baby boomers – Page 22 – frustratedboomers

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?

Back To The Garden

My gardens have been calling me lately. For years I gave up on them – the hostas, the shrubs, the berry bushes and the salsa garden – allowing frustration and depression to stomp all over my joy in the feel of good earth under my nails, and the delights of helping things grow. Plants ask very little of their tenders – some water when it’s hot and dry, a little pruning away of dead growth so that new, young sprouts have room – but even that was too much to ask of me for almost a decade. I withdrew from the earth, and from most people.

While the plants may not hold a grudge, some did give in to the neglect. The rhubarb that flourished in spring simply gave up a few years ago, even as the cuttings I had given to friends continued to thrive. The strawberries were buried under creeping groundcover, although I’ll occasionally still find the odd outcrop where it’s least expected, and sadly, quite likely to be accidentally mowed. The century rose, a beauty that now only exists as a cultivar, simply stopped making an effort, and quietly perished.

But most of the shrubs and bushes, bless ‘em, made it through, albeit begrudgingly, and muddled on, doing their survival thing. It’s been a long week of snipping and hard pruning, and will take at least another week to complete, but little by little, the gardens are returning to their natural beauty. I, however, am currently covered in ugly scratches and welts, nursing a few bug bites, and not much liking the discomfort of taking a poke in the eye from an ungrateful stem trimming.

Gardening is not for everyone. We may have once been a nation of “hewers of wood and drawers of water,” but nowadays, many people consider physical and menial labour demeaning, something to pawn off on the unskilled and unambitious, or to contract out to uniformed and franchised professionals. Actual farmers in Canada rely a great deal on machinery to keep their acres going.

Of course, every job requires some sort of skill, and good gardeners command a hefty price for their services. For a short while, many years ago, I worked as a professional ‘Plant Doctor,’ charged with tending to those forests of greenery downtown office buildings put in to seem eco-friendly. It was a good job, and I should have appreciated the opportunity, rather than thinking it just a way to make a few bucks until something better came along. After all, my father’s family were farmers in Alberta, so I suppose I’m genetically predisposed to understanding why and how to do gardeny things.

Gardening requires focus. I have always found a kind of primal joy in concentrating completely on one stalk, one stem, one leaf, studying the foliage for signs of disease, rejoicing in new buds, snipping carefully in the direction of the node to encourage growth. There’s also dismay in discovering that, despite appearances, there’s no trace of green left in a branch, no matter how far down you snip.

Some plants are vicious, armed with spurs and thorns that rip the skin, while others defend themselves with noxious scents. Many more are gentle, seeming to exist only to protect their future progeny. Some may surprise you; while trimming a rather ordinary looking gangly shrub, I was nearly overcome with an aroma so intoxicating I could only describe it as what I imagine the poppy field in the Wizard of Oz must have smelled like … dreamy, languorous, and utterly seductive.

There’s even joy in the inevitable aches and pains that hard work brings. Oh, you think, when did I stop using that particular muscle? Good to know it’s still there, even if cranky from being woken up! Bones and joints, lulled by the comforts of a winter indoors, creak a little, and sun-starved skin blushes if left uncovered too long.

And does anything taste more perfectly right than an ice cold drink at the end of an exhaustingly physical day? For me, it would preferably be a beer, guzzled straight from the can or bottle, holding the sweating tin or glass against your forehead between sips … that’s a little bit of heaven right there.

There’s so much righteousness in rinsing off the sweat of hard work done well in a cool shower on a hot day. Or of indulging in a lengthy soak in an Epsom salted bath that leeches the tired right out of your marrow; these are simple pleasures, gifts we give ourselves, payment for a job well done.

Gardening also takes you away from the banalities of social media, the bleating of commercial television, the door rapping of salesmen, religious proselytizers and those who want into your basement to read meters. I’ll only rarely even bring a radio out while I commune with nature, preferring to concentrate on the task at hand, while bits of summer songs play in my head. No people allowed, no spectators, no one to disturb a free flowing train of thought …

Even the drudgery of lawn mowing can be relieved – I used to drive my landscaping neighbour crazy with my erratic mower movements – though I called it ‘dancing.’ “NO, Roxanne,” he’d say, “THIS is the proper way to mow a lawn!” And then he’d demonstrate how to mow lovely straight lines on his impeccable, professionally grown lawn, completely unaware of his own little hip flips at the end of each track. It cannot be denied – the aroma of freshly mown grass lifts the spirits and frees even the most tightly wound.

Philosophically, good horticulture practice is less about mucking around in the mud, and more about re-establishing our connection with the planet, its bounties and its boundaries. We’re reminded forcibly that there is only so much of anything to go around, be it space, food, or water, and that sometimes a ruthless triage must be carried out, sacrificing a few to ensure survival of the many. Neglect may seem harmless for a time, but eventually, lack of care will take its toll, harming even the strongest, and slaying the weakest.

In nature, variation in colour is a cause for wonder – there’s a whole segment of the agricultural community that does nothing but dream up, crossbreed, and name new variants. Crossbreeding, whether done through serendipity or intentionally, most often creates a new hardiness in the plant, or fulfills a need we hadn’t yet known we’d had.

Some have a practical take on maintaining a garden, be they the stalwarts who continue to coax vines and stalks into existence as their parents did before them, or the grocery store gardener who just wants to get a break on the cost of tomatoes and herbs. For the price of a few seeds or a seedling, we become like minor gods, with the power of life and death over these potential lives. As pragmatic as patio or backyard farming may seem, we should never underestimate the simple joy of biting into a fat, ripe, sun heated, home grown tomato, or the satisfaction and pride of a successful fall harvest.

For you, for me, for plants, and for the planet – time always moves forward. There’s no going back and undoing what wasn’t done, no way to undo harm done by neglect or accident. Gardens remind us that, for everything, there is a season. And the season is always ‘now.’

(first published May 2016: bobsegarini.wordpress.com/2016/05/22/roxanne-tellier-back-to-the-garden/)

When Celebrities Attack

Ronan Farrow, son of film maker Woody Allen and actress Mia Farrow, recently published a strongly worded defense of his sister, Dylan’s, accusations of juvenile sexual abuse, and re-stated his belief that Allen’s celebrity and wealth have effectively whitewashed the director.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/my-father-woody-allen-danger-892572

Having read a wealth of copy, pro and con, on the subject, I have my own opinion, as do most of those who dabble in the world of social media. There’s no lack of outrage from either side of the debate. We will likely never know what really happened, so we tend to base our conclusion on our own ethical and moral biases, and, sadly, on which side recently presented the best defense for our review.

In a week in which Jian Ghomeshi, once a rising media star in Canada, now largely vilified despite a brilliant defense lawyer who shielded him from most of the consequences of his deeds, has once again skated ably and legally away from more dire penalties, it’s tempting to pick a side.

Throw in the sixty allegations of sexual abuse now pending against comedian Bill Cosby, the postmortem accusations against British radio and TV personality Sir Jimmy Savile, and decades of rumours and confessions from women who claim to have lain – whether in thrall or in fear – with famous musicians, actors, comedians, religious leaders of all faiths, politicians, and those with even a modicum of power, and it all starts to seem like a world in which anyone – and I include males as well – can be blithely used as nothing more than an inanimate object fit only to be a sperm receptacle, for the pleasure of anyone who can afford the price.

Take away the celebrity angle, and it’s just another story of objectification and abuse. Money and power can purchase, or simply take without compensation,any commodity, including the bodies of human beings. When challenged, money can certainly be used to cover up or play down criminal acts. Justice should not be blind, and especially should not be blinded by those who can intimidate, whether financially or through abuse of power.

Take away the celebrity angle, and our need to pedestalize the wealthy and powerful, and consider the reality of sexual abuse.

(all statistics have been obtained from this governmental report: http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/csj-sjc/ccs-ajc/rr06_vic2/p3_4.html)

According to Canada’s own Justice Department, sexual assault is the crime least likely to be reported to police. 78% of victims never come forward, either afraid of further repercussions from their attacker, or in the belief that, even as they confide intimate and embarrassing details to authorities, justice will not be served. In those who do ask for police assistance, the request often comes long after the offence has occurred.

Women account for 85% of all victims of sexual offences, with 69% of women who reported having been sexually assaulted in childhood, being far more likely to be assaulted again after the age of 16. The male victims were also more likely to be children.

“83% of women with disabilities will be assaulted, sexually assaulted, or abused in their lifetimes.”

Those most vulnerable to predatory assault are children, children and adults with disabilities, the unemployed or those with low incomes, the single, separated or divorced, those who have been institutionalized, and Aboriginal women. In other words, people who are already disenfranchised and largely defenceless are deemed of such little value that their assault is as seemingly inevitable as sunrise.

Over the course of their lives, victims of sexual assault are more likely to require therapeutic treatment after the assault, due to psychological and/or physical consequence of these crimes. ‘Nervous breakdowns,’ suicidal ideation and attempts (1/5^th of rape victims have attempted suicide,) and post-traumatic stress disorders lead many individuals to seek professional treatment. And of course, once a diagnosis of psychiatric distress is on record, the victim’s recollections become less likely to be taken seriously by authorities.

There are so many disturbing factors in our interest in the misconduct of celebrities. Sex sells, so the media takes advantage of our desire to revel in prurient fascination with the sexuality of the rich and famous, secretly wondering how our own pedestrian genitals would compare. There’s a whiff of self-abasement and forelock tugging in our willingness to self-righteously defend the celebrity’s honour ,while dismissing allegations of misconduct as ‘preposterous,’ and the stench of envious defiance and schadenfreude in the opposite reaction, of taking pleasure in their comeuppance. A breathless focus on the celebrity’s well-being, present or future, refuses to recognize the basic rights and dignity, much less truthfulness, of the apparent victim.

And all of these elements distort a larger, uglier fact – the systemic abuse of the vulnerable by those who believe themselves above the law when it comes to the pursuit of their own mindless pleasure.

When celebrities are exposed as base humans, capable of denying the humanity of their victims, our own true feelings about the rights of our fellow beings are laid bare, and the deficiencies of a legal system still rooted in laws largely forged in times when women were considered second class citizens is revealed. The tender underbelly of misogyny shows itself in comments that claim the victim ‘loved’ the abuse, or begged for more , implying that the superior penises of those with money or power carries with it delights beyond our wildest dreams. Very often, the victims are reproached as vile seekers of fame by association, or derided as greedy gold diggers, only out to strip the beleaguered celebrity of his hard earned wealth. Certainly, the large majority of those who come forward begging for legal recourse are generally dismissed out of hand as liars, eager for personal gain, until either the weight of multiple accusations or the approbation of a male interpreter of the details of the assault enters the mix.

Meanwhile, the after effect on the bodies and minds of those who have been abused is dismissed as irrelevant.

Dylan Farrow’s plight should be an opportunity for meaningful discourse on societal values, and should serve to focus attention on a justice system woefully in need of fine tuning in respect to the rights of all citizens, not simply those owners of property or of the male gender.

Instead, in Ms Farrow’s case, as in so many others in which the alleged victim has been left without a satisfactory conclusion, the healing never begins, and the pain never ends.

Mother’s Day!

It’s Mother’s Day! All around us, people are handing over mushy cards and hopefully some not too badly dented flowers to their mother or mother surrogate, loading up the kids and other significants into the car, eager to stand in a 90 minute wait line for brunch, or planning a visit to dear old mater at the familial manor or retirement home. Others are spending a day in maudlin pining for their dearly departed.

Ah .. Mother’s Day.

No one is born a mother. Nor does the act of birth make you a mother, though the preparation can kill you. Nine months of physical, emotional and often financial trauma can really take it out of a woman, let me tell you, and her reward is a life sentence of blood ,sweat, tears and copious amounts of other bodily fluids, starting just moments after delivery. It takes more than those vaunted male balls to merely survive motherhood, never mind make it to an age when your progeny finally honour your effort.

There was a time when the concept of motherhood was pedestaled. Flowery accolades, songs, and soppy paintings celebrated dear old mum. A mother was a venerated and venerable icon, framed by a strict adherence to the role society had deemed appropriate. The average woman had swapped her youth for the chance of financial security, and she and her progeny were essentially the property of her husband, with very few rights, and less autonomy than a free range chicken.

A hundred years ago, a woman could be married by twenty, have eight kids by thirty, and have keeled over by forty, clearing the way for daddy dearest to glom on to a younger consort to comfort him in his golden years. With little in the way of contraception apart from abstinence, motherhood was very often not a choice at all.

Despite the constraints imposed upon them by their household duties, there were women who worked tirelessly at volunteer positions. One such woman was Ann Jarvis, an American peace activist who was known for her care of wounded soldiers on both sides of the Civil War. After her death, her daughter, Anna Jarvis, held a memorial in 1908 to honour her mother, with the intention of honouring all mothers, and of creating Mother’s Day Work Clubs that would address public health issues.

By 1914, Jarvis’ work had created enough of a buzz to convince American President Woodrow Wilson to proclaim Mother’s Day a national holiday to honour mothers. The notion of setting aside the second Sunday in May for this purpose spread rapidly, and was very soon adopted all around the world.

No one was more incensed at the commercialization of the holiday than Jarvis herself. By 1912 she had patented both “Second Sunday in May” and “Mother’s Day” (always with the apostrophe signifying that each family should be honouring their own mother,) but she loathed the bandwagoning of Hallmark Cards and other companies that were capitalizing on the holiday, and in particular the group, American War Mothers, who had tied their fundraising campaigns to the selling of pink “Mother’s Day Carnations.”

A true daughter of her mother, she organized boycotts and threatened lawsuits throughout the 1920’s against those card companies, candy manufacturers, and fundraising groups, who, she felt, dishonoured the holiday by encouraging the buying of gifts over a heartfelt, handwritten declaration of love and gratitude.

For all her protests, Mother’s Day continues to be one of the most commercially successful of North American occasions, particularly for the sales of flowers, greeting cards, chocolates, and pink (for girls!) tchotchkes.

Modern women have a more ambivalent take on the day. No one’s going to turn down a thoughtful card or gift, given, however willingly or unwillingly, by the person they’ve brought into the world and raised, whether through birth or other means. But you shouldn’t be surprised if your gift is accepted with a knowing smile. After all, mothers invest decades into forming an adult, with all of the attendant duties, unpaid and largely unacknowledged, in the home or out of it. A card is the very least you can thank her with – pretty much the equivalent of the minimum wage. (“We’d pay you less if we could, but the law’s the law!”)

Mothers are not born with an innate ability to withstand pain, and the endless tyranny of childcare. They do not spring fully formed from hours of labour, ready to bear whatever this new being throws at them, physically or emotionally. They are young women with lives and dreams of their own that put aside their own selves in the service of families and societies that place very little value on what makes the actual world turn – cooking, cleaning, planning, organizing, wiping away tears and cleaning tiny bottoms.

Perhaps a more thoughtful gift for mums might be something that recognizes those sacrifices, and puts it into perspective. Mother’s Day, possibly more than any other holiday, is your chance to really thank your maternal parent for putting aside a large portion of their life to create yours.

Get it out of your head that Mumsie will be over the moon with a new pair of fuzzy slippers, and realize that she’d much prefer a gift certificate to a spa of her choice, or a year’s subscription to the Wine of the Month Club. If you’re old enough to read this, and you are lucky enough to still have a living maternal figure, remember her existence and needs more than once a year.

She spent far more years indulging your wants and needs than you have left to thank her for her generosity.

And while I’m in a fever dream of possibilities, address your own attitudes to women of all ages, for every one of them is a mother or a potential mother. While it’s lovely to honour your own mother, remember that many of the women you see every day, of child bearing age or beyond, are also someone else’s honoured mum, and that there is likely someone out there who would take a lot of offense to anyone who treated her with disrespect. The ability to divorce the love of one’s mother from respect for all women, their bodies, and their work, is simply astounding, especially as seen amongst those with the power or clout to affect change.

Ah, Mother’s Day. In theory, adorable. In practice, a day when women – the wives, teachers, chefs, chief bottle washers, multi-taskers, and keeper of the family brain – are granted ‘permission’ to relax for a short while, and enjoy a chocolate, before they get on with the work of making the domestic world go ‘round. Not much of a trade-off, really.

(first published on bobsegarini.wordpress.com/2016/05/08/roxanne-tellier-spotlight-on-mama/)

May Day! May Day!

It’s May the first – a day when most of the northern hemisphere officially decides, “that’s it. Done with winter. Bring on the sun and the fun!”

I’ve always thought that May 1st would be a better start to the year then January 1st.No one feels much like kick-starting anything more than the snow blower in winter. May, on the other hand, is when you can shed the many layers you’ve bundled yourself into over the darkest months, like a snake sloughing off its outgrown skin.

Even the armchairiest of armchair gardeners eyes the sprouts of green peeking out of the earth, and tells themselves lies about the magic they’ll coax from the soil this year. Dreams of successful planting and transplanting, and visions of exotic fruits fresh plucked from your own trees, dance through your head like the sugarplums of Christmas. Garden paths that never overgrow! Bushels of perfectly formed, organic vegetables! Idyllic afternoons whiled away in draped pergolas, desultorily conversing with like-minded friends.

All of which lasts for about a week or ten days, before the great outdoors is abandoned in favour of a good book and a comfy couch safely indoors, where there are no midges or crawly things.

No one is immune from May’s siren call. Even Led Zeppelin couldn’t help but reference the occasion. “If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now, It’s just a spring clean for the May queen.”

Ai eee! Spring cleaning! Washing your winter-stained windows in order to let the bright spring sun illuminate the dust bunnies you’ve cultivated whilst cocooning. Many gallons of cleaning goop will be purchased and used in the next few days, in a frenzy of scouring away the winter blues. Followed by many doctors being consulted for pain killers to numb the injuries stemming from long unused muscles strained during that frenzy.

I would much prefer to just dance around a flagpole, dressed in a long gown and draped with flowers, vying to be crowned the Queen of May, as they do in Europe. I mean, the month of May was named for the Greek goddess Maia, who was identified with the earlier Roman goddess of fertility, Bona Dea, whose festival was held in May. I’ll even take the pre-Christian Roman celebrations that revolved around Flora, the goddess of flowers, or celebrate Walpurgis Night or Beltane with the witches. In any case, my first act upon being crowned Queen would be to dispense with ritual house cleaning, in favour of far more civilized communal celebrations, rejoicing at the promise of another sun-filled summer. Vote for me!

The pagan holidays were sacrificed as Europe became Christianised, mores the pity. Traditionally, May Day was associated with fertility; the earth is reborn, the cattle get frisky, and, with less clothing to get in the way, people tend to get a little friskier themselves. The church frowned on frisky.

But still, traditions remain. And some should be revived! In some part of the United States, early American settlers made small May Day baskets, filled with flowers or treats, and left them at the doorstep of someone they fancied. “The giver rings the bell and runs away. The person receiving the basket tries to catch the fleeing giver; if caught, a kiss is exchanged.” (Wikipedia)

That sounds a lot more fun than leaving flaming bags of poop on the doorsteps of unfriendly neighbours.

If you were up very early this morning, you might have heeded the call sent by the Facebook group, Toronto Morris Men. “Sunrise in Toronto on 1st May 2016 is at 06:09. We’ll be at High Park, will you join us?”

It’s an old custom still celebrated in Ontario. “In Toronto, on the morning of May 1, various Morris Dancing troops from Toronto and Hamilton gather on the road by Grenadier Cafe, in High Park to “dance in the May”. The dancers and crowd then gather together and sing traditional May Day songs such as Hal-An-Tow and Padstow.” (Wikipedia)

In the last century, and thanks to social democrats and unions, May 1 has become much less fanciful. Here’s a “did you know?” for you … What trade unions and labour movements now celebrate as the May 1^st International Workers Day, started as a response to the annual holiday that stemmed from a union strike in Toronto. In December 1872, the Toronto Typographical Union staged a parade in support of the strike for a 58-hour work-week that had been going on since March of that year. George Brown (yes, he of George Brown College) was editor of the Toronto Globe at the time, and he called for the police to charge the union with “conspiracy,” which resulted in 24 leaders of the union being arrested. (Laws criminalising union activities had already been abolished in England, but were still on the books in Canada.)

It was the seven trade unions that marched in Ottawa in protest that finally pushed then Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald, to repeal the anti-union laws, and pass the Trade Union Act in 1873. We have been celebrating the occasion on the first Monday in September ever since.

In 1882, trade unionists in the United States, inspired by the Toronto unions’ bravery and success, proposed a similar holiday. But the Labour Day holiday did not become official until 1894, and still did not quite address the spirit of the movement.

The May 1^st International Workers Day evolved from the 1904 International Socialist Conference in Amsterdam, when the Sixth Conference of the Second International, called on “all Social Democratic Party organisations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace.”

May 1^st was chosen to commemorate the May 1886 Haymarket incident in Chicago, where a bomb was thrown at police attempting to disperse a public assembly calling for an eight-hour workday. In response, the police fired on the workers, and killed four demonstrators.

It might then be logical to assume that the term chosen to indicate a state of emergency (Mayday!) would have come from the Chicago incident as well. But it actually originated in 1923, when a senior radio officer at Croydon Airport in London, England, was asked to decide on a word easily understood by pilots and ground staff in an emergency.

“Since much of the traffic at the time was between Croydon and Le Bourget Airport in Paris, Frederick Stanley Mockford proposed the word “Mayday” from the French “m’aider”, a shortened version of “venez m’aider” (meaning “come and help me”). (Wikipedia)

The term, always said three times in repetition, replaced the Morse code SOS. Calling Mayday!is now taken so seriously in the United States that it is a federal crime to make a false distress call, and will get you up to six years in jail, and/or a fine of up to $250,000.

At the moment, it’s a gray, chilly morning in Toronto. I missed the Morris Dancers, (rats!) but if I hustle, I can get down to the square at Yonge and Dundas, where a rally and march will begin at 1:00 pm. This year’s theme highlights the struggles of resistance to anti-black racism, police brutality, and issues deeply affecting black communities, along with Indigenous sovereignty, gender justice, anti-poverty and anti-austerity organizations.

Or, in the spirit of my ancestors, I could find me a May Pole to dance around, and a hedgerow with a bustle looking for a May queen. I always did fancy being royalty for a day …

(first published at bobsegarini.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/roxanne-tellier-may-day-may-day/)

Why You Should Care About Man’splaining

I originally wrote this for Bob Segarini‘s “Don’t Believe A Word I Say” blog, way back in June 2014. (https://bobsegarini.wordpress.com/2014/06/15/roxanne-tellier-agree-to-disagree/)

The subject of ‘man’splaining’ has come around again. So, with a little editing and updating, I’m diving back into the subject. Enjoy! 😉

I am incredibly blessed to work with a crew of like minded, intelligent, non-biased writers at DBAWIS. We support and cross reference each other because we respect what each of us brings to the blog table, whether or not we agree. We can have spirited conversations and never once drop to the venomous level of “Jane, you ignorant slut,” as ridiculed in 70’s Saturday Night Live’s Point/Counterpoint skits.

Respectful, intelligent, informed conversation is not typical fare these days, least of all on social media, which is geared to the quick fix, knee-jerk reaction and funny cat memes. I once would have blamed the suspicious and cynical responses on Facebook on the ease of misinterpreting the written word, but find a similar pattern emerging in the spoken word world, rising from the primordial ooze of talk radio and conservative television posing as ‘news.’

Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me, has been all over the media this week, talking about her latest book, and explaining the frustration women experience in dealing with the sort of pompous, asshat male who half closes his eyes and leans back into his chair, preparatory to delivering his most holy and righteous words to the ignorant female before him.

The bigger truth in her words is that ‘man’splaining,’ as she calls it, does not just apply to women.

Why You Should Care About ‘Man’splaining’

If I disagree with you on an issue, it’s not because I’m a woman/less educated/a lefty liberal, it’s because I’ve thought about the issue, and come to a conclusion. That my conclusion does not match your conclusion does not make my thoughts wrong or naive. I do not need to be told that your conclusions are right and mine are in error. They are MY conclusions, based on my research.

If more information comes to light, and I change my stance, based on the new facts, that is not flip-flopping, that is having the ability to accommodate additional points, understand their bearing on the issue, and come to a new conclusion that assimilates ALL that is currently known.

Opinions are lovely … but they are not facts.

It’s not just women who’ve experienced being lectured on ‘the facts.’ But in this case, Ms Solnit’s original blog post touched a nerve in readers, and went viral. In her words, “Men explaining things to me had been happening my whole life. The infamous incident I described — in which a man talked over me to explain a Very Important Book he thought I should read that it turns out I wrote — happened five years earlier in 2003.”

“Every woman knows what I’m talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.”

“After my book Wanderlust came out in 2000, I found myself better able to resist being bullied out of my own perceptions and interpretations. On two occasions around that time, I objected to the behaviour of a man, only to be told that the incidents hadn’t happened at all as I said, that I was subjective, delusional, overwrought, dishonest — in a nutshell, female.” (http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174918/)

When you have people of wealth and/or power who are used to ‘man’splaining’ to women, it’s not very long before they decide that they’re also qualified to talk to everyone about other things they haven’t a clue about, as long as they deliver the info in a deep and stentorian voice, brimming with confidence and dominance .. about ‘legitimate rape,’ the age of the planet, or how science and scientists have it all wrong, because … The Bible. And they are not just talking to women – these speakers do not discriminate. No, they are talking to the general public, be they male, female, young or old. Anyone, in fact, who will allow their nonsense to enter their ears and fester in their minds.

Arrogant pedants who claim to have the only and last word on subjects they haven’t any real grasp of, quoting other crackpots and faulty science, barefacedly stating their own point of view as infallible and verifiable fact. And we – those of us who find it easier to simply accept, and even to share, unverified info, rather than look for the real story – pass those ridiculous opinions along to yet more gullible readers, who simply swallow down the pap, and allow twisted thinking to grow in their guts like deadly bacteria.

Elizabeth Young in her introduction to Plain Pleasures, the collected stories of Jane Bowles. “Up until the 1970s women were discounted and despised,” she writes. “They were, en masse, classed with children in terms of capability but, unlike children, were the butt of virtually every joke in the comedian’s repertoire. They were considered trite, gossipy, vain, slow and useless. Older women were hags, battle-axes, mother-in-laws, spinsters. Women were visible in the real world, the world of men, only while they were sexually desirable. Afterwards they vanished completely, buried alive by the creepy combination of contempt, disgust and sentimentality with which they were regarded.”

It didn’t end in the 70’s. In June of 2014, the women of The Talk were cackling about the audacity of older people having sex and romance in their lives. Do these women not have mirrors or calendars? Plastic surgery and Hollywood diets will only work for so long. They too will age, sooner rather than later. Perhaps they believe themselves immortal, but, if we are lucky, we will all eventually face our senior years. Are we doomed to be not only ignored but ridiculed for daring to continue to live and love?

It’s not just men who purvey these diatribes… there isn’t a shortage of women who like to swagger with the best of them, despite either sex’s words coming off like the ramblings of an aging Fonzie. I used to love Christie Blatchford when I first read her columns, many decades ago. I can’t read her now. Although I’m sure she occasionally writes something that I could relate to, the overall tone of her writing smacks of a belligerent street punk.

In the states, Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and many more far too pugnacious women toe the party line, siding firmly with the doctrines handed down by elderly, white, entitled, Conservative men… hold the phone! That’s it!

Clinging to the idea that your gender, wealth or power makes you somehow magically smarter than those around you is like sitting under a flashing neon sign that points to your head and says, “old guy.” And not a nice old guy that we can learn the mysteries of life from, but a nasty, old, half-cut, pre-civil liberties era relic that snarls, “get off my lawn!” at every passing child … or idea.

You should care about ‘man’splaining’ because those men are lecturing to us all, on the television, on the radio, and in print, in the same ignorant, self-serving manner, to anyone that will listen and swallow their bitterness. They want to educate us to their misogynistic revelations, promoting their own insecurities and doctrines as facts, and encouraging fear in those who lack their own level of confidence and privilege. But sadly, those who choose to blindly accept the gnarled half-truths and bigotry inherent in these decidedly non-empathetic screeds may one day find themselves on the wrong side of history, pawns to the sociopathic ramblings of greedy, old men.

Man’splaining dismisses the reasoning capabilities of others. It imposes the rational of another, at the expense of the individual. The only defense is to think for yourself, and own what you think. Don’t swallow whole what some would like to spoon fed you. Don’t let yourself be ‘man’splained.’ Make your life the product of your own study and morals. The brain, like any other body part, needs to be exercised; use it or lose it.

“Research shows that older adults have lower scores on a measure called “self-discipline.” By the time they reach their later years, individuals feel better able to express themselves rather than being hemmed in by society’s proscriptions.”

How very sad, when the freedom to finally speak your truth is considered a lack of self-discipline … kind of makes you wonder whose judgments are being weighed and on whose scale

You Won’t Believe What Happens Next!

Remember when newspapers had actual content writers, copy editors and proper headlines? Spell checkers? You do?

Me too. And I miss those days. I used to amuse myself at times trying to find the odd misspell or grammatical error, because I was a nerdlinger, and errors were rare enough to make the game worth the while. Overall, I really appreciated a cleverly turned phrase, an apt summation, a seductive call to ‘read all about it!’ and I relished the tiny print request to (continue reading on page …. ). I’d even suffer the frustration and indignity of wrestling a broadsheet into submission, when my interest had been piqued.

Tabloids took all the fun out of both of those exercises.

Now you can feast your eyes on the clickbait genre; titles that are designed to manipulate or coerce readers into entering their site. Today’s online version of the Weekly World News.

With the death of old school journalism in recent years, and the plethora of online sites vying for your ‘click’ to entice advertiser dollars, clickbait titles have become the go-to tactic to attract curious – yet oddly intellectually lazy – eyes.

Why bother researching social inequity, when you’ve just clicked on the cutest video of homeless people? Or examining the difference between available political parties when this snappy cartoon lays it all out for you? Have you flexed your ethical and moral values because you watched a video of a kid standing up to bullies? Surely you’ve done your part, and now our faith in humanity can be restored.

And in a philosophical sense, isn’t society always in doubt as to the state of humanity? It can be a Sisyphean task, keeping the faith. ”You won’t Believe what happens next” challenges our cynicism and belief systems, and dares us to dream, one more time, that there are wonders and miracles to be found. All you have to do is click this link ….

I know there are a lot of intelligent people out there. I’ve met some, and, based on the spectrum, there must be many more in the general population. But, sadly, in any large group, there are those who somehow managed to fail upward through the education system and most of their formative years, neatly bypassing all attempts to be enlightened. It happens. Read the comments on nearly every article, post or blog on any site and subject deemed controversial – politics, sex, climate change, equal rights. You’ll be stunned at how many very uninformed and uneducated commentators feel the need to add their poorly digested bile to a discussion and set the LiBtArDs straight.

It would be sooo easy to write off clickbait as the natural habitat of those easily manipulated and gullible people. But they are not the only ones to fall into the trap; clickbait appeals to our sense of disbelief. It asks – dare you read this? How strong are your views? – while simultaneously appealing to our innate desire to know what is in the future. What happens next? Ah, wouldn’t we all like to have a heads up on that!

But clickbait is no crystal ball. If anything, the majority of Upworthy’s maudlin videos fall into the need to hear a little good news for a change. Buzzfeed’s listicles and how-to’s attempt to find meaning in meaningless exercises attempting to smooth the way through meaningless everyday tasks. Celebrity websites exist to glorify celebrities and those who wish to attain celebrity through sensationalism and sexy side boob glimpses … making the mundane into rumour-worthy chatter you can share on social media, whether the material has basis in reality or not.

And it works. Most people are busy enough trying to get through their day without too much distress, hanging on to whatever brings in the money necessary for them to make it through yet another day, while being bombarded with doom and gloom on every side. People are not meant to be flooded with a constant stream of new data; our brains prefer to be fed chunks of necessary information, with just the odd spike of spicy novelty to keep things interesting.

I’m not saying that clickbait is an insult to our collective intelligence. No, I’m saying it’s a necessary evil, designed to ease the pressure off an already strained valve. Without clickbait, cat videos, games, listicles and recipes, the strain of modern life would likely blow the top off of our heads.

I’m just saying that it’s a bit much to ask readers to take a publication seriously that depends solely on clickbait headlines. And why would you even try? It’s akin to walking through the midway at the Ex, in the days when the carnival barkers used to pull in the rubes with promises of the “Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla GURL!” or LobsterBoy. Escapist fun in limited quantity – nauseating as a steady diet.

Shock tactics and clickbait achieve the immediate measurable goal – quantifiable clicks of attention, attracting advertisers to invest. Long term respect and dignity come from actual, informative, content, which entertains on a higher level than titillation.

For many publications, the clicks are enough.