Intelligent Move, NOT

Yesterday, one of the government's Ministers admitted to altering a legal document after it was signed.

The document awarded funding to Kairos, an ecumenical group of Canadian churches that advocates for international peace and justice. Or rather, the document apparently offered that aid when the bureaucrats signed it.

Then Bev Oda, International Cooperation Minister, or someone for whom she is now taking the fall after two years of obfuscations and denials, hand-wrote "not" in the award statement. As in, a particular amount is NOT awarded to this group.

Sheesh. It's been, what, 20 years since it was thought "funny" for adolescents say things like, "I like you...NOT" or "Here's some money...NOT."

Here's what happened after she admitted to inserting the "not" yesterday. Here's an article from last week that gives a little more context.

Time for two disclosures. First, I am a (sometimes bewildered but generally supportive) member of Trinity United Church in Thunder Bay, which is part of the United Church of Canada, which is a denomination that is a member of Kairos.

Second, Bev Oda was born in Thunder Bay but is not in government to represent either Thunder Bay riding.

But back to this "not" clause. I knew about the "notwithstanding" clause, which lets the federal government and provincial governments pick and choose among the freedoms granted in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Generally, they don't (though some have tried), but they could.

In the U.S., the only thing I know (not that my knowledge of political gamesmanship is vast) that's similar is the Executive Order. The U.S. President (and state governors) can determine the actions of federal (or state, if a governor) employees by issuing one. Executive Orders can be relatively minor (e.g., protecting rivers) or they can do things like effectively set foreign policy by preventing federal employees from interacting with representatives of specific international groups. Here's a list (you can pick years).

In any case, here's the deal. This "not" stuff is junior high. If Bev Oda, or someone else in the Conservative government, is going to go against the recommendations of the people whose job it is to develop expertise and make recommendations, she should make those decisions in public.

And then, she should not lie or mischaracterize or spin them when asked about them later.

And she should be prepared for an exodus of expertise from the civil service. But that's one of the hazards of making ill-considered decisions.

This reprimand by the Speaker, this hoop-de-doo from the opposition, all this STUFF--this never had to happen, had she only behaved like an adult in the first place.

Meanwhile, buy your "Kairos is ^NOT going away" t-shirts here.

American/Canadian: My Essential Differences

Apparently there's a book that posits something important about the Essential Difference between male and female brains. I am not touching that discussion with a ten-foot piece of softwood lumber.

I'm also not talking today about a way to tell Canadians from USA-ians. The world is more nuanced and subtle than that, thank goodness.

No, because it's all about me here, this is about how I am essentially different from both Americans and Canadians.

Before we start: yes, I know I'm using stereotypes for the "American" and "Canadian" roles, and I know I'm not unique in being different from those norms.

So. The essential difference between me and "Americans": the whole gun thing. As a Canadian said recently, "I don't get how 'guns equals freedom.'" Me neither. I don't own weapons; I've never shot a weapon (unless you count archery in Grade 8 for four weeks, and that was shooting at targets). I don't get it. I will say I also don't know that the equation "gun control equals increased safety" is true, either. I am all for studies that examine the efficacy of gun control legislation. And I won't be owning a gun while they're going on, either, and I do not feel un-free about it.

The essential difference between me and "Canadians": I LOoooooove elections. Love love love.

For the Americans reading this, some background: Canada's Conservative Prime Minister is loathed by many and merely tolerated by most (the man has apparently NO FANS), but evidently the prospect of an election is far more frightening than allowing a man who disdains science to run the country.

Nothing makes me feel more American than listening to this week's political discussions up here (and note that criticism comes to him from both sides): "We hate Harper and everything he stands for. For the past five years, he has shown time and again how irresponsible he is [in spending so much money to end the recession] [in callously disregarding the real needs of the people in favour of his conservative social agenda] [in continuing to sing and play the piano in public] [insert your favourite Harper egregiousness here]. But, gasp, we don't want an election. The Canadian people don't want an election."

WHY NOT???? I love elections. Okay, no, I haven't voted in every single election I was eligible to vote in--when I lived in the U.S., I let some of the city council elections slide. And nowadays I don't vote in Oklahoma-specific elections, because I don't live there and it's not fair for me to inflict my opinion on those who do. (Also because it's a big waste of time, since I'm so far out of synch with the state.) And I'm sad that I now no longer vote every two years (representatives) and every six years (senators).

Because in the US, Canadians, we get to vote every two years. Two years!! And senators--well, first, unlike you, we get to vote them in. Then, yes, six years later, we get to vote them out, if we want. We know when. We can start countdown clocks to election day.

And the president, the big guy, the commander-in-chief--four years. That's all he gets. Sadly, Americans gave Bush 8 years, but the point is, they were given the opportunity to come to their senses. You know how? Through an ELECTION.

Canadians, if you dislike elections because (in the words of the wise yet mythical Leo McGarry, as scripted by the genius Aaron Sorkin) you're sick of voting for the lesser of who cares, I hear you. If you look at the leadership of opposition parties and shudder or say "meh," I get it.

But that's not the fault of the ELECTION. That's a cultural thing. If I were going to be mean, I would say it's your own fault, for accepting crappy leaders. For not expecting more from politicians, and for not holding them accountable for their actions. For imagining that the status quo is all you can hope for, that the unknown is necessarily frightening.

So I'm not saying that, because I'm Canadian enough to not want to be mean.

I'm also not saying that frequent elections sometimes don't result in mistakes. In 1980, the people of Arkansas elected Frank White as governor because a young and gifted politician named Bill Clinton had irritated them by raising the cost of car registration. (I could not make this up.) For two years, Arkansans endured idiocy, but they managed to survive it, and so did Mr. Clinton. And several Arkansans recognized that hey, their votes counted, so maybe they want to vote FOR candidates instead of "teaching a candidate a lesson" by voting AGAINST him. (Plus they were so chastened they changed the state Constitution to give governors four-year terms, like most states did in the 1800s.)

In conclusion, I urge Canadians to embrace elections, and that starts at home. Raise your argumentative, intellectually curious, and caring children to become politicians or at least civil servants. Your government could use a few more of your best and brightest.

For Americans--I don't know what to say, because I don't want to talk about guns. I have the right to not talk about guns because my freedom of speech is guaranteed. And isn't that true freedom?

Finally, in our "we're more alike than we are different," kum-ba-yah moment, I will demonstrate how truly Canadian AND American I am by complaining about the weather: Brr.

George VI

Not about the movie with Colin Firth that is getting such buzz. (No doubt deservedly so. And, yes, Colin Firth reading the phone book would be worth seeing.)

Instead, this is about something King George VI said in his Christmas message of 1939. Europe was at war.

A new year is at hand. We cannot tell what it will bring. If it brings a peace, how thankful we shall all be. If it bring us continued struggle, we shall remain undaunted. In the meantime, I feel that we shall find a message of encouragement in the lines which in my closing words I would like to say to you:

"I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' And he replied, 'Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.'"

May that Almighty Hand guide and uphold us all.

You can hear the King give this address at this CBC site. The full text of the poem, which is by an American, Minnie Louise Haskins, is available here. This quote was so meaningful to Queen Elizabeth (who became the Queen Mother) that she put it up on plaques at various homes; it was also read at her funeral.

This space tends to be a religion-free zone. However, many people I know are heading into difficult times or at least facing new experiences that have uncertain outcomes.

A friend shared this quote with me last night. It has helped me, an uber control freak, to remember that sometimes all we can do is trust and have faith--and perhaps it doesn't matter whether that faith is in each other, in our own resilience, in a specific external Deity, or in the power of love.

Happy 2010, and high hopes for 2011.

Rhyming Risks

"The past is not dead. It's not even past."

William Faulkner was onto something. Twenty-five years ago, my sister and mother looked at each other across a dish of wild mushrooms, gathered from our property here. The mushroom expert was an artist, married to the musician who was also writing a biography of my uncle (see the link to Sackbut Blues at left).

The mushrooms were meant as food, by the way, not a mind-blowing experience. Although they proved to be one in their own way, I guess.

My mother was wary. My sister was wary. But each watched the other take mushrooms, to be polite, and take a bite. Later, each said, "I only ate it because YOU did!"

The mushrooms were fine. My mother and sister were fine. But the lengths people go to, just to be polite! Holy cow.

Despite this ultimately positive experience, our family did not turn into "eat off the land" food gurus.

Yesterday a neighbour brought me a dish of risotto with parmesan and wild mushrooms. The wild mushrooms has been gathered from the "fairy ring" in our back yard.

I looked at her. "You've eaten some of this?" She assured me she had. "You're not dead?" She was not.

So I ate a bite. And of course, they were fabulous. Well, the risotto was great; what's not to love about creamy, cheesy ricey stuff? And the mushrooms were good. I like mushrooms. I suffered no ill effects.

But geez, the lengths people will go to, just to be polite.

The past isn't dead, and neither am I. So far.

Drawing it First

As I have mentioned before, Mark Twain may or may not have said "History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme."

So, here we go again. It's springlike enough, and there is enough outdoor work to be done, that my physical activity sometimes is a walk but sometimes is yard work. Or what passes for yard work when you live in the country and you cultivate the Garden of Benign Neglect.

Today, I raked pine needles. It required me to make up a boundary, a border, a line beyond which raking is ridiculous--that over there is "forest," "bush," or "brush," as it is sometimes known here. This over here? "Yard." Obviously. I can only hope that next time I go out raking I remember where that "line" is.

I have had to do things like this before. But it seems that I must learn annually both that I must drawn the line and how/where to draw the line.

And then I can rake it. (While humming "Walk the Line," of which [sadly] I know only some of the chorus tune and that one phrase. Thank God for iPods.)

Some Days are Just Easy. Others are Foncusing.

The easy part is the photo. The confusing part--that's everything else.

The return to health in this household--and now, health coverage in the U.S. for a group that's the size of Canada's population--are offset by other stuff. Layoffs and furloughs for loved ones, meetings and fatigue, "now what?" rock/me (or us)/hard-place scenarios.

Spring is coming. The grass is greening, birds are nesting, ice is melting. The season is at least a month ahead of schedule, in line with the calendar instead of where it belongs (fits and starts in April, a week or two in late May, another week sometime in June).

Meanwhile, I say "Uh, thanks for the gift, but doesn't that horse have awfully worn teeth?" as I think ahead to a dry lake this summer. Worry is forward thinking based on backward thinking. Worry is not forward motion; I do know that.

But perhaps worry, that back-forth-back-forth, that vibrational thing, is especially appropriate at this time of year, the equinox, when the days are (somewhere) (more or less) as long as the nights. Welcome as the light is, this time of year represents (gasp) change. Spring is a shift, made even more foncusing (that started as a typo and turned out to be cute) by Daylight Saving efforts, and it requires an analogous shift in thinking.

I sigh as the world walks from Yin Time to Yang Time. I put away dreams of what I was going to do this past winter. What I actually did is so much less than what I hoped to do. As ever.

I look ahead (not "forward," exactly) to spring and summer--short seasons here, demanding times. I wonder whether it's a good idea to slide some winter dreams into those seasons.

Probably not. Yang time is fleeting (though it can be exhausting to curl-up-by-the-fire introverts). It's best to accept its gifts with the frenzied joy of creation, the spirit with which they're offered.

But...but.



As my sister, and my sister Ella, say: Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most. Sing it, sister.

From the "Sad but True" Department...

I share this quote from Art & Fear (by David Bayles and Ted Orland):

[T]he words you wrote--not the ones you needed to write or thought about writing--are the only ones that appear on the paper.

I don't get "credit" of any kind (financial, professional, whatever) for the fabulous story I dream of writing. I can't even revise it. Not till I get the words onto the page.

But sometimes, this statement isn't sad at all--it's simply true. And a good thing, too.

Written words are powerful. My parents tried to teach me to express praise and gratitude in writing, so that those emotions and the "positive" actions become part of the permanent record. I try to keep anger off the page--the public page, that is.

Because sometimes things need to be written, but they don't need to be shared.

But mostly, in this house, they just need to be written.

Thunder Bay: My Home Town

For people who think Thunder Bay is the back end of nowhere, here's a counter-story.

On February 4, the video below was posted on YouTube.



Since its posting, more than 200,000 people have watched the video. That's twice the city's population.

Jordan Burnell (from TBay) is currently a university student in Toronto. Matt Popowich runs Westfort Films, based here in Thunder Bay. Good on you guys.

An interview with them on CBC's morning show, the Great Northwest, is available here.

Shh! Can I have some peace and quiet for the Sleeping Giant?

We Made It Be

Want to know about Canada?

In case you missed the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics, here's "We Are More," by Shane Koyczan.



This is better than any Molson Canadian ad!

And yes, they say "zed" instead of "zee."

On Supporting One's Work

While on vacation, I'm working. Or vice versa. It's hard to tell. (Boundary/border issues, anyone?)

At the suggestion of another writer, I'm also reading Art and Fear, a compendium of excellent reflections on...well. Art, by which I mean writing and work. And fear, which I sometimes confuse with life because it is awfully sneaky.

Here's a little food for thought I ran across today:

A reminder from history: The American Revolution was not financed with matching Grants from the Crown.

I like to imagine that that statement is true even when the work isn't meant to be revolutionary--"just" work, writing, art.

Fortunately, I don't mind working while on vacation, or vacating a bit while at work. Mostly, I'm fortunate to have the work, and I know it. Especially on Mondays, when I have exchanged a view of a frozen bay for a view of a grapefruit tree.

Thank you, David Bayles and Ted Orland.