A lot of folks suffered from the Coronavirus and I watched and listened.  I was even interested.  Very interested, in fact.  Pandemics are fascinating.

Kinda distracting, too, when you think about it.

I hate to admit it, but I didn’t really care all that much about the actual people.  I cared.  Of course I cared.  But not THAT much.  I cared more about Coronavirus victims than I do about Harry and Megan and their Windsor-family troubles, for instance.  But less than I care about people with cancer.  Way less than I care about kids with cancer.

Recently, I found that I cared a lot more about seniors having knee replacements….staying focused is NOT my strong suit.  Like most people, distraction works on me.  And, like most people, distraction is working FOR someone else, too.  Slight of hand – the ultimate con.

And I was distracted.  I was being fed more ‘fear’.  Pandemics!  YIKES!

But, you know…flu kills…some flus kill more, some less…blah, blah, blah….I know that is NOT a very nice thing to say.  But, you know how it is….a guy feels what he feels and he doesn’t feel what he doesn’t feel.  I really didn’t FEEL the fear.  I watched it but I was not all that empathetic.  Shoulda. Coulda.  Wasn’t.

“Why?”

Perspective, maybe. News cycle, probably.  Thick skin, perhaps?   Thirty to 40,000 people die every year in car accidents in North America alone.  Worldwide, 50,000 die from normal flu!  I’ll bet the number of gang shootings and deaths is close to that. Some tragedies are written into the annals of human existence no matter what.  Flu?  A natural event, force majeure.

The news cycle?  News is entertainment.  It sells.  It’s a business.  It can be true.  It can be false.  It is always ‘packaged’ for consumption.  And it is built on ‘making up a story’ whether there really is one or not.  

Thick skin? Like scar tissue, thick skin helps you NOT to feel every story intimately.  It’s a defense mechanism and it biases your thinking.

Perspective: it is a callous-but-learned view but it is kinda how I feel after 72 years of media exposure.

But could it be more than that?  Was I feeling something more?  Was that my intuition whispering…something?

The three influences together? …..the makings of a mark.

The horrors of the war in Syria are being revisited in the region.  THAT is purely man’s inhumanity to man.  Syria is just plain ugly, stupid politics.  But I was distracted from it for a bit… The ‘West’ checked out of Syria (Trump) and now the evil (Turkey/Russia) rises there again…(funny how that topic just slipped off the radar just as the invasion was underway)

Coronavirus doesn’t FEEL evil, it just feels like ‘a natural disaster’ like a volcano or an earthquake.  The natural world.  But Syria feels evil.  Especially since it was the direct result of a Putin/Trump collusion.

I dunno….I’m just tellin’ it like it is for me.  And wondering if I am a cold-hearted bastard or maybe I have just been fooled by yet another political slight of hand?  And here is the part that makes me wonder about my own soul: I still feel more about the evil that is Trump than I do about Coronavirus.  How sick is that?

Stay with me, here…no more about Trump…..(well, there is a bonus at the end)…

Yet another example of a distraction (CBC style): some poor old 96 year old was ‘screwed over’ by Air Canada and the Canadian government when he tried to return ‘home’ from a funeral he attended in Jamaica.  Now THAT really ticked me off.  I was actually feeling more outrage over that!  I was ready to get off on yet another tangent. “I do not care what safety-crap-babble they say to justify that, a 96 year old man is no threat.  Rant, rant, rant!”

Hell, that story made me madder than Syria*.

AAAaaaaannnnnddddddd I was distracted again……!!!!!

Crazy mental exercise undertook: what mentally/emotionally/physically disturbs you the most?  In Sal’s case the answer would be ‘anytime a person is cruel to an animal’, she is made crazy by that.  I think she could shoot people who hurt puppies and kittens.  Me? Just about everything drives me crazy.  My feelings almost always runneth over.  I am way too easy to fool. Mind you, I am NOT alone.

And that’s why I noticed a diminished ‘feeling’ on Coronavirus. 

So: we cannot ‘care’ about all the wrongs in the world.  We might want to.  We might think we should.  But we don’t – because we do not have the capacity, personally.  We can’t HANDLE IT ALL.  We need to focus.  But – and here’s the point (finally):  Crooks rely on that.  Bad guys rely on that!  Lying, deception, subterfuge, dissembling and even smoke and mirrors are all part of their criminal tool kit.  And THAT is our politics today.

Please do NOT misunderstand me.  Trump did not create Coronavirus.  A bat did.  I know that.  But, OMG, did Coronavirus help his causes or what?  Every ‘distracting story’ helps his cause.  Coronavirus is a REAL story.  I know that.  But I can only grasp so much, handle so much, care about so much and the flu is NOT my biggest issue.  It may come to that.  But it ain’t there yet.

Trump and Putin are here now.  We have to FOCUS on that!! 

I should just care about the environment.  Then Sal.  Then my kids.  Then Tyranny.   But I guess I just relate more easily to an old man in an airport simply trying to go home than I do all the other nonsense.  Not fair.  Not smart!  I am too easily distracted. But the politicians rely on that.  

Or: I could just be a cold-hearted bastard – or I could be just another citizen-dupe?

*this asterisk is a warning: the next few sentences are Trump related.  Trump becomes president.  He makes nice with Russia and Turkey.  Russia had just annexed hugely valued parts of Ukraine and then moved to get involved in Syria.  Turkey moved against the resident Kurds (who were, in the past, American allies living in the region).  Trump pulled out.  Turkey moved in.  Russia moved in, too.  Kurds died.  Russia and Turkey now have more territory. Fewer Kurds.  Trump holds rallies.  Trump golfs.  We in the west were not really paying attention…(the US intelligence community was but well, Trump is dismantling that)….this may not be the most sophisticated plan for tyranny but Trump has our attention elsewhere while Putin rolls on in the background.   

….I feel like a quarantined cruise ship passenger-rat.  So does Sal.  We are NOT yet stir crazy but we are moving in that direction.  Sal, of course, is better-tempered and nice to be around still (but still crazy after all these years).  I am getting grumpy…..well, grumpier!  But it is odd what is making me feel this way.

The first thing is the bloody physio regime at the hospital.  I could write books about that insanity but I won’t.  You are spared my lament.  I’ll save that frothy rant for the letter-to-the-Health Authorities (including Dix, the minister) and maybe to the admin at the hospital.  I will enjoy that.  My spleen needeth venting.

But, for the medical record, the surgeon was perfect.  Ab-so-bloody-lutely perfect.  More perfect than Trump’s phone calls.  This guy really did a great job.  I honestly do not think it could possibly be better.  Sal could walk normally, without an aid, for at least twenty steps after ten days.  She can walk maybe 500 with just a cane and she thinks of her walker as ‘just plain silly’.  She is way ahead of schedule.  So that is good and, quite frankly, that should be the message.

But, it is not.  This message is much more OTG than you might think.

It’s about acclimating.  It’s about change in attitude.  It is about style.  Most of all, it is about freedom.

When you move OTG, you are faced with enormous challenges.  Those with gobs of dough who have others build for them deal with the challenges using filthy lucre but the vast majority out here ‘do for themselves’.  And, in the doing, they gain a lot of hard-to-measure satisfaction, knowledge, skill, perspective and a huge appreciation for nature, wilderness, trees, ravens, whales and, most of all, blissful peace and quiet.  All of that is kind-of-to-be-expected.

What isn’t realized at the time is that you are also working and accomplishing to the beat of your own drummer.  You work to your own schedule, your own sense of logic, your own style.  You are actually also gaining freedom.  And you are shedding social constraints.

Where before OTG you had to ‘fit in’ with others (and play nicely), now you don’t.  Now you captain your own ship from getting water to making power, from food sourcing and prep to First Aid.  Very quietly Dave was put back in charge of Dave (OK, Sal is in charge but I think you know what I mean).

Living in town (even for just 15 days) means ‘making appointments’ and waiting on others and relying on others and dealing with others……and, in a small town, that is NOT horrible hell.  At least not at one town-day at a time.  But I am now even more ill-suited to ‘civilization’ and ‘their ways’ than I used to be.  I chafe at waiting for traffic lights, lining up to get past construction sites, lining up to buy crap and all the little ‘impositions of order’ that urban life requires.  I can do it.  But it is getting harder with each day.

Don’t get me wrong.  This is not a complaint so much as an observation that I have lost the veneer that was my previous and somewhat civilized social behaviour.  I am now a little bit wilder.  I now no longer fit.  I am quite clearly way out of my new-found comfort zone OTG and I am uncomfortable with the so-called comforts of the city.  Interestingly, Sal is feeling that, too.  “You’ve poisoned me!”

“How so?”

“Well, now I am impatient at what seems like a sea of common stupidity.  Even I want to scream at people who are NOT doing what they should be doing.  I used to just wait patiently and smile nicely but now I get irritated if the cashier is talking to her friend on the phone while I stand there with the money in hand.  I am annoyed that the nurse on shift has never worked that department before and doesn’t know where anything is or what she is doing.  I was there two days and I knew more!  I might even get belligerent someday if this continues.”

“I doubt that very much.  Tinkerbell unhinged is still a sweetie-pie.  You’ll always be nice.”

“Well, this belle is ready to go home.  Like, NOW!  I want squirrels!”

And here is the weirdest thing: I am now somewhat off-put by all restaurant food.  I know, I know…what the hell?  But, you see, at home Sal and I eat what we choose, cook it the way we like and take the amount we think we need.  Restaurants don’t work like that.  Which is fine.  Really.  It is actually somewhat interesting once in a while.  But living in the moho means more ‘take-out’ and ‘prepared foods’.  And, after awhile, it kinda feels and tastes ‘all-processed’.  Yuck!  I ordered a medium-size pizza the other night (usually one of my favourite town-treats) and it came from CR’s best.  Almost unpalatable for us now.  Half was all we could eat.  Two people, HALF a medium pizza and even that was eaten out of duty.  We can no longer tolerate too many restaurant meals.  How did that happen?

OTG has obvious differences from urban life.  Everyone knows that.  And there are pros and cons to both.  But we have actually changed!  The change is deeper, more subtle than I previously knew.  It took two solid weeks of living ‘the life’ to realize that this is no longer good enough for me.  I gotta get out.  I’d like to get out NOW.  Sal wants out, too.

We’ll see how that goes.

Being 72 is a bit odd for me.  It seems I am suddenly more attractive.  Who knew?

I am NOT what one might think of as a physically attractive man.  Not really.  But I am not a pig-dog either.  I am not even grossly ugly.  A smidge disfigured, perhaps….if you count fat as disfigurement.  Which I obviously don’t.

I am just an ordinary, potato-faced old man who is still surprised when looking in the mirror.  “Sheesh, I do NOT look like Tom Sellek, after all.  I have to come to grips with that reality…..someday.”

But, usually I just stay away from mirrors and eventually slide into my quasi-Tom Sellek mentality.  In other words, I live in image denial.  OK, image fantasy.  And, of course, the attentions of women (or lack thereof) helps to keep my inner Tom in check.

But, lately, woman are flirting with me.  Now, to be fair, they are not really flirting.  They are just being accepting and friendly.  But that is a huge step up from watching them back away or run screaming from the room.  This is NEW, better, gender relations.

Maybe they think men over 70 are safe…?

I recall being scheduled to give an interview with an applicant for a job.  The interviewee was a young Vietnamese woman (this was back in the 70’s when I was helping refugees) and she was waiting in a small office.  The door was open and so I strode in.  As I crossed the threshold I saw her face adjust from a relaxed repose to one of fear or, at least apprehension.  Might have been revulsion.

I said, “Hi.  I am David Cox.” That did nothing to allay her fears and she pulled back into her chair and began to make herself look small while, at the same time, she let out a distinct whimper.  “It’s OK”, I said stepping closer.  “I am happy to meet you.”  And that was it – she curled up in the fetal position and let out a muted scream.  Like most men, I know female rejection but this was more than the normal, everyday kind of rejection.  I was causing fear and loathing…..merely by existing.  

I briefly considered offering her a hug to console her but realized that might result in charges so I simply turned and went to get my Asian secretary who was all of 90 pounds wearing heavy boots and an overcoat.  S went in and made everything nice.

She came out and said that I could now go in.  She said that it might be best that I leave the door open.  She said it might be best NOT to make direct eye contact.  She said it would definitely be best not to get too close or speak too loud.  “Would it be best if we just talked on the phone or have you pass notes?”

“Oh, hah hah.  You are so funny.  She’s just never seen anyone who looks like you before.  She was terrified.  I said that you were ugly but nice.”

“Thanks.  You are truly a great secretary, ya know that?  Ugly, huh?”

“Well, you know….by Asian standards, for sure.  Yuck!  And, I suppose, even by Gweilo standards, you are no Tom Sellek.”

“Thanks, S.  We are done here.  I am going in to see her now.  No more pep talks for me, OK?”

But all that has changed since hitting 70.  I might be entering my ‘hunk’ era.  I think this because older women are smiling at me and talking ‘extra’.  Well, talking, anyway.  And some are talking way extra.  Some have even touched my arm.  And as all men come to finally realize (way too late), women have to make the ‘first touch’ before anything can happen.

Now, to be fair, none of my new admirers are spokes-models, beauty contestants or even under 55.  Most are showing their mileage but, on the other hand, so am I.  So, for all intents and purposes, this is a new-to-me, peer-to-peer kind of flirting.  I have also noticed that they are all single or at least do not wear wedding rings.   Lonely might be an explanation?

Did I mention all the touching?  Again, to be more accurate, one woman touched my arm because she was losing her balance but, still….touching is touching.  “Did you want to get a room?” 

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind.  But you should know that I am taken.” 

“Taken with what?  Coronavirus?  Delusions?  Running a high fever, dear?”

C’mon!  Cracking jokes is just great flirting!

Anyway, I write this because the last few days have seen a major increase in stranger intimacy, outright affection, and there is real longing in their eyes.  Could be madness, I suppose….

Mind you, such behaviour is exhibited most often when I have just played the caretaker card.  “My wife is just out of the hospital.  Surgery, ya know.  She needs a lot of attention.  I hafta be back home soon, you understand.  Gotta make her lunch.  She can’t walk, ya know.  Poor sweetie. But, that’s OK.  She’ll get better.  Thanks for cutting the cake in half, Donna.”

Deutsche Bank used to be a rather small and conservative German bank.  But it has NOT been that way for some time.  Likely since the 80’s.  When Trump had gone bankrupt a number of (6) times and had been linked to organized crime and other swamp-creatures, no reputable bank in the US would loan him money.  His ‘paper’ empire was headed for the drain.

So…he went to Russia.  Ostensibly he went to promote beauty contests and feel up young women who didn’t mind because he was rich.  But, in the background, in a back room, he made a pact with Putin.  The devil made the introductions.

Here is the plan they hatched: Putin has billions but it was somewhat land-locked.  He wanted his money OUT of his own country.  He also controls the VTB (the Russian Trade Bank, formerly the Vneshtorgbank).  Putin would have the VTB guarantee any loans the Deutsche Bank made to Trump thus eliminating any risk to Deutsche.  And the VTB would infuse Deutsche with all the Russian money they needed to do that.  In this way, Deutsche had no risk.  They were just a transfer agent.  With fees.

Trump now had a source of funds (Deutsche) that were all-too-easy to access and Putin and Russia would have ‘money’ in the West, not to mention ‘hooks’ in Trump. By ‘the Donald’ borrowing from Deutsche, Putin owned Trump.

For appearances, and likely for their own personal reasons, Russian oligarchs also bought units and condos and memberships in Trump properties.  It looked, to the outside world, that Trump was successfully marketing his Trump-branded crap to rich folks, some of whom were Russians.

And no one looked dirty.

But the end result is that Trump is doing what Putin wanted him to do.  Bottom line: Potus is a Putin puppet.

“How do you know?”

Well………….if it walks like the Russian Mafia and quacks like the Russian Mafia……it is likely a Putin-duck.  But that is NOT enough to form a conclusion.  So a swarm of investigative reporters have been all over Deutsche Bank and Trump’s relationship with them.  That relationship, it seems, defies normal banking relationships, defies normal banking procedures, defies normal banking risks and defies normal banking requirements.  In one sorry example of that, one part of Deutsche paid off a loan for Trump that was in default .  The bank that was owed the money from Trump’s default was a different department of Deutsche!  They bought up their own debt!

Go try that at the Imperial Bank of Commerce.

Do I KNOW all this to be true?  Hmmmmm……………Vanity Fair is ferreting out Deutsche Bank stuff and can confirm a lot of it.  Rachel Maddow has exposed some of it as well.  It fits with what has transpired and there is a new book out that pretty much paints that same picture.  It is called Dark Towers.  And – just today – Julian Assange has filled in a few more gaps…….

“Will it ‘come out?” 

I do not know.  But an (ex) Fox reporter has stated that Trump is filling the swamp, NOT draining it…..so maybe the timing is right for the ‘truth will out’ as Shakespeare said.

Sal was, at first, disappointed.  The physio said she couldn’t graduate to using the cane.  And then Alyson-the-physio kindly adjusted the walker’s wheels to the outside of the frame rather than the inside so as to aid Sal’s use of it.  As a consequence of the new wheel placement, Sal can’t use the walker in the just-too-narrow moho.  I naturally offered to turn the wheels back in. “No.  I think that is a good enough reason to ignore the physio and use the cane.”  And so all last night and today, Sal is using the cane.  Walked 100 feet last night and ironed her new cloth at our friend’s place.  Then walked back.  Chalk one up for Sal. (You might as well fill in the chalkboard for Sal.  She just quietly wins.  It’s her style.  I go down kickin’ and screaming.  That’s my style.  Her’s works better).

Mind you, I am not without my own strong points. I am manipulative in the extreme.  Almost charming, they say, if it wasn’t so creepy and annoying.

I was at the store getting the makings for dinner.  Went to the bakery section.  “It’s my wife’s birthday and I was looking for a small cake but these are all way too huge.  Could you cut that one in half?”  “Sorry, love, they don’t like it if I do anything in their section.  I am in bread.  Especially serving their customers.  Even more especially if I cut their things in half.  They have to do it.”  “OK, fine.  So, where are THEY?”  “Well, dear, they all went home.”  “Hmmm….did I mention that my wife JUST had knee replacement surgery and is currently trapped in a small motorhome being cared for only by me?  On her birthday?”

“How big a piece do you want?”

“Thanks.  I appreciate it.  What’s your name?”  “Donna.”   “OK, then I will tell anyone who asks me that Sharon cut the cake.”  “Unh, we don’t have a Sharon working here.”

“Even better.  Then no one can get blamed.”

News from the moho ward, eh?  Scintillating.  Today?  Probably not so exciting.  We are getting on in years and can’t keep up the pace….

It’s Sal’s birthday.  She gets to celebrate it at the physio department up at the hospital this afternoon.  We think they are gonna ‘push her’ to bend and walk and jump and twist.  It’s gonna be brutal.  Happy Birthday, baby!

I managed to get her through her first week post-surgery unscathed and improving but, of course, it was all really done by her and all I did was steppin’ and fetchin’, cookin’ and cleaning.  PURE HELL!!!!

Yesterday, she insisted that ‘we’ go to Fabricland and shop for quilting supplies.  She was barely a week out of bone-sawing surgery and she wanted to quilt!  That was some kind of crazy fun. 

Here we are at a fabric store managed by three old women with two other old women in there shopping.  And so we joined the throng, the excitement, the buying frenzy.  All hair was either grey or an unnatural colour not found anywhere in nature except, perhaps, poisonous amphibians and fungi.

I swear everyone there limped to some extent and two had walking aids (Sal had her walker, another had a cane).  The cloth cutter had two hearing aids.  All were a bit hunched over, all seemed a bit doddering and all were focused intently on bolts of cloth.  And all of us tripped over things in the aisle.

Seems Fabricland uses the aisles to display even more weird stuff, limiting the width of the walking area to such an extent I had to walk ahead of Sal to clear the way. You’d THINK that a store catering to old women more than say, young, hip athletes, would at least allow enough width in the aisles for walkers and canes, wouldn’t you?

So THAT day-at-Fabricland was day 7 (Family Day) – seven days after having been discharged from the hospital.  Today is day eight, the first day of the Physiotherapy era.

And I will continue the saga after this afternoons pain event…………….

(continued)………and it turned out be a ‘nothing-to-see-here’ kinda visit.  The physio checked that Sal could do what she was supposed to do and then she said, “Well, that’s good.  See you Thursday.” 

“Unh, Ms Physio?  If, when Sal attends her next session, and the extent of the physiotherapy is to simply check her progress, then……?”

“Oh, no.  Next time we work her.  Next time she gets on the machines.  But she is at least one week, and more likely two weeks, ahead of where we expected her to be so this visit was just a progress assessment.”

Sal walked the hallway for the physio to see….and she walked almost normally.  “Can I graduate to the cane today?”

“No!  Good God, no.  You are doing very well but you still need the walker for at least another week or two.”

And so we left.  On the way out, we saw Sal’s ward mate come in.  She is 3 years younger than Sal.  The woman could barely move.  She looked ten years older.  After greetings we continued out of the hospital.  Sal walked at least 400 feet going in (I dropped her at the entrance) and 600 feet leaving (200 feet longer to get to the car and parking lot).  “Whew” she said.  “That was a good walk.  Now I need tea.”

Yes, I know.  A blog on Sal walking is sad.  But, you see, that is what old people do now.  “Hey!  First bowel movement in a week!  Holeee!”  “Unh, that’s good to hear, ma’am.  You do know that this is the waiting room for physio, right?”  “Course.  Just wanted to share the good news.  Have a good day!”

I met ‘my’ Baptist minister back in the late 80’s when I was asked to be part of a ‘tribunal’ to divide the estate of a divorcing couple.  They wanted a lawyer, a minister and a layman to ‘do the separating’.  So, we all met.  We all looked at the circumstances and we all went to work on it somewhat separately.  Then we came together and compared notes, our reasoning and we then came up with the settlement.  It was mutually derived and no one took the ‘lead’.  We worked well as a team.  The settlement turned out to be a good one – especially over the long haul.

The minister got called to perform another quasi-judicial process again a few years later and it involved a very strict and heavily religious community in the valley.  They were intent on ostracizing and expelling a family and the family was fighting to stay within the community.  And so the minister asked us to re-group and do it again.  The lawyer declined but the Minister and I went out and ‘heard the case’.  Again, we separated and deliberated on our own and then got back together to compare notes.  And again we agreed on the outcome and so rendered our verdict.  It went well.  All very, very interesting.

I found it particularly fascinating in that second case that the minister went into OLD English law and found parallels in private societies, clubs, teams and the various conditions under which a member might be expelled. I instead, read their (the community’s) constitution and found that it was very reliant on God, the bible and the basic tenets of Christianity.  I read their constitution as an implied contract with the members.  The more religious stuff I read, the more the decision was made clear.  I concluded that the member family needed Christian forgiveness and that it was an implicit promise made by the community in their constitution to provide it.  I argued ‘bible’, the minister argued ‘private club’.

Ironically, the minister was somewhat drawn to the ‘private club’, exclusivity, high social standing and money-set and I am not.  He does not worship the golden calf but he admires it.  I do not.  But the gap is NOT huge.  We got along.

And then he asked me to edit all his monthly newsletters.  I do not know much about the bible, Baptists, churches or congregations but I agreed to help.  As the years wore on, I became more and more involved in the editing to the point that I would just tear up what he wrote and write the whole damn thing again.  Some people write as they speak (me) and others write as they think they are supposed to (him).  Fair enough…ministers can have a codified, professional-jargon-filled style not unlike engineers, doctors, lawyers and sea captains.  They talk their professional talk.  And I get it.  Being boring is not a sin.

But that ain’t me and he asked for me to write and say what I thought…so I started writing more and more irreverently.  I was not in the least sacrilegious, disrespectful or blasphemous but my prose was personal and familiar.  Earthy at times.  Blunt.  Worse, I started to sprinkle the odd Green meme or anti-capitalism theme in what was ostensibly HIS newsletter.  The minister was NOT all that thrilled by that ‘commoner’ approach but he kept his mouth shut because his newsletters were getting better reviews and he even went so far as to consolidate them all in a book.

But then he wrote something I strongly objected to and I reamed him a new ordination.

We split up.

I was OK with that.

I guessed he was, too.

And the years went on.

Last month he wrote and asked for another newsletter edit.  I gave it.  This month he wrote and asked again.  This months topic is forgiveness.   And that is not a coincidence.  Funny how things come full circle sometimes, don’t you think?

I am back.  I was TRYING to get back to writing regularly a few blogs back but clearly I have now made it.  I am back and typing almost every day!  Woohoo, look at me go…..

But back with what?  Car trouble, city madness and living in a moho with an invalid is hardly compelling reading…..I should do better.  But, with what?  Hmmm……in the absence of anything better, why not try worse?  I am tempted to go all ‘Seinfeld’ on ya and write about things so ordinary, you are fascinated at the mundanity, things so banal, you wonder about my sanity, things so boring, you can use my blogs to put you to sleep.

How’m I doin’ so far..?

So, let’s do updates for a bit:  Sal is doing good.  Very good. She even wants to go to the fabric store and limp and stumble around until she is in outrageous pain.  That has to be the 51st shade of grey, don’t you think?  If you don’t think that, you are wrong.  Her object is to find the perfect shade of grey for her next quilt.

I ‘bought a haircut’ yesterday and that is kinda news as Sal has cut my hair for the last fifteen years (save for a few times a sadist in Hong Kong cut my hair but Sal is my go-to sheep shearer mostly because I do not have far to go-to).  This time I went to a chain-clip-joint.  “What is your name and phone number?”

“You don’t need that.  I am just here for a haircut.”

“The computer will not let me in without a name.”

“Use yours.”

“Huh?”

“Well, I am not in your computer ’cause I have never been here before, so you do NOT have to find me or my account.  I will also never likely come back because my wife usually cuts my hair and….well, I am disinclined to be put on your database.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.  David Cox.”

“Can you spell that please?”

“C – O – X”.

“Sorry.  One more time……”

She tried again.  Then she turned to an older lady and said, “The computer won’t let me in.  Is it because he only has one name?”

“That’s right.  He needs two names!”

“Cox Cox.  Go ahead.  Try Cox Cox.”

“Umh…could you spell it please?  And, your phone number?”

“Oh my god!  I live remote.  No phone.  We use pigeons to deliver messages out there.  Sometimes our dogs. ”

“Really?  That’s amazing.  But the computer needs a phone number.”

I slowly bang my forehead on the counter.  She smiles.  I slowly and clearly give my phone number.

“Unh…..could you say that number again, please?”

“Geez, Ronnie (that was her name), I am NOT going to have this conversation with you anymore.  If you need more information to give me a haircut, then use your own address, phone number and blood type.  I am done talkin’ here.”

“Unh, why would we need your blood type?”

To her credit, she continues to fill in the form and I am hoping she just used her own info rather than making ‘notes’ on my file.  More than likely, I am being classified as troublesome.   Which actually appeals to me in a weird shades-of-some-colour-kinda way.

“How would you like me to style your hair today?”

“Ronnie.  Oh, Ronnie.  Look at me.  I have a crew cut, a brush-cut.  My hair is uniformly 3/8″ long.  If you can style it, knock your self out.  But, if the challenge is too daunting for you, please just find your 3/8″ clipper attachment and simply buzz me all over.  And, when I say ‘all over’, I mean all over MY HEAD only!”

“Huh?”

“Just a buzz-cut, please.”

In case you missed it due to sudden onset drowsiness, the above haircut episode is a nano-example of city madness.  I may be boring but at least I wrap it up at the end.

Some dorks vandalize Tesla charging stations and even privately owned Tesla cars.  Some deplorables even resort to coal-rolling (smoking) them if they have a diesel truck.  It is the Luddite response to ‘better technology’.  And it is pretty weird.

Why does Bubba hate Elon?  If virtually any ol’ electric vehicle can out accelerate a high performance Corvette, isn’t the writing on the wall getting even bigger and with better lighting? C’mon, Bubba!  What the hell is your problem?  

Maybe Bubba is just jealous and confused.  Or just plain stupid.  Maybe Bubba still owes 71 months of payments on his F-150.  And maybe Bubba just lost his job in the mines.  Poor Dodo.

Already enough ‘clean energy’ electricity generation has been created just in the US that some 700+ coal mines have closed since 2008 and they are continuing to shut down with a record 50+ closures in 2018.  Trump may ‘Dig Coal’ but he hasn’t stopped them from shutting down coal mines.  There are now just 671 working mines where, in 2008, there were 1400+.  The writing on the wall is clear – caveat: but only IF you can read, eh, Bubba?

Solar panel technology just announced a major improvement breakthrough.  They now figure they can improve output from those massive commercial arrays by 2%.  To make their point they said, ‘that 2% improvement is the energy equivalent of all the coal mined annually in the US’. 

I cannot do the math in my head (especially not knowing the exact BTU potential from each of 671 mines) but, if 2% improvement in existing commercial solar panel power is the equivalent of a years coal production from 671 mines, isn’t the writing on the wall overwhelming?

If the world is already suffering a glut of oil production because the ‘market’ is just not there (and part of that market is gone for good with e-vehicles), isn’t the message impossible to ignore even for Bubba and/or his tutor?

If Germany produces 27% of their energy needs from renewable power and the world (averages) 24% but the ‘most advanced nation in the world’ (ha!) being the US and it only generates 11%, isn’t that a condemnation of sorts?  Just to be fair to the US (not easy) it has ‘roll-back’ Trump currently at the helm and really cheap oil from Canada (we supply 48% of their oil and yet pay twice their price for a gallon of gasoline).

There are over a dozen countries around the world doing so much better than North American countries.  Sweden intends to be 100% petro free by 2040. THAT is leadership!

But the list of ‘leader countries’ below is deceptive.  It has the US and China on it because of how much new renewables are coming on line but the list does not balance off increased petro-use in those countries.  They are both becoming larger energy consumers.  China is a huge renewables leader but, because their population has discovered middle class consumerism, their appliances and automobile growth is faster.  It also includes Iceland because Iceland heats with natural, geo-thermal systems so …..not really new, is it?  Canada is not there despite 65% of our energy use coming from renewables (Hydro and Nuclear).  It is generally conceded that the best countries on some unfathomable metric are:

Iceland, Sweden, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, United Kingdom, Germany, Uruguay

Denmark, Morocco, USA, Kenya.

So?  The point?  The world is getting on the bandwagon.  THEY are responding if not to the threat of climate change, then to the increasing preferences of the market place.  People in Sweden, Norway and Denmark are demanding it.  Their governments are responding.  Those folks are well educated.  So is their government.

But we aren’t.  And our governments aren’t.  ‘Mericans aren’t and their government is actively retarding any such progress.  Trump’s base of ignorant deplorables even vandalizes Teslas and coal-rolls them.  We have Doug Ford, Jason Kenney and the usual out-to-lunch bunch preaching petro-Luddism but worse, we have self-crowned environmentalists like Trudeau pushing BIG oil, too!  Our folks are NOT well educated.

Is it we who are to blame?  I mean;  Danes and Swedes demand clean air and get clean air.  Germans demanded clean electricity and GOT clean electricity.  We are NOT getting….is it because we are NOT demanding?

Maybe a better ‘on-the-ground’, what-can-I-do question is: what is the greenie equivalent to vandalizing and coal-rolling?  Do I hafta throw broccoli heads at Bubbas?  Is that what it is gonna take?

When Justin Trudeau first got elected, I wrote to him.  I don’t know him but I had connections.  He got the letter.

The letter was polite.  I did not call him names or criticize him because that would be counter-productive and, anyway, he had just gotten in and I was just ecstatic that Harper had been turfed.  I got a response.

I wrote something along the lines of the following only more formal and polite:  “Justin, I have no idea what your party platform is (the Liberals always have a spongy platform on a gelatinous base and they are flexible and opportunistic at all times.  The official platform means nothing) but I am gonna advise you on one critical issue.  Pipelines.  Especially Trans Mountain.  Parliamentarians think the world revolves around Toronto and Ottawa.  Your perspective is wrong.  The truth is that the world revolves around the natural environment and, in BC, that environment is extra loved.  British Columbians on the coast, in particular, will not accept seven massive oil tankers full of sludge every day plying the Gulf of Georgia.

“I know that you claim to be an environmentalist but you are also a politician with a nasty oil-province bastard in the family.  So, it will be hard.  But nothing will tax your leadership like pipeline issues.  Tread carefully and get creative.  Diluted bitumen will not be well received here.  Consider building a refinery in Alberta.  Consider going east with a different pipeline.  Consider going anywhere but do NOT use the Gulf of Georgia.  That will be your undoing.”

Of course, we know where that warning went eventually.  It went the way of almost all letters to government these days.  Round file.  But I had to write.  I had to do what I can.  And that one was so obvious.  I have written several letters over the past few years and it has only been lately that I am now convinced they are no longer read.  I used to get nice form letters back from some flunky but now I get nothing.

Which is too bad.  It seems hearing from the citizenry is not appreciated by government now – if it ever was.  But, even if ignored in the minds of the decision makers, the writer usually received some acknowledgement of their efforts.  Not anymore, it seems.  These guys are more unaccountable and unresponsive than ever.

They seem to think:  “To hell with ’em.  Let ’em eat cake or watch hockey or something…” 

The irony, of course, is that a failing environment sinks all boats.  To pollute, poison, savage and ravage and harvest all the trees, to rape the oceans and leave them unproductive, to continue to add carcinogens to our lives is really quite bad for even the oil business.  Who they gonna sell to if everyone is on chemo?  Why that doesn’t register with them is beyond me.

But that is the way it is in 2020.

For the record, I write to the Provincial Legislature, too.  Horgan.  Weaver.  I even write to Socred/Liberals, as well.  But no one writes back.  No one acknowledges anything.  Occasionally some hack Assistant Deputy Minister will grudgingly cut and paste a few form-letter paragraphs that miss the entire point I was raising.  But, generally speaking, they don’t care.   I confess that, when faced with a glacier of indifference, I eventually feel like giving up but well, it is not easy to stop writing.  So, I keep it up.

Futility, they name is Dave.

I wrote all that above so I could tell you about a recent exception.  Provincial Ministry of Transportation wrote back to explain to me what I already knew and had told them in my letter to them.  It’s about roads.  But this one is a classic in stupid responses: In the letter from Ms Cousens, she states, “If you are faced with downed trees on the old logging road, call the Mainroad Contracting helpline.  I know that road and have traveled it.  I also know there is no cell service on that road or even half that island.  So call them as soon as you get out.”

“Uh, Ms Cousens, if you know there is no cell service and you also know that people can NOT get out on the logging road due to fallen trees, how are they to ‘get out and make a call’?  Unless, like me, they actually take a chainsaw with them and take the trees away?

“And then, Ms Cousens, this may be hard to grasp from your office in Victoria, but why would I call Mainroad to remove trees I have already removed?”

I dunno…is it better to get no letters in response?  Is that worse than stupid letters in response?  Has the world gone entirely mad?  In every respect?

And, really, how much do we pay Ms Cousens for sitting in an office and coming up with that crap?

Yes, you are right, convalescing in Campbell River makes for disgruntlement.  Disgruntlement, for me, means taking it out on stupid bureaucrats.  At least they are not an endangered species.  Too bad. They should be.