Tag Archives: Canada

No Law Just Disorder


by Roxanne Tellier

Generally, writing about the continuing political clown show in America is more exciting than writing about what are often picayune matters in Canadian politics.

Canada has practically sailed thru the pandemic, in comparison to other countries. We’ve been lucky, overall, and much of that success is because the majority of us are happy to comply with regulations that will help stop the spread of the virus. Things could most definitely have gone much worse.

Yes, I think we’ve handled the pandemic fairly well. Certainly, better than I have handled realizing exactly how selfish, self-centred, and horrible so many have become in the last nine months. No one is enjoying living through this crisis, but some are not only behaving like obnoxious, spoiled brats, they’re forcing others to carry them through their ‘trauma.’

This week, our activist citizens thrust themselves into global prominence with the arrest of Adam Skelly, a young man from a wealthy Leaside family, who claimed to be acting in the name of ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ when he defied the province’s 28- day ban on indoor dining at Toronto’s bars and restaurants.

Skelly owns a couple of restaurants in the city, including one in the suburbs of Etobicoke. When the ban was imposed, Skelly simply ignored the law, declaring on social media Monday night that he would open for business, including for in-person dining. On Tuesday, the city’s public health chief explicitly ordered him to close his doors, but on Wednesday, he continued to serve customers, resulting in non-criminal charges for Skelly, and the corporation that owns the restaurant.

The location became a gathering spot for anti-maskers, who congregated around the diner, protesting vocally and with placards, warning about political ‘communism.’  

The police and the city dithered for a few days, a mistake which allowed the protestors to gather in strength. However, on Thursday, the police finally acted, and led Mr. Skelly away in handcuffs.  

“Look Ma! No Mask!”

“On Thursday, police changed the locks on the restaurant, but allowed Skelly into a portion of the building they believed was not covered by the closure order from Toronto Public Health.

However, according to police, his supporters smashed through drywall to access the restaurant area to try and reopen it.

Skelly was led away in handcuffs and now faces a number of charges, including attempting to obstruct police, mischief under, failing to comply with a continued order under the Reopening Ontario Act, and failing to leave when directed under the Trespass to Property Act.

He appeared in court via video link on Friday, and was released after his wife posted $50,000 bail.“  (CTV News)

That bail likely came from a GoFundMe organized by his supporters immediately after his arrest. To date, that fund stands at $271,166. So – it’s been rather lucrative for the scofflaw.

Skelly and his customers were blatantly disrespecting not just the law, but their fellow citizens, whose lives they were risking for their own needs. And – here’s the thing; I’ll bet if you asked any of those protestors how they feel about ‘Defund the Police’ they’d be on the side of the Boys in Blue. Just not when those Boys are ‘interfering’ with what they consider to be their own privileged rights.

It’s true! Even a stopped clock is right twice a day!

Here’s Doug Ford proving the adage that even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

“Speaking with CP24, criminal lawyer Ari Goldkind said Skelly could face some serious further charges if he continues to defy the law.

“He could be charged with serious crimes that are called ‘fail to comply,’ Goldkind said. “And when you get charged with fail to comply, you’re taking your jeopardy of these mischief and obstruct charges and you’re increasing it greatly.”

Goldkind said the conditions of Skelly’s bail are “significant,” including the stipulation that he not use social media. That charge likely stems from his use of Instagram to announce that he would defy the lockdown orders and invite people to come eat at his restaurant, and his subsequent use of the platform to call for locksmiths and other help to re-open the restaurant after it was shut down by police and public health officials.” (CTVNews)

Whether or not Skellly’s protest works out financially for him (and I’m gonna bet it will,) we do have to look at the growing swell of Canadians who are totally fed up with what seems like arbitrary rules that ignore science, in deference to Big Business. Where is the justification in the closing of restaurants and shops that have bent over backwards to comply, while keeping their customers safe?

It all starts to look a lot like how the province behaved when the drive to stop smoking in public began. Businesses kept trying to comply, while the province kept making it harder for the businesses to do so. Yeah, I’m glad we’re not allowed to smoke in restaurants any more. I’m just very much against how they went about achieving that objective.

Small businesses all over the city are suffering under Ontario’s rules for surviving the pandemic. This time of year is when most count on making the bulk of the year’s profits. Ford played the Grinch when he decided to shut them down, while allowing Big Box stores to remain open.

By the spring, we’re going to see a flood of personal and business bankruptcies, the likes of which we’ve not seen since the Dirty Thirties.

Schools remain open, even as cases rise, and our hospitals worry they’ll once again have to cancel surgeries. Skelly playing scofflaw as others play by the rules only ups the ante for those who’re unable to pay their rents or staff.

With few exceptions, political leaders have bent over backwards to accommodate Big Business, many of which are also Big Donors to their campaigns. There’s been a real tippy toeing around the need to completely shut things down for the 4 to 6 weeks it would take to break the virus’ stranglehold on our economy. But had we done so back in the spring, we’d be looking forward to celebrating a much merrier Christmas by now.

Our leaders promised to “do whatever it takes” to stop COVID-19; and then, they didn’t.

Instead, the city and the province are allowing scofflaws and rabble to warp the narrative to their own agendas. Until those breaking these laws are fined heavily, and possibly arrested for multiple offenses, we can look forward to their anti-masking, anti-lockdown protests to scale up as tempers ramp up.

Every weekend, a group of anti-maskers gather at Dundas Square to share disinformation about “science” they’ve gleaned from the nonsense Russian bots convey on YouTube, and whatever flavour of nutso Parler has up that day. And every weekend, those crowds grow larger and louder. Why are the protestors – at the very least the instigators – not being fined for flaunting laws put into place for the safety at all?

I’ve heard from people who live in the area that these protestors will often spread out to other areas of the city after the rally, shouting at pedestrians and trying to rip the masks off other people’s faces. This is assault, even were there no public health laws in place for the safety of us all.

This has been a really rough year for everyone. It would be great if we could just try to get to the end of it in one piece, with our city intact.

Arresting Skelly is a first step. Now it’s time for our local, provincial, and federal officials to stop pandering to those who are too spoiled and selfish to care who they infect. It’s not about ‘freedom’ – it’s about a public health crisis, and the need to care for ALL Canadians.

Lockdown Letdown


by Roxanne Tellier

I don’t want to play ‘Pandemic’ anymore. I really don’t. I’ve had enough of not seeing my friends and family, of scarcities and lineups that make me feel like I’m in post-Communist Russia, and of people being cranky. I’m sick of worrying about if there’s enough of this or that and if not, how to figure out when and where to get more, and I’ve had it with not being able to just go out to restaurants and socialize like normal people… I’ve had enough.

At this point, when I and most of the planet have it up to our teeth, and as the holidays loom, mere weeks away, and mainly due to the efforts of organized anti-maskers and scofflaws who endanger us all with their YouTube engendered f*ckery, we’re going back into another ‘lockdown.’

With just a few days notice, people are panic-shopping, the stores are jammed, there’s lineups around every block, and – maybe I’m going a little nutso with the panic buying. I mean, who really needs five boxes of Harvest Crunch? Apparently, I do.   

But what’s worse is that this lockdown is likely not even going to help much, but it may well ruin more small businesses, most of which have been barely hanging on by a toenail.  What’s the point of keeping restaurants closed when the schools are still open, and the anti maskers are out loud and proud every weekend with megaphones and free hugs, ensuring that we may never successfully emerge from this pandemic? And why aren’t the cops charging and fining every one of those scofflaws each time they’re caught maskless? Why are the rest of us having to suffer while these attention seekers get off scot-free?

I’m so done with these anti maskers, the selfish, self-centred covidiots. They are like the kid that murders his parents, and then throws himself on the mercy of the court, because he’s an orphan. It’s not down to them to decide that their YouTube research trumps actual scientific fact. Masks help to reduce transmission. There’s your fact. Denying it is the hoax.

This is a public health crisis, not 11th grade. I am SO done with these dangerous saps. Fine them into bankruptcy, and if that doesn’t stop them – well, even Typhoid Mary eventually got quarantined on North Brother Island for the last 23 years of her life. We have precedent for dealing with super-spreaders. 

Global daily deaths to Nov 11, 2020

We’ve now suffered eight months of this pandemic, and lost far too many good people before their time. It’s not just those old people housed in long term facilities, who didn’t deserve such ignominious and lonely passings; health care professionals have been decimated by the virus as well. The virus doesn’t ask to see your driver’s license, citizenship papers, or electoral choice – it kills indiscriminately.

The numbers are insane – in Canada alone, we’ve lost roughly 11,500 people. The US has now topped 256,000 dead, and there’s 1.34 MILLION dead around the world, with another 55.6 million infected. Don’t tell me that this is a ‘hoax.’ It’s one thing to believe that places might be faking the numbers of the dead, but it’s another thing entirely to believe that anyone is faking cremations. If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself.

To the south, Americans are just plain screwed. Severe lockdowns loom amid skyrocketing hospitalizations, with no financial relief in sight. And yet, apparently that’s not enough to stop many from jamming the airports and crisscrossing the country for Thanksgiving.

While Trump tries to hang on to a job he doesn’t really want anymore, he still won’t let Biden’s transition crew get in there and help the country. Trump’s painted himself into a corner, where he’s still enjoying presidential perks, but the rest of America is looking at ending the year sick, hungry and homeless.

Middle-class homeless in California

They desperately need another coronavirus relief bill, as the economy lurches into deeper economic depression. By the end of the year, about 12 million Americans will lose their unemployment benefits. Those who’ve been struggling just to keep afloat will find themselves on the streets – homeless and impoverished. 

At that point you can quit worrying about whether or not COVID is real, because 12 million hungry Americans forced to fend for themselves without any hope are not going to be ‘good neighbours.’

Trump’s biggest enablers, his buddies in the admin and his FOXy Friends, have begun to whisper that it’s time ‘someone’ did something, but their faithful followers aren’t likely to pay any attention. Fox viewers have been thoroughly indoctrinated into believing that Biden stole the election, and that the virus is a hoax, no worse than a flu. Biden beginning the transition into the presidency confounds what they’ve been lead to believe.

Biden being barred from normal transitioning means that medical and economic help will be delayed a further two months, and the situation will worsen. Plans for the vaccine? Back-burnered. A relief bill? No need; trump’s got this. Somehow. Right after this back nine…

There can’t BE a transition, you see, because trump says (without evidence) that’s there’s been widespread voter fraud, and he’s using that as leverage to suck the last few dollars out of his followers’ wallets, to pay for a team of double-talking, but ultimately useless, lawyers. Trump’s followers are fully invested in the hope that somehow, they’re going to overturn the Biden win.

You won’t want to be around trump’s ‘believers’ when their dreams come crashing down, and they find themselves sick, hungry, and homeless.

For those in the conservative media, or the Republican party, who half-heartedly want to encourage trump to do the right thing – concede, and allow work to begin on the pandemic – such talk is tantamount to committing a trumpian double sin. Firstly, they’re whispering that trump may not actually be president when work begins on distributing the vaccine. But secondly, trump has downplayed COVID 19 to his cult for so long, that the vaccine is not even supposed to be a big deal that needs to be addressed. He’s told them the pandemic isn’t such a bad thing .. look at how quickly he got over it! … so, no worries. Que sera sera. All in good time. Manana. Hakuna Matata, baby.

On Saturday, “the G20, the “Group of Twenty,” which consists of leaders of developed or developing countries from around the world, met virtually. After speaking briefly, Trump turned his attention back to tweeting false information about the 2020 election. Then, while members of the G20 began to talk about responses to the global pandemic, Trump went golfing. This was his 298th golf trip during his presidency. Today America surpassed 12 million coronavirus infections.”   (Heather Cox Richardson, historian-author)

The world is beginning to lose patience with America’s lack of response to the pandemic. Denial and dysfunction on an epic level have revealed that America, under trump and under pressure, was simply not up to the task of protecting their people and their economy. Any sympathy towards those caught up unwittingly in the cobwebs of this massive abuse of leadership is fading, after an election that showed that clearly half the nation was still on board with trump, and will follow him, even unto death.  

While the United States juggles both a health and an economic crisis. the nation also finds itself sharply split, politically. That polarization, combined with a public distrust of government institutions that plays into trump’s refusal to take simple health precautions seriously, would be enough to bring any nation to its knees. But now, as trump supporters refuse to believe the results of their election, United State’s democracy is truly under attack.

Today’s America – a nation sick, broke and broken, and fighting against itself. A house divided.

In the face of such a complete and total failure of leadership, golfing is all that trump has left. He failed the nation, and willfully ceded everything asked of a leader.

Fore!

God Willing and the Creek Don’t Rise


by Roxanne Tellier

There’s only a few more weeks left of summer, before we get that Fall-ing feeling again.

That’s quite a while, in these troubled times. Kind of makes you wonder how different our world will look by then. After all, it’s certainly seemed like every day for the last few years has been an endless, nauseating, roller coaster ride. Fires, floods, droughts, plagues, economic turmoil, murder hornets – kind of frightening to think what might be next.

Take, for instance, daily life since March 2020. Experts say that if the United States had just followed three simple rules – wash your hands, keep a social distance from others, and when you can’t, wear a mask – it could have prevented at least 90% of the deaths of the 163,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19 to date.

Which seems a pretty small ’ask,’ really. But somehow, that little, common-sense ask got politicized and weaponized. Now, those who are just as likely to become ill or die from this virus as those whom they disdain for being ‘sheeple,’ are in equal danger from the great unwashed and unmasked. Strangely, the virus doesn’t ask to see your voting preferences, or your SAT scores.

When the first trickles of information began dribbling in, back in March, about a new and potentially deadly epidemic being on its way, most people were motivated to go into ‘self-protection’ mode. A lot of us spent a lot of money on canned goods, medications, and toilet paper. Masks were hard to find, and even those cheap paper masks, like you’d wear at a doctor’s office, were a little pricey. But that was okay, because no one knew what would happen next in this ‘novel’ corona virus. We were playing it by ear. Most would prefer to be safe than sorry.

You’d have thought that preppers, and those who have been anticipating some sort of apocalyptic, dystopic, end of days would have been delighted to have a chance to give their hoards and bunkers a work out. But surprisingly few were enthusiastic about weathering an ACTUAL crisis.

Still, people coped. Those who survived the Great Toilet Paper Wars got crafty, with some generous souls showing others how a simple mask could be fashioned from just about any material, for next to nothing. Others got smart, and figured out how to turn a buck by selling their fashion masks to non-crafty people for major coin.

Predictably, trump decided that he had to be the figurehead in the fight against this ‘invisible enemy’ that he dubbed the China Virus. His meddling only roiled the waters, drove his cult to new heights of insanity, lead the gullible to drink bleach, and put the lives of those attempting to save American lives in danger.

All things considered, Canada has been pretty good, in a minimal sense, during this crisis. Really, I don’t blame anyone, either in government or in the sciences, for a response that has been merely ‘good.’ None of us – not even the most knowledgeable scientists, researchers, or doctors, even specialists in virology or respirology – could have anticipated all that we’ve come to learn about this particular virus, even within the last six months. It is NOVEL – and that means, it’s never happened before. Some nations had generic pandemic responses in place, and ready to go (notably, trump had disbanded those offices in the US long before the epidemic began) but what they had to work with on this new infection basically amounted to “Don’t forget your towel.”

But I do say minimal, because, both in Canada and the US, there was a serious lack of governments able to ‘say what they mean and mean what they say.’ It was clear, right from March, that controlling a world wide pandemic was going to take a steely will, and a populace that understood not only the seriousness of the disease, but the need to pull together, as nations, and as humanity, in order to beat the infection into submission.

In those countries with a strong right-wing political arm, even here in Canada, with a Liberal prime minister, there was a fear that actually letting the populace know the extent of the potential danger might cause the worst human traits to emerge – selfishness, hoarding, and panic.

They also worried that ‘telling people what to do’ as in, mandating the use of masks for the good of public health, would be – and sadly, is – considered governmental over-reach.

The nations that took that mandate seriously – all of which, strangely, had women leaders – did the best. Their people tightened their belts, stayed home, wore the masks, and took the economic hit, early in Phase One. Those countries are back to almost normal.

But those countries governed by a male, right wing leader, sadly, took the biggest hits, lost the most people, and continue to struggle as summer fades, and we begin to dread the very real possibility that a Second Wave hitting this winter, combined with seasonal cold and flus, could completely overwhelm available health care, resulting in a new tsunami of unnecessary illness and deaths.

For those of us who are lucky to be least affected by this pandemic, it’s often hard to grasp the magnitude of the disease, the suffering of those that fall to it, and, perhaps even worse than mere death, the possibility of having one’s heart, lungs, liver, and/or kidneys be significantly and permanently impaired, despite having ‘survived’ a full-fledged bout of COVID.

For those on pensions or governmental benefits, those who were able to work from home with little problem, and those in high levels of management, both business and political, there has been a very minor discomfort involved with the pandemic. If anything, the drop in foot and car traffic has been a boon. The middle class are not in peril.

But minimum wage employees, the ‘essential workers’ who were the ones called upon to ensure that the wheels kept turning, and that the groceries, pharmacies, and beer stores stayed open, those people were the ones that were sent out as ‘tributes’ to the disease.

Health care workers, including ambulance drivers, EMTs, nurses and doctors are very much represented in the list of the fallen as well. 

To that, we’ll soon be adding our children, their teachers, all of the support staff in the schools, and, of course, those the children will be physically closest to, their families.

Meanwhile, no upper management, and certainly very, very few political representatives, have returned to work. And even those who do, do so with extreme reluctance, and caution, along with demands that more attention be paid to the protection of their health, than to the job they’re hired to do.

I blame both the government, AND the media, for not doing what they have done so well in past national crises – putting a human face to the fear, anger, pain and uncertainty that the populace are experiencing. By essentially turning a blind eye to the emotional component of the pandemic, by focusing on the numbers of the dead, over the number of the ill or recovering, they’ve enabled an open season on the kind of anti-science and anti-mask sentiment that has been instilled in so many.

And for a huge proportion of those actively disseminating lies, half-truths, and propaganda – you’ve got to blame social media, and the trolls, bots, and right-wing operatives who lurk there, spreading these dangerous falsehoods to the gullible.

There are human beings behind those numbers of ill, recovering, and deceased. And yet, very few people within my own social circle know more than one of the deceased, personally.  

BREAKING: Darwin Awards for 2020 cancelled
due to too many competitors.

And because there’s been so little footage and reportage of how gruesome it is to become ill from COVID, so little information about those who have spent weeks, or months, in hospital, on a ventilator, attempting to recover, there’s a huge mass of unmasked, ignorant, and woefully uninformed, future Darwin Award winners, out in public, putting us all in danger of catching the virus.

It’s denial, just like people experience when they are told that they or a loved one has a terminal illness. First, there’s denial, a jaw-dropping recognition that this bad thing can happen to ME, despite my being ME.. Denial, and then anger, that it’s happening to ME.

Happens all over the planet, several times a day. But the difference in this particular diagnosis – and one shared with those who refuse to accept that the climate is changing – is that, instead of having a kindly doctor, or someone you trust and respect, guiding you through this horrible realization, and helping you to make good decisions on how to proceed, there’s half a planet willing to tell you lies about what happens next, and how you’re really over-reacting. It will all be fine. Most of those voices denying reality do NOT have your best interest top of mind.

And governments that are urging schools to reopen, in the name of the economy, are really, really, really not looking out for your best interest, or your child’s.

We’ve gotten used to a way of thinking that doesn’t really differentiate between jobs we want to do, and slave labour. Either way, the average workie is beholden to their position, until they can find something better. So, if the government decides that greasing the economy’s wheels means that anyone without big money or big power had better get their shoulder back to the wheel, the workers are going to have to do so, regardless of their health concerns.

For many, this means that they’ve got to get the kids back to school so that the adults can get back to work, and keep an income flowing, in order to keep their place in the economic order. Keeping a roof over one’s head, keeping food in everyone’s belly – those are basic needs for everyone.

While parents try to parse through the logistics, they’re being bombarded with distractions, and coaxed to believe that the advantages of socialization of the kids outweighs the very real possibility that the physical return to school will not only be dangerous for all concerned, but that the new constraints on behaviour within the classes may turn their children against the idea of schooling permanently.

And that means that parents, despite their fears of what might happen, what will ensue down the line, when the kids inevitably bring home illness for the whole family to share, are fighting back the anxiety that is telling them that using their precious children as the canaries in the COVID coalmine is insanity, and doomed to failure.

Our children are our future. Our children need education, but they need to live long enough, hopefully with live parents, to graduate and join the work force themselves at some point. THAT is how economies work. Sacrificing our young to keep today’s economy going is surrendering the nation’s economic future.   

Saddest of all, it’s looking like even those in charge know that they’re really only throwing your kids’ lives against the wall to see what sticks. They already know that there will be illness, amongst the students and staffs, and that the logistics of trying to keep the kids apart, and wearing masks, is a near-impossibility.  

Reading between the lines, even those most adamant for the kids to return to school are well aware that the odds greatly favour closure of those same schools sooner rather than later. Such a lot of worry, time and money wasting, all to feed the economic machine.

Yes, none of us knows what will be, although all of us think we’d like a quick peek at the future.

For now, we wait, disempowered, disenfranchised, and disoriented at the dizzying changes to our world in this Year of Our Lord 2020.

See you in September, the good lord willing, and the creek don’t rise..

Your bonus video. “ The Dumbest Man in America”

Summer of Song Redux


by Roxanne Tellier

I’ve been overwhelmed, recently, with the events swirling around us. It’s too much. And today, although I had planned a look into trump and Ford’s plans to re-open schools this fall, I’m gonna take a pass, and a day off. Instead of current affairs, let’s enjoy the summer sun, and take a stroll down Memory Lane, to this slightly edited column that I first wrote in August of 2015. 

How very different things look now, from the perspective of 2020, and this time of plague! Seems almost naughty to see people gathered together, without masks or social distancing! And I’m not sure if any of the places I mentioned then, are open now. Never mind… Take my hand, come along with me on the wayback machine, and forget about life for a while ….

**************************************

Idaho. Lower Salmon River. Playing guitar around campfire. MR

This is not likely to ever make the cut as a ‘best summer.’ I’m well past cavorting on beaches, fending off amorous, slight intoxicated hotties while sprinting across hot sand in an improbable bikini, and then gathering around a romantic campfire eating s’mores, while some talented and ‘mature’ looking fellow strums a guitar for a singalong.

Nope, them days are long gone, if they ever existed. And they probably only ever belonged to Annette Funicello – she may have even held the copyright on Beach Blanket Bingos … and maybe Bob, in his Stockton youth, could lay claim to the times. The Beach Boys definitely had a lock on the sound of summer itself.

Canadian summers were always a little more sedate. Maybe it’s because Canadian winters, being endlessly cold and dark, except in beer commercials, ramp up the anticipation for a few days of sun and relaxation until nothing – and certainly not the few weeks of uncertain rain or shine we generally ‘enjoy’ – can quite compete with the hype.

Canadian beach sand can be very hot, but the water, primarily lake-derived, rarely gets over the temperature of a cold bath. An intrepid Canuck would-be swimmer learns early that the proper beach protocol is to dip in a toe, shiver, and then gird your loins for a plunge into the freezing liquid, where you immediately duck under until all but your head is submerged. You must then yell to your fellow revelers, a phrase as Canadian as, “take off, eh” ….  

“It’s not so bad once you’re in!”

For the timid and the dreamy, a trip to the beach is more likely to involve stumbling over the jagged stones on the shore in your flip flops, hoping to catch just enough of a breeze and spray to cool down.

There are many incredibly lovely lakes in Ontario… Sand Dunes comes to mind, where we once spent a few hours, shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other families determined to have just one fun day in the sun, and trying to keep the flies and the sand off the sandwiches.  

Torontonians can ferry out to the Toronto Islands, with families heading straight for Centreville, where apparently the sun is always shining on Far Enough Farm and the kiddie rides. You can bring a picnic, and rent a bike, a canoe, or a kayak, while humming the Cowsill’s “Indian Lake.”  The daring head for the clothing-optional beach on the western shore of Hanlan’s Point. 

It was all so different when I was a kid. Even beyond the fantasies induced by Beach Party flicks, Elvis romps, and Beach Boys songs. In the sixties, come summer, a kid was usually on his or her own, barring maybe a couple of week stint in a community day camp, and most of the time, my sister and I would have to fend for ourselves in the heat.

Montreal summers were glaringly bright, the sun reflecting harshly off the concrete, and the crowded, standing room only, buses reeked of sweat, garlic, and dime store perfume. It was a time to check out Jarry Park to catch the Expos, or to take an insanely long bus ride out to Belmont Park, which was falling apart in a wonderfully creepy fashion. The arcade reeked of burnt popcorn and worse, and the rides – especially the Wild Mouse – were suspect. But a kid could spend a whole day there for under a buck, including bus fare.  

As a teen, my summers were mainly city bound. My girlfriends and I would start tanning in the spring, lying bonelessly in our back yards, slathered from head to toe in baby oil. The truly fashionable used sun reflectors to capture every ray. This ritual was necessary before heading toe the local outdoor community pool, where it would have been beyond devastating to appear with any part of your body revealed to be ‘fish belly white.’   

The cool kids would always gather near the pool’s deep end, clustered by age group or appearance. Few would actually swim; pool water, with its high chlorine content, could do a real number on our Summer Blonde or lemon streaked hair. And bathing suits, pre-spandex, tended to stretch out with or without much exertion. No, we were there to see and be seen, our transistor radios blaring, and fingers crossed that the boys would see beyond our gawky physique to the teen angel concealed within. Those were the Peggy March, ‘I Will Follow Him’ days, when even the most casual encounter with the opposite sex meant that we were going to be together forever … or at least until school was back in session.

It was either summer school or a summer job in the sixties. Kids would try to get hired at the hot gathering spots, like the Dairy Queen, the Orange Julep, or the A&W. One of the benefits of working at any place where other kids hung out was that the owners were usually savvy enough to keep their radios set to a happening station, like CFOX, where Dean Hagopian, Charles P. Rodney (Chuckie) Chandler, or Roger Scott played the hits.

By 1969, CKGM-FM has morphed into CHOM-FM, and the music got really groovy. Doug Pringle was the city’s top DJ, and he was THE voice of Montreal for years, entertaining us with new music, while letting us listen in on his interviews with everyone from Marc Bolan to Jesse Winchester, with multiple stops in between.

The summer of ’72 brought the Watergate Scandal,  the horror of 11 Israeli athletes being murdered at the Munich Olympics, and the first talk of the IRA planting car bombs in Ireland.

But we were far more interested in listening to Seals and Croft.

By ’76, single again, and with the Olympics in full swing in Montreal, my footsteps kept time to the music. When I wasn’t hanging out at the Olympic Village, I was cruising Crescent Street, dancing to disco in my platform sandals. Soon I’d leave for Toronto, but in the summer of ’76, the city was mine, and I was taking my joy to the streets.

The summer of 1983. New wave was now firmly established in the charts and in the street. We’d gone from girl Groups like The Go Gos and The Bangles owning the summer charts in 1980, ’81, and ’82, to a more mature sound emerging as the artists of the 70s, like Martha Davis of The Motels, lost their youths and innocence, just like the rest of us. The boomers, once again, were growing older as a group, with the music guiding our journey.

The Tragically Hip, who appeared on the scene in 1987, burst out of the gate sounding like the voice of Canada. ‘Blow at High Dough’, ’38 Years Old,’ and ‘Fifty Mission Cap’ pulled a Maple Leaf flag over the band, but in 1998, they nailed Ontario summers forever with ‘Bobcaygeon.’

These days there aren’t as many songs that, for me, capture that ‘summery’ feeling. Hitting it in the summer is not the same as having a classic summer song. Sure, you had Nelly’s ‘Hot in Here’ in 2002, but that was mainly about getting jiggy, in any season. 2010s ‘California Gurls’ by Katy Perry was fun, but couldn’t hold a candle to either the Beach Boys, or even the Van Halen rendition of ‘California Girls.’

I’m the first to admit that I’m well out of the new music loop. Still, I’d gladly stack any of my summer songs against any that have come along in the last decade and a half. From the innocence of the Loving Spoonful’s ‘Rain on the Roof’ to the Who’s raucous, ‘Summertime Blues,’ Martha and the Vandella’s ‘Heatwave,’ and The Kinks louche ‘Sunny Afternoon,’ to the brassy horns of Chicago’s ‘Saturday in the Park.’ I’ve got a full house AND a royal flush of bona fide summer time music.

And that’s even before I pull out Billy Stewart’s 1966 hybrid of ‘Summertime’ that insists you feel the heat of the ‘hot’ summertime.

It’s summer. Find that Walkman you packed away a decade ago, fire up your favorite collection of greatest golden oldie summertime tunes on CD, and head on down to the nearest boardwalk. As the Doors once told us, ‘Summer’s almost gone,’ and before you know it, you’ll be saying, ‘See you in September.’

Just a Little Respect


by Roxanne Tellier

The last Monday of May is when America celebrates Memorial Day, a federal holiday which honours and mourns the military personnel who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. Patriots observe both this holiday, and the other day of note, Remembrance Day, to signify their appreciation and respect for past and present members of the military. These are America’s heroes.

This year, however, that holiday coincides with something that only a tiny percent of a percent of Americans, if any, have ever seen before – the sudden death of nearly 100,000 citizens in just two months, by the novel coronavirus known as COVID 19.   

North Americans have been spoiled for the last hundred years. Sure, there were two World Wars, and a Great Depression, but few under the age of 50 even remember those days, let alone recognize the impact these events had on people. As peacekeepers, Canada felt even less of the sting of loss.

When the Towers fell on 9/11, 2001, Americans came together to support each other. Within hours, support systems and charities had been organized to protect the victims and their families. America mourned the loss of those 2,974 victims confirmed to have died in the initial attacks, and they mourned those victims TOGETHER – as a nation.

I remember those days well – it cost me my online mail order business, but I understood the impulse and impetus of this wave of patriotism. Suddenly, America curled in on itself, and, to protect the country, turned it’s back on buying outside of its own borders. I remember companies offering incentives that ranged from deep discounts to free shipping, just to satisfy and supply those Americans who wanted to make their purchasing dollars part of their commitment to a greater and more unified UNITED States of America.

19 years later, America has never been more greatly divided. As the largest number of Americans to die in one place, in one short time period, than at any other time in modern history, mounts, America’s president stokes dissent and disunion, riling up gun toting ‘militia’ into attacking state capitals and journalists, and egging them on in their benighted plot to protect their ‘freedom’ to not wear a mask that might help one other citizen breathe one more day.

About 30% of Americans think that the virus is a hoax, perhaps perpetrated by the ‘deep state’ that will do anything to impede trump’s re-election. (In England, 1 in 5 believe the virus is a hoax, enacted by their government for some nefarious but usually incomprehensible conspiracy reason.) 

Sadly, a lot of those ‘freedom fighters’ are discovering the very hard way that not believing in COVID 19 is not a prophylactic – disbelief doesn’t protect them if they are infected at one of their rallies, or in their daily interactions. The illusion of freedom they might feel when not wearing a mask is easily trumped by the reality of a ventilator mask, should they or someone they love become ill.

Pelosi voiced her concern that a morbidly obese, elderly man take the unproven drug.

Shockingly, America’s president seems hell bent on decimating his own nation. Speaking with all the wit and intelligence of a man being fed bits of his own fried brain, he first urged the citizens to ignore the virus, even as it dug in to the lungs of the people. Once the disease was firmly in place and had killed about 50,000, he then mused aloud that perhaps the ingestion of bleach or other household cleaners, along with some sort of internal transfusion of lighting, might be the answer. When neither of those actions prevented another 50,000 from dying, he told the nation that he himself was taking the controversial drug, hydroxychloroquine, a drug so toxic that clinical trials attempting to verify its efficacy had to stopped because the fatalities far outnumbered those who experienced any relief from taking the pill. 

And as the total of American dead ticks upward to a round 100,000 … one hundred THOUSAND … dead – America’s hero goes golfing, for the 185th time since ascending to the presidency. This is the same inability to comprehend the pain of others that trump displayed on 9/11, when his only comment on the horror of the towers coming down was that now his own building would be the tallest in New York City.

 His lack of empathy, his lack of remorse or of any sense of responsibility for putting so many citizens, not only in mortal danger, but of having caused actual deaths, cannot be quantified. His actions are those of a man that is already dead inside.

In light of the controversy and accusations of trump being indebted and in service to Russia and Vladimir Putin, it is very, very hard not to wonder what further atrocities he could be committing were those accusations proven to be true.  Because at this point, Putin would seem to be on track to call the current state of America to be  ‘Mission Accomplished.” 

Meanwhile, trump sycophants and collaborators insist that the frightened citizenry should leave the safety of their homes, and return to their jobs and normal shopping habits, in order to restart an economy that has ground to a halt. Asking workers to return to a workplace that is as yet undetermined to be safe is a cruel request, which pits the worker’s financial needs over their health and wellbeing.

In truth, America’s economy could support the entire nation for years, if necessary, as it did during the Second World War, when America’s economy was essentially shut down for nearly four years, in service to the needs of wartime.

So it CAN be done… it’s just that the current administration – egged on, as always by lobbyists for America’s largest corporations – does not want to do so. Returning to work, re-opening America (or Canada, for that matter) is not about some vaunted ‘freedom’ when the only ‘freedom’ here is to purposefully endanger oneself for the enrichment of others. No, pushing forward when safety is not even slightly guaranteed is solely to ensure that businesses and government treasuries can continue to enjoy record profits, built on the blood and phlegm of the sick and dying.

The people, confused and frightened, are being told lies, and are being given conflicting information on how to protect themselves, not from scientists and health care professionals, but from a man on record for having told 19,000 proven lies since being inaugurated in January 2017. 

They have been told that the majority of those dying just aren’t important, that those who suffer are old and frail, a burden on society. And yet, when the New York Times ran a full front page of obituaries today, of just one thousand who have died, just one percent of the one hundred thousand, the stories of those who have been sacrificed to the incompetency and lack of leadership, the economy, and a terror of losing re-election, was writ large upon the page.

Here were the names and details of people of all ages, from babies to seniors. Two of the dead were first responders on 9/11, heroes who ran back into burning buildings to save other Americans. There are business people, health care professionals, musicians, artists, entrepreneurs, and each and every one of these people were the fellow Americans who have, in some manner, in the last hundred years, been saved by the bravery and heroism of the United States Armed Forces that surviving Americans are supposedly remembering today.

No one is asking anyone on the planet to put on a uniform and march off to war against the coronavirus; this is not that kind of war. You are being asked only to show respect or love for your fellow men. That is what you honour today, or on Remembrance Day, or, hopefully, every time you attend the religious establishment of your choice. It’s not that kind of sacrifice. You’re only being asked to wear a mask and stay six feet away from other people. It’s not an encroachment on your rights and freedoms, it’s a request that we behave as though we really do believe that every single person is created equally and deserves to be treated with care, simply for being another human being.

In 1918, during the Spanish flu epidemic, people wore masks, to protect themselves and others, and so that they could continue to enjoy attending events. Recognizing and respecting the needs of others isn’t a hardship, any more than recognizing that the familiar, “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service” keeps your local establishment in a state that allows all to enjoy attending.   

Honestly, Canadians really can’t pat themselves on the back either. Although we’ve had significantly fewer deaths than the United States, we have our own share of disrespectful people who are playing Russian Roulette with not only their own health, but the health of others.

But it’s you that I don’t understand, America, because you are known for your patriotism and fierce national pride. When nearly 3000 people died in 9/11, many were so incensed at that attack on American soil that they wanted to nuke the perpetrators back to the Stone Age. In 2020, as 100,000 of your friends and neighbours perish, there are those refusing to acquiesce to the very rules meant simply to allow citizens to move around with a little more freedom, while armed groups try to snatch the mask off a journalist’s face.

What happened to the America that respected the dead, the first responders, and those hard-working journalists that brought you the nightly information you craved, often at their own peril?  

Now, as large groups of health care workers die in peace time, in their efforts to save you, or your mom, or your boss, you can’t even bring yourself to wear a mask. Just imagine if those doctors and nurses, EMTs and ambulance drivers, and the people who clean the buildings that you want to enter, demanded their own rights, and walked out en masse? Say goodbye to gramma, and maybe yourself

Where is the respect for those who put themselves on the line every day for YOU? Those people, considered essential workers, don’t have the luxury of staying at home, but are instead caring for you, feeding you, and cleaning up after you. They deserve no less freedom and rights than you do.

As Dan Levy so eloquently said,

“Imagine seeing it not as an infringement on your freedom but rather the simplest, easiest act of kindness that you can do in a day, not just for yourself but for other people who might have autoimmune issues,” he continued. “People who, if they were to contract [the disease] with those issues might have some devastating repercussions. So, yeah, see it not as anyone or anything infringing on your freedom but rather if you have the freedom to leave your house — if you have the good health to leave your house,  ‚why not put on a mask, make it your good deed for the day and do something nice for yourself and other people.”

It doesn’t always have to be about you –Memorial Day doesn’t honour cowards who stamp their feet and demand special treatment. Rather, we honour those who put the lives and needs of others over their own, because respecting the rights of others means a continuation of the respecting of our own rights. More than simple kindness, your good deed ensures that, someday, there will be someone somewhere alive to do a good deed for you in return.

Guns, Guns, Guns


by Roxanne Tellier

May 1, 2020:   Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today announced a ban, effectively immediately, on some 1,500 makes and models of military-grade “assault-style” weapons in Canada, including the popular AR-15 rifle and the Ruger Mini-14 used to kill 14 women at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique in 1989.   

“These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only: to kill the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time,” Trudeau said. “There is no use and no place for such weapons in Canada.”

May 2, 2020:  Right Wing Provincial Premiers open their hymnals and raise their voices in WhatAboutIsm Psalms

“We know that the overwhelming majority of firearms used criminally in Canada are smuggled in illegally from the United States. Instead of addressing this, Ottawa will instead spend vast sums of money to criminalize law-abiding Canadians. That money would be far better used to pursue the smugglers and drug gangs that plague our society,” said beleaguered Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford added, “As law enforcement experts have highlighted time and time again, the only way to truly tackle gun violence is to crack down on the illegal guns being smuggled in daily at our borders.”

Borders, schmorders. The new law lets us actually arrest those morons at Jane and Finch who think it’s not a party until somebody lets off a gunfire volley. Now we can arrest them for possession of an illegal firearm – wherever it came from. And communities, like that of Jane and Finch, will finally have the law on their side against idiots who like to intimidate others with their illegal toys.

As I’ve mentioned before, I spent the first decade plus of my life in Alberta, and EVERYONE in my family had a little gun in the 50s. Even my mum, a woman who abhorred guns and violence, was gifted a sexy little garter sized pistol one Christmas. She thought it was ‘cute.’ 

But that was then, before mass murderers of all stripes, and in all parts of the world, began to use assault style weapons to terrorize and to force their will on others. On April 18 and 19, a disturbed denturist picked up his own assault weapon, and killed 22 people in five rural communities, beginning in Portapique, N.S., and ending roughly 100 kilometres away outside a gas station in Enfield, N.S., where the shooter was finally killed.

When is enough, enough? When do we finally stop making excuses for keeping deadly weapons within the reach of those who can so easily ‘snap’ and take away the lives of so many innocents?  

I’ll bet there were hundreds of happy denture customers who would have gladly sworn an affidavit to the fact that our murdering denturist was mentally fit as a fiddle, and certainly qualified to have as many guns in his possession as he could reasonably purchase. In fact, just this morning I was reading a thread on this subject, and several commentators were incensed at the very idea that the murdering denturist might have had a mental issue. The average person is not a very good judge of another average person’s mental health.

These days, I often think Canadians have lost their sense of National Identity. So many on the right ally themselves more firmly with America than Canada. Some even believe that their right to bear arms in guaranteed in our own Charter Rights. It is not.

Stephen Lautens, self described “Grudging lawyer, passionate moderate, smartass, occasional columnist, velvet jacket enthusiast. Troll magnet,” had a few interesting tidbits of information for his readers today.

One:  “Just a reminder that The Supreme Court of Canada confirmed that there is no right to possess firearms in Canada. R. v Hasselwander [1993] 2 S.C.R. 398. In R. v Wiles [2003] it said it’s not a right under the Charter, but a privilege.’

He added a further, and extremely apt analogy: 

“At one point, there was no law in Canada against owning a bear. (Honestly, there wasn’t.) Then governments passed laws against private citizens keeping wild animals like bears.

Bear owners:

“But I own the bear legally.”
“But I paid for the bear.”
“My bear has never killed anyone.”
“Things other than bears kill people too.”
“I keep my bear safely locked inside.”
“I need my bear to protect my house.”
“What are you going to do about the bears that are coming in over the border?”
“Why are you coming after my bear when there are bad and irresponsible bear owners out there?”

Lesson: there is no right to own a bear in Canada.

Your mileage may vary ……………………………………………………………

I’m so tired of playing Pandemic. I need another game, please. This one is boring and half the players cheat, break my favorite playing pieces, and then kick over the table. I haven’t played with such poor losers since I was 10.  

There’s been a slew of quarantine protestors, both in the States and in Canada. You can generally tell which country the protester is from by which side is better armed, and which side’s signs have the most words misspelt. 

(my new fave, badly spelt, barely legible, epithet is ‘you are egg nerds.’ Apparently this is brain dead speak for ‘ignorant.’ You can’t make this stuff up!)   

check youtube for full video … China’s Lego video messaging
targets both U.S. & Europe

Waaaay back in March, most people were pretty much on board with staying home, locked down, in a cozy home equipped with lots of junk food, and endless Netflix for chilling purposes. But by mid-April, without the promised miracle, the natives started getting restless.  

Unfortunately for many, that American ‘right to bear arms’ translated to armed militias, whipped up by NRA supporters, marching on statehouses last week.

America has a funny relationship with protesting and protestors; if you’re a person of colour, a woman, or a native seeking climate change justice, they’re pretty much against it.

If, on the other hand, you are male, white, armed, and carrying guns… please, do have at it. Let us open the doors to the Michigan statehouse so that you might better present your case. 

Thursday’s “American Patriot Rally” included members of the Michigan Liberty Militia, who stood guard with weapons and tactical gear, with their faces partially covered – although not with medical masks that might be of any use. They, along with several hundred protestors, later moved inside the Capital, demanding to be let onto the House floor, which is prohibited. Some of the armed men went to the Senate gallery, and shouted at the sitting senators, many of whom wore bulletproof vests.   

Armed men in tactical gear storming a state Capital. Yeah, looks like they’ve got things under control down there, all right.  As long as you consider using armed intimidation and the threat of physical harm to stir up fear and to bully others into doing things YOUR way – and avoiding democracy – is the sign of a nation ‘under control.’

Maybe they should have a listen to what we’re saying about guns up here, eh?

Is That You, Rona?


by Roxanne Tellier

Funny, I always thought that I’d get so much more done. Whenever I felt like I just couldn’t keep up with all of the richness and offerings of modern life, I’d mutter to myself…

“If only time would stop – just for a day or two – and let me catch up on all of this watching, reading, and writing!”

So here it is, and guess what I’ve been doing? Lying on my bed, watching YouTube, playing games on the tablet, and spending quality time with the cats. Between naps.

I have 24 library books here to be read and used for the three major projects I’m working on, but I’ve not opened one of them. Instead I’m storming through my stack of paperback novels, the pulpier the better.  Occasionally I feel guilty about not working on those weighty projects, but then I tell myself that I just can’t possibly start yet, not without that one other book that was on its way before the library so abruptly closed. 

I keep busy, no question. And I spend a lot of time wondering if I’m sneezing because of allergies, or because of the coronavirus.

I’ve also been doing daily stealth assaults on my local big box grocery stores. I’ll go very early, hoping to run in and out again without any physical contact. From the beginning, I’ve assumed our isolation could get well beyond two or three weeks, and have foraged accordingly. The shelves are full, you can’t squeeze one more item into the freezer, and I think I’m even good on fresh produce, at least for a while. I’m the daughter of a prepper – I was born knowing how to stockpile the essentials.

Which is a good thing, because on my last foray to FreshCo, there was nary an egg to be found, nor a bag of pasta representing. Panic in aisle 3.

(In my own defense – I HAD to do the shopping. If I left the hunter gathering up to the hubby, we’d be trying to divvy up a package of sliced processed cheese, a jar of peanut butter, and a loaf of raisin bread.)

Anyway, I think I’m good. I think we can now pass another couple of weeks without having to resort to UberEats or the like. Based on how the stock market plunged last week, not sure if we could afford UberEats anyway.  

For all that, for all of the inconvenience, for all of the upset and the crippling uncertainty of our futures, we’re actually doing pretty good, compared to others. Sure, I’m missing a library book or two that I really wanted to read, but luckily, I wasn’t in the middle of some government tug of war over my income or a missing passport. I’m not dependent on any addictive substances. I’m not waiting for some obscure medication to arrive from some far-off land. Heck, I’m not even waiting on anything from Amazon right now!

Although we worry about our families, and our friends who are vulnerable, we’re stocked up, we’re relatively healthy, we’ve got each other and our cats, and life could be a heck of a lot worse … and is, for many, all over the world.

At this point, all we’re really being asked to do is to stay home and not spread a disease. The Greatest Generation stormed a beach in Normandy – we’re being asked to Netflix and chill.

This is our chance to be unsung heroes, by just staying home and not actively harming other people. We’ve got this.

I worry about those who rely on convening in groups to deal with mental and health issues. So many people who are struggling to survive without drugs or drink, or who are depending on other people sharing helpful words and kindness are suddenly being thrown into close quarters, confronting their demons by themselves under highly unusual circumstances.

However, there’s a bright side. For once, this enforced solitude and curtailment of our usual mad rush through the days is allowing us to actually have time to do some things that we might just brush over normally. We’ve got more time to listen, and to think. We also have the option to be the ‘helper’ in our world; some have been offering to help those who can’t leave their house. Others have been sharing their creative output.

It turns out that musicians, artists, and creatives are far more important that was previously thought

This is a great time for those who have something entertaining to share to get their work out before a larger and more receptive audience than usual. We’ve got a lot of time on our hands. And look! There are people writing poetry, short stories and novels, and sharing their work for free or a minimal price! There are musicians giving free house concerts on Facebook!  Sure, there will always be meanies who choose profiteering over sharing, but the good people who just want to be a part of a bigger community far outnumber the bad guys.

The government is also really trying to do it’s best to try and help every citizen survive, even as we shelter in place. Beyond that, some companies are going beyond the minimum, in an effort to soothe the pain.

The United Nations declared internet access a basic human right in 2016, saying that all people must be able to access the internet freely. All well and good in principle, but far too many people can’t afford full internet access in Canada, which has one of the highest cost structures in the world. The good news is, nearly all Canadian internet service providers are suspending data caps and allowing freer wi-fi on their home internet plans right now. And Rogers has made all of its cable channels free to watch.  

In both Canada and the US, the government is preparing to spend trillions to keep the economy going. There are plans to ensure a temporary form of Basic Income for all taxpaying Canadians – a good first step in addressing some of our country’s inequalities. The most vulnerable need to be protected. We need to stop the shutoffs of electricity, water, internet that some predatory institutions may attempt. Mostly, we need to spend this money – the nation’s money – on infrastructure and in helping our people survive.

But they’re also talking about using billions and even trillions to prop up businesses that might be best left to fail. The hotel business, cruise lines, airlines, gambling,  – these are not necessities, they are extravagances. 

I worry that we will follow the ragged script left over from 2008, and once again patch up the buggy whip companies that have survived only by bailouts. People should be demanding that this money be spent on healthier, greener choices. If not now, when?

Times change. People change. Even those who continue to say that humans are not responsible for climate change must have seen what has been happening to the planet since we got out of Nature’s way. Cleaner air and water happen when we’re not inserting ourselves into the natural world, with our needs and our garbage. 

Yeah, when it’s all over, we could all be in clover, as Van the Man once said.  All we have to do is spend our time and our “Blue Money” wisely.

It will be worth all of the pain if we can come out of this crisis a better planet.

Happy Thanksgiving! And It’s time to VOTE, Canada!


by Roxanne Tellier

I have only two things on my mind today …..

Freedom From Want – Norman Rockwell

First … Wherever you find yourself this Thanksgiving, on which ever day upon which you choose to celebrate the holiday, enjoy the moment.

I hope you are surrounded with people you love .. or like … or at least with people that you can tolerate, even if only in consideration of a nice, hot, three course meal at some point.

I hope that those that like turkey, get turkey and that those who like tofu, somehow enjoy that tofu. Probably with kale.

May your day of the giving of thanks begin with kisses and laughter, and end with more laughter, more kisses, maybe a little pumpkin pie, and definitely some Maalox.

Try to remember that it is a day for giving thanks – not a day to start a civil war. Kiss the cook. Kiss your mum. Hell, kiss everyone, and blame it on the after dinner drinks.

And most of all, remember to give thanks for your own gathering, and the people around the table. No one is guaranteed to be there next year, so love them now.

Happy Thanksgiving.

……………………………………….

Now .. get out there and VOTE!


Vote like your life depends upon it … because it does.

How Much for Your Soul?


by Roxanne Tellier

On the day after 4 million students from all around the world marched to protest their respective governments’ lack of decisive action on climate change, Bob Lefsetz noted that the photos and the chatter had already been pushed off the pages of both terrestrial and online press sites. 

Just a few of those crazy 4 million kids who marched for climate change

Today I noticed several cynics on social media, who found the very idea of kids marching for climate change laughable. Rather than admire the strength and courage shown by Greta Thunberg and her supporters, they wallowed in the belief that there is no point in fighting those in power.

It’s like all the marches, the sit ins and bed ins and hunger strikes of the sixties never even happened. As though the broken heads and bodies of civil rights activists were a myth. As if the peaceful protests of leaders like Ghandi just didn’t matter. 

Listen. If protests didn’t work, governments wouldn’t be always trying to stop people from protesting.

When the people finally stand up and find their voices, the people can change the world. We boomers did; we stopped a war. Maybe these kids can save the planet. Maybe we can help them.

If we don’t then we’ve proved that this is how the world works now. We gear up towards an event, take our selfies, and then we’re on to the next crisis. Even if we really, really care about that event – a political debate, our children marching to try and save the planet – there’s always another spike, another shock, another jolt, coming at us before we’ve caught our breath from the last. Which means we never actually get anything done.

It’s exhausting. And it’s getting us nowhere.

All week long I’ve been trying to put my finger on the overwhelming atmosphere of our political environment. It’s exhausting. It’s depressing. It’s like we’ve had our adrenal glands hooked up to a milking machine. Our supply of fight or flight hormones are running so low now that many people would barely blink at a sharknado.   

While we can certainly point to the Mango Mussolini as the main culprit who has conditioned us to expect multiple adrenaline jolts per day, the media also bears a lot of responsibility for having married our emotions to this stressful world of social media and nonstop ‘breaking news!’

When I was growing up, the news occupied a sacred place in society. At fairly regular intervals, the citizenry would be asked to pause in what they were doing, and pay attention to the news of their country, and the world. Some read newspapers, some watched their televised updates at 6pm and before bed, but overall, most people had at least a vague sense of how governments ran. Sometimes we were told that things were good, and it was time to celebrate. Other times, we’d be informed of battles and wars that needed our attention, and sometimes, that required the service and sacrifice of our fittest young people. But overall … news was for grown ups, and it was important.

However, it was also something from which you could take a vacation, and return to, without missing much.

Those were the days when channels still ‘signed off’ for the night .. often with beautiful, patriotic, or regional slideshows. Remember CITY TVs paean to the city of Toronto?

That’s Toronto … People City ….

Good times.

But then, somewhere along the line, some edgy television exec decided that every broadcast moment had to turn a profit. Overnight, the sanctity of a news hour was discarded for the glitz and glamour of the tackiest of game show stages. Every decade, another of the venerable newscasters whom we’d come to trust and revere, was either rehabilitated into a botoxed, liposuctioned fashion plate, or unceremoniously shown the door for a younger, prettier, sexier, news reader.

On June 1, 1980, Ted Turner launched CNN, the first 24-hour cable news station. Headline News followed in 1982, .and MSNBC and FOX News were right behind them. News had effectively been monetized, and the world would never again be the same.  

I have to keep reminding myself that political junkies are only about 11% of the population. How are we supporting all of those stations?

It just seems like there must be even more of us. But that’s because social media – and a disturbingly populist wave –  has narrowed our visions. Everyone’s got an opinion on social media. But that doesn’t mean that everyone understands what they’re being force fed.

Right now, we in North America are awash in the hopes and dreams of political candidates, all of whom wish to steer their ships of state or nations.

But it seems that quite a lot of politicians – primarily those with a bend to the right – are more comfortable playing ‘gotcha!‘ with their opponents. Apparently that’s way easier than presenting a progressive, doable policy their party can follow, and their electorate can agree upon.

And many, many, many people are very easily lead. Once seeds of doubt and mistrust have been planted, social media is happy to keep watering those misdeeds with liberal tears.

A friend messaged me the other day, with this anecdote.

Who knew I never needed a head? or a brain?

“I was getting my hair cut, and they were all talking about Trudeau in blackface. I listened for about twenty minutes. None of them had seen the photo, but they were horrified. One had a friend that called her, crying.  When I explained that it was a picture of him at a party, dressed as Aladdin, and that he had darkened his face and hands, they all said, “ahhhh.. well that’s not so bad.” Then I quoted him as saying, “I am really pissed at myself.” They were all lovey dovey again until one of them started reading from her phone on why any colouring of the skin is racist and they were all up in arms again.”

It sure doesn’t seem like denigrating and mudslinging a political leader makes people very happy. In fact, it seems to only add to the miasma of uncertainty that so many have in recent elections.

Voters are already conflicted. Too many choose to vote against party leaders, rather than FOR a logical, progressive plan forward. Keep on tearing down those the voters want to look up to, and you’ll soon have an electorate that just can’t be bothered to vote at all.

That works out great for those parties that can’t win fairly. Those who choose to use dirty tricks, gossip and innuendo to attempt to sway swing voters towards their own party need to realize that these ruses serve to make voters even more distrustful and cynical of whomever is currently in charge of their country.  

Today’s smearing of Trudeau is tomorrow’s smearing of Scheer. And while both parties wallow in the mud, and try to defend themselves against attacks, neither party is actually working to make the voter’s life any better.

Most people are happiest when their country is chugging along, doing well economically, and not hurting those who are already hurting. Most people rarely think about hurting other people, just because they can.

But there are some people who will put financial gain above all else.

Today, the news is full of stories about American troops being sent to Saudi Arabia, to be used as paid mercenaries – soldiers of fortune against Iran. Trump says that America must put their own military on the line to die for ‘the kingdom’ because “Saudi Arabia pays cash.” 

The Saudis also paid cash to the murderers who perpetrated the attack on the United States on 9/11. And surely, their own dollars paid for the brutal murder and dismemberment of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Can you buy a nation’s soul with cash? Apparently you can, in the United States. The Saudis ‘pay cash’ … so they’ve bought trump .. and America’s might and military.

Canadians will soon be asked to either reinstate Justin Trudeau as prime minister, or to choose another leader to fill that position. That next leader will have to work with the United States, both economically, and politically.

The question we need to ask ourselves is .. will  our next leader also believe that everything we hold dear can be bought? Our planet, our bodies, our morals – are they all for sale? How much for our country ?

The question we need to ask ourselves is which leader we believe we can trust to behave morally and ethically when they are asked to make decisions about our relationship with America and the other countries of the world.

How much for your soul?

And I’m back!


by Roxanne Tellier

… with your Sunday political sermon, though it’s a day late. Time to catch up on what you may have missed over the last couple of weeks, and to get a sense of the direction we seem to be heading towards as Canadian election fever sets in.

In other words… where are we going and why am I in this hand basket?

Looking specifically to Canada, I’m getting very nervous about how Canadians feel about the parties from which they’ll choose their next leader. And one of those reasons is because of a lack of charismatic leadership.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m a lifelong Liberal, and will vote for Trudeau again, because I agree with most of his stated policies. However, I’m unhappy about some election promises that were either not kept, or kept very badly … looking at YOU, new cannabis legislation… what a mess that is!

I wanted electoral reform, incontestably part of the Liberal platform in 2015, and that was off the table after the first year.

“The Special Committee on Electoral Reform was created in the spring of 2016, and it delivered its report in December. It proposed two things. The first was that Canada replace its traditional system of voting (the ­single-member plurality system known widely as the first-past-the-post model) with a proportional system of representation (where seats in the House of Commons would be allocated according to the proportion of votes each party received). Second, it recommended that the idea be put to a referendum.”  (reviewcanada.ca)

However …. On February 1, 2017, the newly appointed Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould announced that the government was no longer pursuing electoral reform and it was not listed as a priority in her mandate letter from Justin Trudeau  In the letter, Trudeau wrote that “a clear preference for a new electoral system, let alone a consensus, has not emerged” and that “without a clear preference or a clear question, a referendum would not be in Canada’s interest. ”  (Wikipedia)

The Liberals never wanted proportional representation, so it’s not surprising that an excuse was found not to pursue it with the people. But I’m still angry that it was taken off the table.

Still, even the National Post, notoriously right leaning, had to report that “The Universite Laval’s Centre for Public Policy Analysis’s latest reading — updated since March — shows the Liberals have entirely fulfilled 53.5 per cent of their 2015 vows, partially lived up to 38.5 per cent and broken eight per cent.”

92% of promises kept. Unfortunately, the 8% not kept are the ones I was hoping to see fulfilled. Still – I’m just one Canadian, out of 37 million. Got to be a lot of people who did have their wishlist met.

I still say, when I”m looking to the other parties that are in the race, it’s the lack of a strong, compelling leader that stands out. At least to me. Your mileage may vary.

Andrew Scheer has the look of a Howdy Doody puppet, and the wooden emotions to go along with the image. He’s 3 parts Harper and 1 part the preacher from Footloose. The dimples and simper can’t hide his lack of connection to the actual citizens, that is, those of us who haven’t been living off the taxpayer dollar for the last 15 years, which is most of his life to date. This is a guy who has not paid for his own housing or meals in so long, he couldn’t tell you the price of a kilo of sugar if you stuck a gun to his head. His idea of transportation costs entails having the taxpayer fund over $2,035,886 of luxury travel, just in the time since he became an MP. This is your guy if a Conservative plutocracy is what you want for your government.

I voted NDP in the last provincial election, but I can’t say that I’m sold on Jagmeet Singh asPrime Minister. Remember when Margaret Wente gushed over his ascension to leadership? 

“Those turbans! That beard! He was just the kind of figure to make progressive folks feel good about themselves, their party and their prospects. GQ, the men’s fashion magazine, profiled him in rapturous terms, calling him “the incredibly well-dressed rising star in Canadian politics.””

Ah, but we were all so much older then – we’re younger and more racist than that now.

Elizabeth May, bless her heart, remains our Green Queen, and with climate change such an important issue top of mind right now, there are many who will put their X beside her name, just because there’s Green in the party’s title. Google the party’s platform to see what else the party has in mind for the country.

As to Maxime Bernier and his People’s Party -well, on the bright side, it’s looking like his main contribution to the election will be drawing support away from Scheer’s Conservatives.

Regardless of your preference, please remember that, unless you are a white male, someone fought for your right to vote. Someone may well have died, fighting for your right to vote, and it is important that you exercise that right. Because – your vote does count. If it didn’t, the bad guys wouldn’t be constantly trying to suppress that right.

Maybe you’ve already made up your mind, and made your choice, and are happy with it. If so, I’m glad to hear it. What worries me, honestly, is the voters who tend to vote ‘against’ rather than for; or those who vote their ‘gut’ without understanding the platforms of the party leaders. The time has long gone when you could just close your eyes and pin the tail on a prime minister, and tell yourself that it didn’t matter, because all parties are the same. They are not.

On the plus side, and whether you are into politics or not, our entire electoral race lasts only a few months, so there isn’t time to get too bogged down in nastiness and slurs. Well – unless you want to. Lots of people love to argue on social media. Have at it, if that turns your crank.

A few short months. Not like in the United States, where Trump officially filed his re-election campaign with the FEC on January 20 , 2017, the day of his inauguration. He didn’t want to miss a penny of the donations he could keep requesting, nor the adulation of his base, who could be relied upon to keep massaging his ego.  

We’re still fourteen months away from the next presidential election, and I’m already over it. Pretty sure Trump is too – after all, he called off his trip to Denmark because they laughed when he wanted to buy Greenland, and sent Pence to visit Poland  (“Congratulations, Poland! on the 80th anniversary of the Nazi invasion!”) so that he could stay at Camp David to ‘oversee’ Hurricane Dorian, and fit in a couple rounds of golf. And then he apparently cancelled a secret meeting that he’d planned to hold at Camp David with some Taliban leaders, to celebrate the anniversary of 9/11.  I’m beginning to think this guy just doesn’t feel like presidenting any more!

It’s a whole new world, isn’t it? I mean.. do you remember when we worried that impeaching Trump would result in a Pence presidency? Now we know that, no matter how low Trump goes, there’s always another abyss he’s programmed into his GPS. Worse =we’re all gonna get tweeted to death on the ride there.

This is the hell in which Americans now find themselves, looking down the barrel of fourteen months in which the average citizen can never really be sure that what they’re being told, by any of their leaders, or the heads of federal services, is true, or just what they’ve been told they have to say, in order not to contradict their Dear Leader.

It’s not even so much a flood of DISinformation as it is a bombardment of MISinformation, the likes of which no society can be expected to deal with gracefully. Like headless chickens, we can only bob and weave, ducking each new onslaught of lies and untruths aimed at what is left of our sanity. And even once the liars are gone, the bully pulpit power of those lies will continue to warp the minds of Americans for generations to come.

I’m hoping that Pelosi finally finds her spine and allows the Dems to begin impeachment proceedings, but I’m not holding my breath. In truth, it’s immaterial if the Senate won’t pass it; the point is to put the spotlight on all of the crimes and misdemeanours that have happened during Trump’s reign of errors and terrors, so that all Americans can see clearly what’s been going on in the halls of power since January 2017.

We have to accept that there is NO savior coming to America. We thought Mueller might be the guy to vanquish the goblin, but he didn’t, or perhaps he couldn’t, under paid lackey AG Barr’s sovereignty.

Right now it seems like the Dems are just crossing their fingers and toes, and praying that everything will be hunky dory if they can make it from here to Nov 2020 without Trump releasing a load of nuclear ejaculate in the direction of whatever country displeased him at breakfast.

I don’t believe that a lack of action is the right course to take, but I’m not running for anything, and I’m not American. I have my own Canadian election to worry about.

My bigger fear, like that of other countries around the world, is that not beginning impeachment proceedings now will lead to a second, third, fourth and for life tenure of his presidency, which, once he’s tired of playing Emperor, he’ll pass down to Ivanka. 

And that’s a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worse enemy.