complete with techniques for slaughter and mouth-watering recipes.

His satirical essay was meant to mock society’s lack of empathy towards the unfortunate, and in particular, to make clear the contemptuous attitude the British aristocracy held of the Irish people.

As outrageous as Swift’s essay may seem, his point must be taken; when people are overwhelmingly seen as commodities – be they the poor, the disabled, the elderly, migrants or refugees – it’s only a small step to conceiving of humans as being little more than meat, which then, logically, becomes only worth what the market will bear, per pound.

While the idea of cannibalizing the poor may seem shocking, in truth, we’re little different now, three centuries later. Our media is filled with assaults, deaths, and murders being committed every day, all around the globe, most of which rarely elicit more than a few seconds of our disapproval, before our thoughts move on to something less disturbing.

Hence, my proposal, which I hope will interest those questioning how society should deal with the physical assault or murder of its citizens.

In the last several years we’ve seen Justice using a sliding scale for the punishment of apparent and actual wrongdoers. A young black child alone in a snowy playground, for instance, apparently poses an enormous threat to armed officers in police cars, and is therefore executed before their fears can be realized. On the other hand, a young, armed white man who opens fire in an Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal church in South Carolina during a prayer meeting, can kill nine people, and still be arrested in an orderly fashion, and indeed, be treated to a Burger King meal by police officers as they chauffeur him from the church to the jail.

Or we can look to the case of the young, white male Stanford student, who, despite being caught in the act of assaulting an unconscious fellow student, received a six month sentence (now somehow dropped to three months) to be served in prison – not jail – rather than the six years the prosecutors had requested, and despite the twelve pages of the victim’s statement, which outlined in searingly heartbreaking detail what she has gone through, during and since the rape.

Contrast that with the case histories of hundreds of young, black males serving much longer prison sentences for the same or similar offences, as in the case of Vanderbilt football player Cory Batey.

Murder and sexual assault is against the law regardless of social class, race, gender, sexuality, or other factors. Inserting prejudice and bias into the process of sentencing renders the law farcical.

Unlike the U.S. Supreme Court, which gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, on the grounds that racism is no longer an issue, I am very aware that racism, sexism, and bigotry are enormous problems, and that pretending they do not exist is as foolish as denying gravity. This is our reality, and wishing it away demonstrates the naiveté of a child.

(And according to polls, the majority of Republicans in America believe that ‘reverse racism’ is a worse problem than racism.)

Therefore, I tender my proposal. People are citizens of their countries. Although they cannot be enslaved, they are nevertheless in many ways the ‘property’ of their country, in that they are expected, by birth or through acquired citizenship, to obey the laws, while receiving the rights and protection available. They are simultaneously a country’s asset AND liability.

So I propose that citizens of all countries be defined as what they really are – property of their governments.

There is a provision in most countries’ military agreements that outlines what constitutes abuse of government property. In the United States, that provision is Article 108 – Destruction of Government Property – which describes as criminal, “Any person subject to this chapter who, without proper authority (1) sells or otherwise disposes of; (2) wilfully or through neglect damages, destroys, or loses; or (3) willfully or through neglect suffers to be lost, damaged, destroyed, sold, or wrongfully disposed of, any military property of the United States, shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.”

And some overzealous NCOs have been known to threaten the rank and file for wilful personal damage, even going as far as issuing a letter of reprimand for the sin of getting a sunburn that prevents a soldier from going on a mission.

In Canada, Department of National Defence employees and Canadian Armed Forces members are “Crown servants.” They too are, in a sense, property of their country. Strictly speaking, any assault of a member of the armed forces is an assault of government property.

But if citizens of all countries are defined as the property of their governments, then assault, rape, and murder can be immediately reclassified as physical damage or destruction of a country’s property. Rescind the gray areas subject to bias, and assign a punishment that fits the crime.

Strongly held beliefs of a physical or moral superiority of one race or sex over another cannot be eradicated in a generation. Indeed, the popularity of those who consider Donald Trump merely ‘an honest guy that says what the rest of us are thinking ’ proves that there are millions in the United States alone that see themselves as superior beings , and that they see those that are not like themselves as inferior.

Rather than argue with stubborn mindsets, it seems far more sensible to deem citizens as property of their country. With this as a guideline, it then becomes a simple matter of assigning value. What is a life worth? Should men, women, and children have separate values, or can we agree that the assault or murder of any person is grievous? Since racism is supposedly a non-issue, do we then assign the same value to people of all colours? In a court of law, can we agree to an equality of all members of society, independent of their circumstances of birth?

Rather than the lip service of equality granted by charters and constitutions, lay out the terms of the perceived worth of citizens. What is the lifetime value of your citizen, after taking into account both the costs and benefits? If that is pro-rated over an estimated lifetime, should the potential of a child’s life, nipped in the bud, be a factor in higher penalties? Where then does that leave legalized abortion?

If a mother can be forced to give birth, is she not then entitled to ongoing support for the child? And if we now hold that all citizens are of equal value, can we then withhold the necessities of life to those who are caught in cycles of poverty or addiction? Can we, in good conscience, subscribe to cuts to benefits to the hungry, the homeless, disabled or elderly? Property must be maintained!

What of the wounded veterans, who served their country in good faith, but have returned from combat, damaged physically or mentally? Should their rehabilitation – the cost of repairing damaged property – not be considered a vital part of the calculation of the cost of continuing conflicts or new acts of aggression?

In order to purge real or perceived prejudices in the courts, each and every citizen must be first and foremost recognized as a unique and valuable entity in his or her own right. If the law, lawyers, and judges are unable to see people as such, perhaps the only solution is to tack a label upon the people, signifying ownership, with the attendant penalties enforced upon those who damage governmental property.

My immodest proposal only seeks to level the judicial playing field, and avoid judgments that strain our belief and fervent hope that “Justice is Blind. “

Confronting the Higher Moral Ground

I’m taking a stand – against those who claim ethically superior principles based solely on their religious beliefs. I’m sick of the mealy mouthed and the self-righteous who feel free to condemn everyone around them for not toeing some invisible moral line. Enough with placating the unplacatable; no one alive completely exemplifies what it is to be good in the eyes of all. Only the dead attain that status, and even then, usually only through memories conveniently fortified with whitewash, amnesia, and mawkish sentimentality.

Social media and the ever slavering commercial media have been enjoying an all-you-can-eat outrage buffet this year, dining royally on the shock and awe of people actually daring to express and live their vaunted ‘freedoms.’ The last time I checked, neither Canada nor the U.S. were run by Sharia law, but there are days when you’d be hard-pressed to define what does make North America tick, from the hysteria of the religious and sanctimonious morality squad.

Time and again the most publicly virtuous are exposed as privately lascivious, to our delight. What’s more fun than pointing out the hypocrisy of others, while we clutch our pearls in pretended disgust, and tsk tsk in clucking disapproval?

“Something tells me it’s all happening at the zoo. I do believe it, I do believe it’s true…”

We’re apparently still talking about the transgender bathroom controversy (and by controversy, I mean it’s been proven unconstitutional and condemned by the country, but a small group of people are still clinging to their mistaken and unproven belief that anyone with a different sexuality is evil and must be burned at the stake.)

The main proponents are self-styled experts with outsized holier-than-thou platforms, who have clearly neither understood nor even looked up the definition of transgender, which is; “denoting or relating to a person whose self-identity does not conform unambiguously to conventional notions of male or female gender.”

Rather, these morons prefer to double down on their ignorance, terrified and terrorized by the bad cross-dressers who live in the imaginary closets of their minds, not even realizing that for transvestites, it’s the dressing up that’s the fetish – sorry, bud, you they don’t find attractive at all.

This very human propensity for characterizing and demonizing others isn’t new, but social media has added new fuel to the fire, since we can now share our disapproval lickety-split quick, and globally, to other people who haven’t time to ‘look into’ the individual offense, but will gladly scan the headline, kneejerk an opinion, add their own stamp of disapproval, and send it out to all those who have the misfortune of knowing them. Ah, brave new world!

It makes me tired. Countering resentment, bitterness, self-righteousness, and the envy of those who would act in the same way, given the same scenario and ability, if they could get away with it, is wearing me out. We publicly condemn the exposed, corrupt, billionaires, crying, “hang ‘em high!” while privately thinking that conning the poor and unfortunate was a pretty clever business plan – until they got caught.

We have become the equivalent of the crawl at the bottom of the TV screen, constantly commentating on what we shoulda woulda coulda done, had that bad thing happened to us.

These analysts cling to their opinions like their thoughts are official flotation devices, when in reality, they’re out of their depths in the shallowest of wading pools.

The only way to rationalize our instincts to do what feels good and makes us happy, despite societal restrictions, is to frame our requests in ways that dance around Bible Belt mentality. Legalize cannabis, because it has health benefits, we say. How can you deny the cries of the ill and injured? Only a monster would withhold medication from those in need! Meanwhile, we downplay that pot can sometimes just be fun to ingest. Because fun … no no no! Give me a reason why you need pot, you filthy drug addict! Force me to reluctantly concede to make legal an herb that has been unfairly and falsely maligned for a century! (And then, once it’s as legal as alcohol and tobacco, we’ll all get together and indulge ourselves to our hearts content … no hard feelings, eh?)

No, this kind of soft policing by gossip, innuendo, and lack of evidence has got to stop. We have access to more information via our cell phones than any other civilization in history has ever had, and yet so many are backpedalling at top speed into wilful ignorance and pretended stunned condemnation of other people’s actions.

On the one hand, we recognize that a shocking number of North American women – 1 in 4 –are sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, but when a beloved media icon is accused of assault, our immediate response is to reject the allegation, and find culpability in the actions of the victim, all the while spreading the word in hushed, salacious, tones. For some twisted reason, we find it difficult to separate the creation and creators of art from the actions of abusers, even though history has shown us that celebrity does not guarantee innocence.

Here – I’ll prove it to you. These men have all been accused of, and either admitted publicly or in a court of law, that they were guilty, of abuse. I’ll bet at least one of these names will jump out at you, and propel you into a fit of injured defence: Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, Sean Penn, Eminem, Chris Brown, Mike Tyson, Anthony Kiedis, Tupac Shakur, R Kelly, Jimmy Page, Michael Fassbender, Roman Polanski, Sean Connery, Tommy Lee, Johnny Depp, Mystikal, PeeWee Herman, Jeffrey Jones, David O. Russell, Jared Fogle, Jerry Sandusky, Charles Dickens, J.D. Salinger, Pablo Picasso.

And that’s before we even get to the more onerous, highly contemptible, disgraced politicians, like Dennis Hastert, former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, who pleaded guilty to illegally structuring bank transactions of $3.5 million to quash allegations of decades of sexual misconduct with students. Or the complete and utter hypocrisy of Bristol Palin, daughter of Sarah Palin, the Alaskan Bible Spice, popping out two illegitimate children while pocketing $1 million for promoting abstinence to American high school students.

That old reprobate, Newt Gingrich, illustrated beautifully the convoluted logic of these right wing politicians, caught in a web of discovered ethical misconduct, which nimbly deflects personal criticisms of wrong doing by taking a moral swipe at the dreaded liberal bogeyman

“If we look at history from the mid-1960s, we’ve gone from a request for toleration to an imposition of intolerance. We’ve gone from a request to understand others to a determination to close down those who hold traditional values. I think that we need to be very aggressive and very direct. The degree to which the left is prepared to impose intolerance and to drive out of existence traditional religion is a mortal threat to our civilization and deserves to be taken head-on and described as what it is, which is the use of government to repress the American people against their own values.”

Separation of church and state be damned! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain, or the flag he’s wrapped around himself.

Don’t even get me started on how many children’s’ lives have been ruined by the actions of those in religious authority. The insistence of those who claim to uphold ‘family values,’ while simultaneously playing the divine, ‘get out of jail free card’ to excuse their own depravities, past and present, is beneath contempt.

Point being, there’s not just one or two bad actors out there, assaulting the defenceless – there’s an army of abusers who take whatever modicum of fame and power – no matter how insignificant the power – they possess, and misuse their authority. We have to acknowledge that sex is only serendipitously the reason that there are 7 billion people on the planet – sexuality is a driving force that ensures the continuation of human life. But it’s also the dynamic that compels some warped individuals to take violent sexual gratification from anyone or anything in their path. Rather than receiving the message that sex can be fun and fulfilling for the parties involved, as well as essential to procreation, they’ve had their own sexuality condemned as immoral and beyond control, leading those poor souls to act out in ways that are truly immoral.

But we cannot address the sickness without addressing the root causes. The insanity of enforcing puritanical principles in a twenty-first century technology based world has to be laid bare, even at the cost of some offended sensibilities.

Is it too much to ask that humans, living in an unprecedented time of accessible information, education and enlightenment, live up to their potentials? The modern world, so contemptuous of the presumed backwardness of Third World nations, needs to tell the mealy mouthed, fundamentalist critics to back off. There’s no moving forward for humanity as long as society has to pander to anti-intellectualism, hostility to science, formless fears, grievances, and the perpetually self-victimized walking wounded in the chronically under informed brigade.

Dollar Store-y Of My Life

Cleaning the kitchen is always more of an archaeological study than a Lysol scented soap bubble fest in my house. I’m no Suzy Homemaker – haven’t been in years. Once you’ve absentmindedly burned the dinner for the hundredth time, you learn to get in there, do what you gotta do, and get out again quick.

But if I ever want to get this house on the market, rooms must be cleaned. Cupboards long unopened must be, however gingerly, encouraged to display their contents. The purging must begin.

The pairing of like with like is an eye opener. Who knew I had purchased so many necessary and unnecessary items – sometimes two or three times? I blame the dollar store.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the dollar stores keep our homes chugging along smoothly. I have dollar store items in the pantry, the cupboards, under the sink, and under my feet, in the form of floor tiles. As I sort and purge, I begin to realize that I have somehow amassed thousands of dollars, in kitchen ‘stuff’ alone, from the dollar store. These are the things you don’t think about, just pick up as you go; the serving spoons, tongs, measuring spoons and cups; the knock-off cleansers and scouring pads; the novelty drinking glasses and salt and pepper shakers; the plastic bags, containers and baggies that hold those leftovers you can’t remember enjoying the first time around. There are odd food items in my fridge and pantry that I picked up on a whim, just because the manufacturer changed the packaging and decided to purge stock by dumping it for ten cents on the dollar. Teas, coffees, spices, mustards … the list goes on and on.

It’s not just the kitchen either – every room in my house has dollar store items, picked up almost as an afterthought. The bathroom, the bedrooms, the laundry room – and then there’s the office … oh my! The office is a temple of dollar delights!

Who could celebrate an occasion without the help of dollar store cards, gift wrap, bags, streamers, glitter or helium balloons? And outside, the backyard and garden teem with necessities bought for just a dollar or two – everything from tools to paper plates and napkins, candles and pool toys and pots for plants.

We just don’t notice how completely the dollar store items have crept into our lives. If, heaven forbid, my house burned down tomorrow, I couldn’t even begin to guesstimate how many items I’d not even think to claim on the insurance as property- they’re just too ubiquitous. These junky bits and pieces are the grease that we never notice is keeping our homes running smoothly.

The dollar stores have slipped into that place that the long gone Five and Dime stores used to fill. As our first world fortunes rose, and the K-Marts and WalMarts and all the other schlocky marts, consolidated, these humble essentials fell off the corporate radar, for the most part, or were replaced with ‘better’ (more expensive) alternates.

Meanwhile, those in the know have been driving up the price of dollar store stocks, while bigger named and supposedly safer stock options keep dribbling downward.

So I blame the dollar stores for my excesses, but I also bless them. There will always be a need for stores where thrifty people can stretch their dollars and meet their budgets. Today’s economics demand that we show dollar stores a little respect.

I do believe it’s time for a dollar store run … need some burner bibs. Care to join me?