Harper announced yesterday that he will ban Canadian travel to countries he doesn’t like if he is re-elected.

He doesn’t like Russia. So, presumably, Russian-Canadians can’t go home again.  And I can’t go with ’em even if I wanted to – which I don’t (I don’t think I like Russia much, either) He isn’t keen on Pakistan, Somalia, Ethipoia and well, I am guessing…Venezuela…so those folks with relatives there are also now trapped by the new Harper one-way ticket policy to Canada.  ‘Course the Middle East is largely off-limits, I am sure.  Mind you, he likes India and China – despite their human rights shortcomings – so I guess we can go there. Exception to the rule: he likes Israel but not Syria…some parts of the middle are OK?

I wonder how he feels about Thailand, Argentina or Portugal?  Ya know, Fid might wanna go back to his roots someday….jus’ sayin’…

Doesn’t matter, really.  He has made his point: YOUR travel to a foreign country will not be permitted without first obtaining Harper’s approval.   Kim Jong-Un (N. Korea) feels the same way.  They are both leaders, don’t ya know?  Maybe North Korea will be on the OK-to-visit list?

Seems I will soon need my prime minister’s approval to travel outside of Canada? It is a small step from that to being forbidden to leave the country at all.  Who would have thought that a Canadian would experience such oppression?

Mind you, our scientists were gagged a few years ago.  And, to their collective shame, they have remained silent for the most part.  Our MPs have been ‘whipped’ into pudding and, for the most part, they seem to like it so they aren’t complaining.  Not doing much of anything, really, except bleating in unison and cashing their paycheque – no heroes there, I am afraid (except Elizabeth May).  Very Pre-WW2 Germany-like.

But, to be fair, I have pretty much petered out my own traveling bug, the odd country notwithstanding, so I was not planning on going too far afield myself.  I mean, I have been to all the places where I really wanted to go and so I would have been pretty content to stay home rather than try to stretch my ever-shrinking 70-cent dollars to afford a hostel in Turkey or a souvlaki in Greece, anyway.

Not so much now!  Now I want to go where Harper doesn’t want me to go.  The bastard! NOW  I may have to travel as a form of protest rather than as a manifestation of personal interest.  You see, I like to think that I am FREE TO DO AS I PLEASE (within the bounds of reasonable legal constraints, of course.  And good taste).  And I intend to do that.  So, arrest me when I get back from Turkey, you dictator. Taser me.  Lock me up, Adolph! You ego-maniacal bastard!

My minor dilemma: if I am truly free and I don’t want to travel anymore, why should some anus forbidding me to travel have any effect on me whatsoever?  It is only by being knee-jerk responsive to that dictatorial act that I truly lose my freedom….oh, what the hell….I hate the guy…that’s a good enough reason all in itself!

The key word is reasonable.  And he is not.  NOT in anything I have opinions on, anyway. He and I disagree – fundamentally – on who is and who is NOT a terrorist, for instance. And now, Stephen Harper is proposing to unreasonably restrict my legal freedoms – AS IF I WERE A TERRORIST!

And not for the first time.  He already restricts your right of assembly by requiring permits for protests and harassing associations and societies (with Rev Can) engaged in political work he doesn’t like – not unlike Hitler and Stalin did to their people.  It is that simple.  This is government oppression.  Soon they’ll be issuing coloured arm-bands but, don’t you worry your pacified little head about it.  They will be issued to the Muslims first.  Then some damn coloured folks.  Maybe First Nations next.

You’ll be fine if you’re white and moneyed.

We have had government exploitation forever.  We have had government criminality forever.  And we have had government corruption forever.  But we have not experienced too much in the way of direct personal oppression ever before. Well, not white folks, anyway.  Some newcomers to the country have been hassled.  Some have had their land, homes and fishboats taken away. Others spend years in prison.  And some poor souls get tasered and jailed and sent packing or to the morgue for no good reason.   But your basic, bona fide three-generation white Canuck has been pretty much free to do what their wallet and their wives will allow.

NOT ANYMORE!  That kind of freedom of choice is over if Harper is re-elected.

Whales.  Humpbacks, this time.  Four of them.  Rolling, swooshing, even breaching and pulling off big flop-body bangs not two hundred feet from our deck.  We saw them go up the channel and then we saw them come back a few hours later.  One of them was a baby but bigger than a new-born.  Couple of tons, I would guess.  Pretty neat.  Nice to see.

Even nicer was the rain yesterday.  We got a day-full.  It was good.  Real good.  We really needed it.  A lot of places really need it but we got enough to sustain our water source likely though the rest of the summer.  Especially with what we have stored in our cisterns as well.  The ‘worry’ seems over for awhile.  Our ‘source’ is a big, flat area like a high elevation marsh that soaks up the water like a giant sponge and then trickles it out in a remarkably consistently flow given the naturalness of the situation.  If we get rain once every two weeks it is enough to keep us in good flow all season.  This year, it dwindled but it did keep flowing.

Got all our fire-fighting stuff up and operating.  That was a chore.  Two big tanks installed (separate from the cisterns), tuned and fired up the pump.  Fresh fuel.  Hoses strung at the ready.  Fire extinguishers checked, a few new ones added just to be sure.  I figure that one gallon of response within five seconds is worth way more than five hundred gallons ten minutes later.

Carburetors proving I was a bit premature in my earlier celebrations.  Still acting quirky. Still stalling out when least expected.  Carburetors, eh?  Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without…..

The visitor flow has started up in earnest.  Grand Central, we are.  August, our month of popularity. Could be worse.  What if we were even nicer and had July, too?  Actually, September is pretty booked, as well.  Which is a function of our age…..when you are younger, summer ends on Labour Day for school and work reasons.  But, when you are retired, you can stretch your summer past the usual limits and maybe miss out on some of the two-ferry wait crowds.  Our circle is almost entirely made up of retired people.  So, the tourist season is a smidge longer for us.

Environment is changing.  Again.  Aside from the heat this summer, the wind patterns were very different.  Precipitation non existent.  Salmon are bunching up in the area ’cause there isn’t enough water in the streams for them to go up.  That brings more seals and Orcas and, for reasons inexplicable, there were fewer eagles, herons and even the ravens were less than frequent visitors this year.  They still attack on shopping day, of course but, otherwise, were often busy elsewhere.

Got squirrels up the wazoo.

This summer, I have seen quite a few garter snakes and salamanders.  Very cool.  We like them.  But ‘quite a few’ means four or so sightings when, for years, we saw nothing. So, it is NOT a migratory event or a climate change indicator.  But, speaking of migratory, there seems to be fewer birds about this summer….jus’ sayin’….

…..and we had the wasp season from hell this summer.  Gazillions.  So, I dunno….is it changing?  Yes.  Does it always change?  Yes, I kinda think it does.  Is it changing more than it used to?  Yes, I kinda think it is.  So, is that it, then?  We doomed?  Yep, I think so. I think it is all over.  We are toast.  The whales, squirrels and the wasps are clearly taking over.

Oh yeah, and the urchins, too.  They are everywhere in the water.  Could be the dawn of the urchinstene era.

We are doomed.

Pitting the environment against the economy as a political debate issue is an asinine position to take. Ignorant in the extreme.  Fatuous.  Disingenuous and just bloody stupid. You have to wonder if those who do (the media, the provincial Liberals and the Conservatives) understand the economy at all. Clearly they have proven they don’t understand the environment to the point that they are killing that which sustains us but it is hard to believe that they could miss two out of two. What nincompoops!

The economy is a concept, a man-made construct.  It is the whole of our personal trades and exchanges and it is as much a fantasy construct as say, our forms of entertainment. The economy is not real without people saying it is.  The economy is just an agreement.

The environment, on the other hand is real.  It exists whether we do or not.  The environment is real in a much bigger examination than is the study of the economy.  In fact, the economy rises and falls and even collapses now or then based entirely on our collective moods.  If we lose confidence in the economy it diminishes and, if we are optimistic, it grows.  Could there be a better definition of a fantasy?  It’s just like bogey-men in the closet.

Which invites a whole other discussion on bogey-men (like ISIS) but I would digress…

The economy is our collective mindset, our construct.  We can change it.  In fact, we have changed it from time to time.  We had the agrarian-based economy of yesteryear, the industrial-based one that is slowly ebbing and the current information-based global economy already morphing somewhat into the specialty divisions of biology and robotics and God-knows-what-all.  Changing the base of the economy is what we do.  It is one of the ways we think we grow as a species (the jury is still out on that).  Getting off oil is not going to kill us.  Difficult?  Yes.  Unknowable?  Yes.  Killing?  Not so much.

So, really, where is the debate coming from?  Why would the media and the politicians make it look like we have to choose between living in a dying world or dying in a living one?  What is wrong with their heads?

And, even more to the point: economies in transition are invariably dynamic.  Things grow at a rapid-paced level.  The so-called economy gets bigger faster and with more surprises. People get rich.  Things get better.  What is not to like?

The Pope is even now pushing alternative energy – that’s a surprise, out-of-the-blue, spokesman for the GREENing we so desperately need.  Obama and Clinton just jumped onto the GREEN bandwagon.  Elon Musk has been on that wagon for some time.  Finally, the ‘leaders’ are going GREEN.  Might be too late but they have come to the party.

Harper is staying home, cleaning his room and washing his hair.

Our leaders are debating whether we should have a robust economy or whether we fret about the spotted owl?  And robust – to them – is fossil fuels!  Talk about stupid.  It would be funny if the media wasn’t giving that topic some credence.  They should be ashamed. And we should not tolerate it. If you hear anyone say, “Well, I like marmots as much as the next guy but I gotta feed my kids, eh?”, slap that doofus upside the head and tell him that marmots are better for the real economy than Harper or Clark.

Vote Spotted owl.

Like most things in politics the politicians make official what everyone already knew. Leadership, the Canadian way.   Safely.  From behind.

The election has been called.  BIG surprise.  They’ve been out humping the stumps (or whatever they call it) for some time now.  As usual, Harper comes late to the party like the dilettante he is to make it official.

Oh well, at least it’s on.

I won’t bore any of you with any more political rants aimed at influencing your vote.  You know how I feel.  But I will point out a few things of interest.  The ‘debates’.  Those ‘staged’, boring, play-it-safe, talking heads rigmarole that supposedly show our leaders ‘as they are’ are a sham.  You’ll only see something by mistake or else the political panderers will explain to you what you missed.  Shock and awe?  Very unlikely.  Brilliance? Impossible.  Coal does not shine.

Firstly, Harper is playing it coy.  Like he’s ‘above’ that sort of thing.  Talking to others, I guess.  He won’t commit to any debates except one and Elizabeth May is NOT included. Incredible. Secondly, Mulcair won’t commit if Harper doesn’t.  Presumably he doesn’t want to waste his time debating the rabble either….hmmmm….very Harper-like, if you ask me. They must both think they are above.

Above what?

But here’s the point I want to make.  I don’t care.  I really don’t care.  I DON’T CARE what these dickheads do or say during the election!  They talk gibberish 99% of the time anyway.  Poli-speak.  Party-line.  Anything but REAL.  They are liars and hypocrites and they don’t know how to lead themselves out of an outhouse on fire (possible exception: E. May, who, like the Japanese say, “When drunk, the real person showed up.”

If Liz gets drunk, then I’ll listen.

Harper is going to give us back some of our own money in an attempt to buy our vote and many people with go for that.  Incredibly pathetic on our part.  Mulcair will not say one thing that smacks of reform, change or social conscience lest he be branded a ‘commie’ and Trudeau will either speak pablum or put his foot in his mouth and start sucking like the idiot-child he is.  How do I know that?  Because that is what they have been doing for some time now.  Do you think Just-in is going to grow up right before your eyes?  Think Mulcair is going to risk his slight edge in the polls? And Steve has money.  Do you think a Con won’t spend money to win?  Ask Mike Duffy.  Harper knows how to use it (not for the betterment of Canada) and he will (for the advancement of Harper).

The game is afoot but, like all Canadian politics, it’s a club foot and the lame shall prevail.

.

Let’s look at politics from another angle for a minute…..the people involved and what they do, their employment or career paths…or self-interest.  What makes a politician tick?

I have reluctantly concluded that they all must be very content and happy with the way it is.  Even the opposition.  Maybe….especially the opposition!”

I can speak to this to some extent because it was always something I wanted to do and, more to the point, I actually made a stab at doing it.  Speeches and meetings and all that crap. So, I get it.  I wanted it.  I wanted to be one of them.  So, why did I?

Part of it, of course, was altruism.  I wanted to make the world a better place.  Who knows if my perspective was a good one or not since I didn’t make it.  We’ll never know.  But there was more to it than that.  I actually thought I was a better person.  Ergo, as a better player, I could do better at the great game.  Or, so I thought then.  Not now.

So, in that way, it was just plain arrogance.  Ego.  And, if I was guilty of such egoism, then the ones who actually make it to the top must be guilty of that, too.

But that’s not a surprise. You already know that.  Politicians are arrogant and full of themselves. To some extent, anyway.  The following, however might be news for you.

I couldn’t join a party.  But they can.   I did join parties now and again (twice) but only to support others and once to support myself.  But it just didn’t feel right.  It felt wrong. Joining a party was an act of subservience akin to silencing myself and obeying others.  It was an abdication of responsibility from that very first act of joining.  I couldn’t, in all conscience, agree to what they said as implied by my membership if I didn’t agree with it personally regardless of the inducement to being supported in the election by the party.

Seems I am not much of a joiner.  Not a good career move for a politician.

But the successful ones must be joiners and followers and, by extension of their success at it, purebred sheep. Maybe lobotomized sheep.  Think about the psychological dissonance in those two simple observations.  You are an arrogant egoist but NOT a leader.  You think you are better and smarter BUT you keep your mouth shut and march and bleat in unison. You do as you are told. You pretend to agree with what they say. That, in itself, would eat at your sense of self, wouldn’t it?

And what kind of erosion of self would take place if you ignored the wishes of your constituents and supporters at the same time as obeying your party whip?  Wouldn’t guilt, at the very least, continually gnaw at you?  Wouldn’t you be feeling like a failure from the get-go?

That’s why it is so much easier to be in opposition; you get to speak out but it doesn’t matter to your place in the scheme of things.  You are safe.  You still get paid.

I am also, by nature, impatient.  And that personality trait wouldn’t work in the legislature or parliament.  I want to see things get done, if not quickly, then at least without unnecessary delay.  A little tardiness is OK, as I have learned that we all move at a different pace but years of delay or delay-as-a-tactic is crazy-making for me. Government moves slower than glaciers (although, to some extent, that is now somewhat due to global warming).

Still, government moves too slowly for me. I’d go nuts.

But they don’t.  They live with it.  They must like it to some extent.  Or respect it, anyway. So, they are complicit in their complacence.  They even ask to do some more of it every four years or so.  It may just be the comfort they get from feeding at the trough but we seem to have 300 or so MPs content to sit on their butts with their thumbs firmly inserted while pressing issues spring up all around them. And they talk and meet and eat lunch and talk some more.  What kind of person can do that for year after year?

The non-employment of the MARS water bomber when it was most desperately needed is a good example of that incredible lack of action from those at the helm.  The First Nations Treaty process is another.  Climate change efforts haven’t even gotten off the ground and yet the ground is burning.  What do these dickheads need to get their butts in gear?

And therein lies another issue…..’DOING’ something.  I am not so sure that I could have stayed part of a system whereby my role was to sit and listen and do NOTHING.  Even if I was in with the party-with-power, I would then have to be one of those who do nothing but pound my desk and yell at the monkeys on the other side of the room.  What kind of self worth would that generate?

Seriously.  We often judge people’s mental state by what they do, how they act, what they say and what they accomplish.  Judging our politicians on that basis makes them all more than suspect, it makes them – apparently – mentally ill.  I could go on.  But, I’ll spare you except to ask, “What is wrong with these people?  How can they participate in a system that is so clearly in need of reform?  How can they accept a salary for, essentially, doing NOTHING but talking?

I understand that a lot of modern life is just talking but even the most sedentary and porcine of them must, at times, chafe at the bit.  But why don’t we see any of that? Shouldn’t some of our reps be yelling?  Shouldn’t some of them file lawsuits?  Shouldn’t all of them be shouting out alternatives at the very least.  Leading protests?  Speaking out?

Harper is bad.  Really bad.  But where are the good guys?  When was the last time you heard any politician say, “I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore!” 

But first: remove Honda 50 carbs (3) and manifold.  Take back to workshop. Disassemble. Clean. Fuss.  Lose critical bolt.  Got lost in the jungle somewhere even a magnet couldn’t find.  So, I find another one in my pile and make it work. Reassemble. Will replace the whole shebang tomorrow when the day is cooler.  Chances of it working? 100%. Working as it should?  No idea.  Totally up in the air.  A crapshoot.

Update: carbs cleaned and reassembled on motor.  Motor starts and runs like charm.  OMG, we are pleased!  “We?”  Yes.  We.  Sal and I took them off and Sal and I put them back on.  I cleaned them but it was a two-person chore for us.  So much easier having two pairs of hands.

We will likely bring the other, smaller outboard up tonight for additional repair efforts.  New impeller.  And we will definitely bring up the two big 250 gallon tanks for fire-station installation within the next few days. ‘Bring up’ means hauled up on the high-line.  While I putz about with engines, Sal is gardening and keeping house and home together.  The weather is pleasant – a bit hot – but pleasant enough.  We are all ‘shopped and stocked’ up.  We’ll be kickin’ off August with a list of chores still to do and a bunch o’ visitors scheduled in every once in awhile.  We’re busy.

And my guess is that the politicians will be busy, too.  The campaigning has started already and Harper’s visit to the Gov.Gen to announce his intentions is really just a formality at the best of times.  And these are not the best of times.  The sooner the better, I say.

The CONS will claim fiscal management again.  But they can’t manage squat.

What exactly does this recession look like to you?  It certainly does not have the characteristics of normal recessions.  It is not responding to normal economic policy.  The market is flat.  Precious metals are flat.  Oil is flat.  The loon is swooning and interest rates are lower than Harper’s awareness of life in the Canada he leads.

I am not so sure it really is a recession, anyway.  It may be the first steps in an unusual, unprecedented international depression.  Think about it……the real difference between the two to economists is duration.  A recession is short, a depression long.  But we have had a recession for over a year already, maybe longer, if you judge by other criteria than what the bank of Canada looks at.  Look at consumer levels.  People aren’t buying as much. There is almost a palpable, unspoken, feeling of gentle resistance…..isn’t there?  I have mentioned this before but the more I look, the more it feels like ‘consumerism’ – as a mindset – is flattening.  NO?

Of course, it will be almost impossible to see such a subtle social change right away. People will still buy stuff.  They will even buy silly crap they don’t need.  The buy-more-stuff consciousness we’ve had since the ’80’s isn’t about to go ‘off’ like a light.  But it does seem to be dimming.  I guess that is what I am saying: mad consumerism is waning, I think.

Interest rates are so low, big-ticket items should be flying out of showrooms.  They are not.  Only houses are still flying high, everything else is flat.  Well, except food and the ‘stuffs’ of life.  We can wade a long time in that shallow pool but methinks we are heading for the deep end.

Jus’ sayin’……………..

…I am 67.  I should KNOW how long 65 is.

Sally’s parents celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary this past weekend and we went down to Victoria be there.  But, to be honest, I don’t really KNOW how long 65 really is when it comes to being married.  How could I?  I am still in honeymoon mode.  Sal and I are virtual beginners at almost 45 years. We feel like freshmen compared to them. Mind you, they have an edge…both are hard of hearing…so a lot of stuff said goes unheard. THAT could be their secret.  One can tolerate a lot if you don’t know about it because you didn’t hear it….jus’ sayin’.…

Seriously, we should all be so lucky as they are to have such good partners.  I know I am. The jury is still out for Sal but she is still here anyway.  Still trying to decide, I guess.  If I don’t kill myself in one of my numerous misadventures, we will likely make 65, too.

Anyway, that is why the blog has been left unattended to for a bit.  Family.  Traveling. Shopping.  You know how it is.

But you also know – by this entry – that we are back!  OMG it feels good to be back!  The air, the scenery, the lack of traffic………..this is heaven.

On to things OTG:  we bought some more tanks.  Big white plastic ones.  Four feet by four feet by almost four feet.  Almost cubes.  250 gallons.  They weigh about 75 pounds empty but they are much more awkward than it sounds.  We bought two.  And some plumbing pieces with which to join them.  The purpose: to make a separate fire-pump tank.  500 gallons.  Right near the house.  The real purpose is to make sure we are prepared and equipped because, as everyone knows, the fire never comes if you are ready for it.

Ya gotta do this kind of thing living OTG….especially this summer.  I gotta have water in my two other big cisterns in case the stream dries up, too.  So, I’ll store some now for when it does go dry.  And it is close to being dry right now. This has been a hot, dry summer.  Not good.  Global warming is coming to a theater near us!

Speaking of warming…the Kelowna firefighters were hot!  Seems they were ‘assembled’ after a 12 hour shift fighting a local fire to pose for Harper and Clark so that the politicians could look like they were on the front line supporting the troops. http://enviroshare.info/index.php/2015/07/26/canadian-firefighters-refuse-to-sing/

Hard to imagine the gall.

We were in a couple of big box stores getting disappointed before arriving home.  That’s par for the course.  I am lucky to get six of ten items on my list at any one time.  But this last one sent me over the top!  Canadian tire sells, amongst the BBQs, camping equipment, paint and kitchenwares, tires.  T-I-R-E-S.  And of course, they sell wheelbarrows.  The wheelbarrows have tires.  Almost every wheel barrow ever made uses the same 8″ tire.  The same inner tube.  Canadian Tire does NOT have the tires!?  “Uh, folks, this store is NOT Canadian BBQ or Canadian paint and plumbing.  This is Canadian TIRE.”

“I am sorry, sir, have you tried camping supplies?”

Man, it is good to be home.  

…is that we don’t really KNOW what the hell government is supposed to be doing anymore.  Things have changed.  Government hasn’t.  And we don’t understand why they are even there.  What ARE they doing there?  Seriously.

Are they managers of the economy?  I don’t think so.  With globalization, only a few big players are managing much of anything.  China and the US and the EU swing some weight.  The Bricks swing a bit.  But, Canada simply does not influence much of anything. Canada GETS influenced but they apply little influence of their own – if any.  Well, Canada sells out non renewable resources like an aging hooker but, other than ‘giving it away’ what do our guys actually do?

Maybe they are here to regulate our behaviours with laws and such?  Maybe. But aren’t we supposed to be free?  Charter of Freedoms and all?  Except when hurting others, what business does the state have in influencing behaviours?  And, if they do have some business meddling in social behaviour, shouldn’t it be for moral reasons rather than for making revenue?  Haven’t they just monetized sin for taxing purposes?

The behaviours of many corporations and Institutions are clearly criminal and go unchecked (see bank bailouts circa 2008/09).  The behaviours of the rich, powerful and influential go mostly unchecked or are ‘buffered’ into nothing by lawyers. Really, only the poor get pursued by prosecutors.  And the middle-class (such as it is) are largely cowed into behaving themselves. Do we really need cops and all their infrastructure and minions to tell us NOT to speed too much?

No, it is not about the economy ’cause they can’t make a difference to that. And it is NOT about our social behaviours for the same reasons.  So, what is it about?

They don’t know, either.

They are, however, pushing the protection racket on us.  A lot.  They are gonna protect us from the pressure-cooker bombers and stuff.  Or, maybe the Hell’s Angels.  Muslims, for sure.  WE WILL SERVE AND PROTECT BUT, FOR NOW, GET ON THE GROUND, GET ON THE GROUND NOW! NOW!

As you can tell, I do not buy the protection racket one bit.

I honestly do not  think the politicians KNOW what they are doing in the halls of government.  Federally or provincially.  They don’t seem to know that the world is changing and so should their roles.  They don’t know what they can do.  They don’t know what they can’t do.  And they clearly don’t know what is going on.

But, let’s leave aside the fact that government is always late to the cognitive party for now…..what is it that WE THINK they should be doing?

Seems most people think that one of government’s main jobs is to help the underprivileged to a limited extent.  Nobody wants to carry ne’re do wells but neither do we want to withhold any opportunities for personal growth. Especially for children. In other words, we are stingy on handouts but BIG on education.  Big on health, too, kinda.  NOT so much if you are young….

And how is any of that workin’ for you, so far?  Ask a degree holder working for minimum wage and carrying student debt.

A second expectation is ‘sustainability’.  That’s right!  Seems over 70% of the people polled think that we – as a nation – have a collective responsibility to pass on a better world to our kids.  And the latest indicators are that the environment is at the top of the list.

And, so, how are they doing on that score?

And the final expectation of the people is the regulation of the BIG BOYS.  Seems people instinctively know or feel that power corrupts and absolute power does an even more effective job.  They want government to ‘police’ the BIG BOYS.  Note that they are NOT so keen to be policed themselves (well, I am not) but they want potential power brokers held in check.  The bullies.  The monopolies.  Like banks, Insurance Companies, Institutions, Corporations.  Even BC Ferries.  BC Hydro.  That kind of thing.

They may have slipped up a bit on that score, too.  D-…..E……maybe total F-for-fail!  Jus’ sayin’…

So, when you vote, do you think to give the government a personal pass or fail on the basic job description (you are their employer, after all)?  Or do you vote by reflex?  When the time comes to assess the Conservative Government, ask yourself how they performed these past ten years or so.

And then….after you answer that question to your own satisfaction, make sure they are quickly escorted out the front door and you might want to check their cardboard boxes as well.  They do tend towards petty thievery, too.  See Duffy et al.

“Summertime and the livin’ is easy, fish are jumpin’ and the cotton grows high. Oh, your daddy’s rich and your ma’s good-lookin’, so hush little baby, don’t you cry.”

Good advice.  Gonna take it, make myself happy and maybe go fishin’, my wife is delightful and her cookin’ s great, you don’t know what your missin’, it’s sum-sum-summertime and there is no point in complainin’, we got it made in the shade….

Having just sung all that, we really are good.  We are happy, healthy and things are going along just fine, thank you. Projects.  Socializing.  Garden.  Cheap B flicks and  trying NOT to think about the political bent I committed to until October 19th.  So,  once again, to hell with it.  The election will come soon enough.  Inevitable.  Harper again.  Or NOT.  I am gonna give it a bit of a rest.  For a bit.

Let’s go with some observations, shall we?  Methinks the libraries, they are a-changin’.  E-books are catching on.  The printing, publishing, book-store worId is in upheaval.  I don’t know exactly what is going on in the library world but they are part of it and one can feel their collective shift.  Things are being re-orged in book-world.  Quietly.  But I think it is HUGE.

There is more and more talk of sharing and cooperation as new forces to be reckoned with in the economics of the future.  Think Uber.  That all seems to be a direct result of the Googles and the social media making money in indirect ways and the old ways seemingly being so destructive.  That kind of revolutionary economics is going to require different politics.  I don’t think the current generation are up to the task.  Apparently neither does Anonymous. And, when Anonymous speaks, everybody now listens.  Our basic, all-the-parties-driven system is undergoing change, you can feel it.  And Anonymous is pushing them into an ethical place they are unfamiliar with.

Is it just me or is Donald Trump not just a grotesque political joke of immense, almost apocalyptic proportions?  I mean, Trump?  As a potential leader of the so-called free world?  Seriously?  A guy who pretends he has hair?  What the hell…?  I mean, really…isn’t this one celebrity moment so bloody weird as to make one question whether American sanity has completely left the building?

What does that say about American politics?

Well, as I said…………let’s not say anything about politics.  American, Greek or Canadian. They are all nuts.  I’ll go back to the madness later.  I have to go now anyway. I hafta make some mint juleps or something. Sun, yardarm, ya know….time for wine and giving thanks for everything  all over again.  See ya soon…………..

Next up: maybe a little sump’n on greenhouses……..?

A librarian friend of mine whose community lives largely off the grid in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Appalachians commenting on our book said, “I think it is fun but the best part was reading of your mindset.  We can’t teach that.  People have it or they don’t. Mindset is what it is all about”.

I agree with her.  Mindset.  Attitude.  Personal view on life.  Whatever it is, it is something that sets one’s path, determine one’s approach, delivers results and, ultimately, influences your mental health and state of happiness.  One thing, for sure, it is not stuff and money that makes for a healthy life – it is mindset and attitude.

So, how does one get an off-the-grid attitude?  Especially, if my librarian is right and it can’t be taught?  I think the answer is pretty simple: it CAN be taught but it has to be self-taught. The first step in getting your head clear is wanting to.  The second step is wanting to enough to pursue it with some action and focus.  I have no idea how one pursues it, but we did.  We just did.  And, I don’t think it has to be off the grid so much as out of the matrix. 

And Sal just sent me an article that she thinks sums that up: It is written under a nom de plume, Sigmund Fraud.  He tends toward extreme language. These are 90% his words but I will give you the condensed version:

For a magician to fool his audience his deceit must go unseen, and to this end he crafts an illusion to avert attention from reality. Maintaining the suspension of disbelief in the illusion, however, is often more comforting for the audience and the magician.

And so we live in a world of illusion. So many of the concerns that occupy the mind and the tasks that fill the calendar arise from planted impulses to become someone or something that we are not. This is no accident. As we are indoctrinated into this authoritarian-corporate-consumer culture that now dominates the human race, we are trained that certain aspects of our society are untouchable truths, and that particular ways of being and behaving are preferred.

The magicians disempower people in this way. They blind us with absolutes that are aimed at shattering self-confidence and confidence in your own determination and, in doing so, in the future.  The magicians are seen as powerful, the audience is weak.

Advertising is just the tip of that deceptive iceberg. When we look further we see that the overall organization of life is centered around the pursuit of illusions and automatic obedience to institutions and ideas which are not at all what they really are. We are in a very real sense enslaved by being fooled and lied to. Many call this somewhat intangible feeling of oppression ‘the matrix,’ a system of total control that invades the mind, programming individuals to pattern themselves in accordance with a mainstream system, conformist versions of reality, no matter how wicked it gets.

The grandest of the illusions which keep us enslaved to the matrix, the ones that have so many of us still entranced, are outlined below for your consideration.

1. THE ILLUSION OF LAW, ORDER AND AUTHORITY

For so many of us, following the law is considered a moral obligation, and many of us gladly do so even though corruption, scandal, and wickedness repeatedly demonstrate that the law is plenty flexible for those who have the muscle to bend it. Police brutality and police criminality is rampant in the US, the courts favor the wealthy, and we can longer even lead our lives privately thanks to the intrusion of state surveillance.  Not to mention the lawyers.  And all the while the illegal and immoral Orwellian permanent war rages on in the background of life, murdering and destroying whole nations and cultures.  The Law is more than an ass, it is complicit in the evil we do.  

The social order is not what it seems either, for it is entirely predicated on conformity, obedience and acquiescence which are enforced by our unreasonable fear of random violence. Most day to day violence in our society comes from enforcement of the so-called ‘law’.  And when the law itself does not follow the law, there is no law, there is no order, and there is no justice. The power, privilege, pomp and trappings of authority are merely a concealment of the truth that the current world order is predicated on control, not consent.

2. THE ILLUSION OF PROSPERITY AND HAPPINESS

Adorning oneself in expensive clothes and trinkets, and amassing collections of material possessions that would be the envy of any 19th century aristocrat has become a substitute for genuine prosperity. And health.  Maintaining that illusion of prosperity-as-health, though, is critical to our economy as it is, because its foundation is built on consumption, fraud, credit and debt rather than life-giving sustainability. The banking system itself has been engineered (as if by magic) from the top down to create unlimited wealth for some while taxing the eternity out of the rest of us.  We are enslaved financially, too.

True prosperity is a vibrant environment and an abundance of health, happiness, love, and relationships. As more people come to perceive material goods as the form of self-identification in this culture, we slip farther and farther away from the experience of true prosperity.

3. THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE AND FREEDOM

Read between the lines and look at the fine print, we are not free, not by any intelligent standard. Freedom is about having choice, yet in today’s world, choice has come to mean a simple dumbed-down selection between available options, always from within the confines of a corrupt legal, corporate and taxation system and within the boundaries of culturally accepted and enforced norms.

Just look no further than the phony institution of modern democracy to find a shining example of false choices appearing real. Two (or three in Canada) entrenched, corrupt, archaic political parties are paraded as the pride and hope of the nation, yet fourth, fifth and sixth party and independent voices are intentionally blocked, ridiculed and plowed under. Selection from two or three is not choice.

The illusion of choice and freedom is a powerful oppressor because it fools us into accepting chains and short leashes as though they were the hallmarks of liberty.

Limited multiple choice is different than freedom of choice, and it makes for easy servitude.

4. THE ILLUSION OF TRUTH

Truth has become a touchy subject in our culture, and we’ve been programmed to believe that ‘the‘ truth comes from the demigods of media, celebrity, and government. If the TV declares something to be true, then we are heretics to believe otherwise.

Or worse, we are taught by intellectuals that ‘there is no real truth, only interpretations’.  

In order to maintain order, the powers that be depend on our acquiescence to their version of the truth. While independent thinkers and journalists continually blow holes in the official versions of reality, the illusion of matrix-truth is so very powerful that it takes a serious personal upheaval to shun the cognitive dissonance needed to function in a society that openly chases false realities.

5. THE ILLUSION OF TIME

They say that time is money, but this is a lie. Time is your life. 

The big deception here is the reinforcement of the idea that the present moment is of little to no value, that the past is something we cannot undo or ever forget, and that the future is intrinsically more important than both the past and the present. This carries our attention away from what it actually happening right now and directs it toward the future. Once completely focused on what is to come rather than what is, we are easy prey to advertisers and fear-pimps who muddy our vision of the future with every possible worry and concern imaginable.

If time is money, then life can be measured in dollars. When dollars are worth less, so is life. This is total deception, because life is, in truth, absolutely priceless.  The first step in getting off the grid is, by no accident, getting as far off the money-metric as is possible.  

6. THE ILLUSION OF SEPARATENESS

On a strategic level, the tactic of divide and conquer is standard operating procedure for authoritarians and invading armies, but the illusion of separateness in our culture runs even deeper than this.

We are programmed to believe that as individuals we are in competition with everyone and everything around us, including our neighbors and even mother nature. Us vs. them to the extreme. This flatly denies the truth that life on this planet is infinitely inter-connected. Without clean air, clean water, healthy soil, good neighbours and a vibrant global sense of community we cannot survive here.

While the illusion of separateness comforts us by gratifying the ego and and offering a perverted sense of personal control, in reality it only serves to enslave and isolate us.

CONCLUSION

The grand illusions mentioned here have been staged before us as a campaign to encourage blind acquiescence to the demands of the system or the ‘matrix’. In an attempt to dis-empower us, they demand our conformity and obedience, but we must not forget that all of this is merely an elaborate sales pitch. They can’t sell us what we choose NOT to buy.  We can choose to get out and we can choose NOT to buy in.

We chose out.

Sal and I started making sensible, healthy choices by first stepping off the merry-go-round to see what might be possible.  I have to say that getting off was a lucky leap of faith and landing on our feet was another gift.  Having said that, there is no doubt, once off the spinning wheel it is all but impossible to get back on. So it was a one-way choice. Fortunately, we don’t care about that.  We could not possibly have the new ‘mindset’ without first escaping the bulk of the old mind-controlled one.  This new perspective is already proving the leap was worth it.  We are happier now with our own illusions.