Back to the Heart of Things

One of the final projects of this sabbatical is a group undertaking, where five friends and I will be creating works of art based on six photographs by another friend.  Some of the photographer's other work is here.

So now I am attempting (with fear in tow) to write 6 poems, and realizing I want these to be much better than my skill level will allow.  Hence, research.

Here is a great little article about blank verse, what it is and how it is "at the heart" of much good English poetry.  I like the idea of putting words on paper with 'a minimum of excess.'

We'll see how this goes.  At some point after the visuals, words, music, stories and drama are created, I will post some of them for you to consider.  I am not expecting perfection from myself on this, but I am looking forward to 99% perspiration.

Maybe, baby

I was just reading a post about women pictured on television and how far those female characters have (and in some cases haven't) come in the past 40 years.  I am not a regular tv watcher, but I found it interesting nonetheless.


It concluded with the thought that "the realities of rape, women's ability to choose abortion without shame; the fact that not all women are hungry for marriage and babies; and women's genuine experiences of having passion for their work" are still not comfortable scenarios for writers/broadcast networks/corporate advertisers/audiences -or whoever controls these televised situations.


I read that and I thought "that's true," because I know so many ambitious, talented, caring and capable women in their twenties and thirties who could be wonderful moms, but are deeply ambivalent about whether they should or will ever have children someday.


For some women, it's partner issues - they haven't met a good man (mostly) or they can't see themselves parenting with the person they are with (value conflicts) or they like their lives as-is and are not sure if they are ready for the lifetime commitment that parenthood entails or they can't afford to have kids because of their financial situation. Lots of varied reasons, a spectrum of doubt.


So, I just wanted to put it out there that there are lots of fine ladies on the 'maybe, baby' train.  And I don't see that stopping anytime soon.

My exceptional friend

It's not often I dedicate a post to singing the praises of an individual, but after getting our local paper today and finding out that one of my wonderful friends is going to China in an attempt to break a few Guinness World records involving a frisbee, I think it's time.

His blog is here, I will be adding it to my links (which you should check out if you're into the 'best of local' around these parts).

Let me tell you a little story about this guy.  He was on the high school hockey team but hung out with the rest of us nerds and misfits.  Fittingly, his blog is called "Odd and Misunderstood."  Boy, can I ever relate to that some days.  Instead of being a standard-issue jock, he once told me he liked listening to Gregorian Chant before hockey games because it helped get him pumped up.  Now he says that throwing a frisbee is "his favourite form of mediation,"  and I believe it!

Hats off to you Rob, for listening to your inner voice on a slightly 'odd and misunderstood' journey that involves an immense amount of practice and perseverance.  World records or not, I am astounded at what you've accomplished and I know the best is yet to come.

An endlessly varied recombination of age-old components

How's that for a headline?  Yowzers.

I am reading Carl Jung's 'memoir,' which is called " Memories, Dreams, Reflections."  Rather than recalling chronologically the events in his life, Jung recalls how he came to understand the psyche, the unconscious and the formation of human personality.

Here is an excerpt which I find totally fascinating:

Our souls as well as our bodies are composed of individual elements which were all already present in the ranks of our ancestors.  The 'newness' in the individual psyche is an endlessly varied recombination of age-old components.  Body and soul therefore have an intensely historical character and find no proper place in what is new, in things that have just come into being.  That is to say, our ancestral components are only partly at home in such things.  We are very far from having finished completely with the Middle Ages, classical antiquity, and primitivity, as our modern psyches pretend.

Nevertheless, we have been plunged down a cataract of progress which sweeps us on into the future with ever wilder violence the farther it takes us from our roots.  Once the past has been breached, it is usually annihilated, and there is no stopping the forward motion. But it is precisely the loss of connection with the past, our uprootedness, which has given rise to the 'discontents' of civilization and to such a flurry and haste that we live more in the future and its chimerical promised of a golden age than in the present, with which our whole evolutionary background has not yet caught up.  

We rush impetuously into novelty, driven by a mounting sense of insufficiency, dissatisfaction, and restlessness. We no longer live on what we have but on promises, no longer in the light of the present day, but in the darkness of the future, which, we expect, will at last bring the proper sunrise. 

We refuse to recognize that everything better is purchased at the price of something worse; that, for example, the hope of greater freedom is cancelled out by increased enslavement to the state, not to speak of the terrible perils to which the most brilliant discoveries of science expose us.  The less we understand of what our fathers and forefather sought, the less we understand ourselves, and thus we help with all our might to rob the individual of his roots and his guiding instincts, so that he becomes a particle in the mass, ruled only by what Nietzsche called the spirit of gravity.

Reforms by advances, this is, by new methods or gadgets. are of course impressive at first, but in the long run they are dubious and in any case dearly paid for.  They by no means increase the contentment or happiness of people on the whole.  Mostly, they are deceptive sweetenings of existence, like speedier communications which unpleasantly accelerate the tempo of life and leave us with less time than ever before.  Omnis festinatio ex parte diaboli est - all haste is of the devil, as the old masters used to say.

Reforms by retrogressions, on the other hand, are as a rule less expensive and in addition more lasting, for the return to the simpler, tried and tested ways of the past and make the sparsest use of newspapers, radio, television and all supposedly timesaving innovations.

In this book I have devoted considerable space to my subjective view of the world, which, however, is not a product of rational thinking.  It is rather a vision such as will come to one who undertakes, deliberately, with half-closed eyes and somewhat closed ears to see and hear the form and voice of being.  If our impressions are too distinct, we are held to the hour and minute of the present and have no way of knowing how our ancestral psyches listen to and understand the present - in other words, how our unconscious is responding to it.  Thus we remain ignorant of whether our ancestral components find an elementary gratification in our lives, or whether they are repelled.  Inner peace and contentment depend in large measure upon whether or not the historical family which is inherent in the individual can be harmonized with the ephemeral living conditions of the present.

A lesson from someone else's 90 years

Sometimes I am tempted to think I am a pretty hip person - I've been to 'free school,' I helped start a mixed arts festival with my friends, I like the idea of open-source everything, and I am not afraid to eat sushi or spicy food or dance in public.

But then there are other days when I am pretty sure I was born in the wrong generation, and that I am secretly an old lady inside.  Case in point:  I love stationary and letters, I know how to make bread and baked beans from scratch, I don't have a cellphone, I sew on buttons and mend clothes that aren't ruined, I like to read actual books, sing hymns and play the piano. I realize this much of this is tragically unhip but I can't be bothered to hide it.  And I don't put pictures of myself doing these things on facebook.

Today after church we had a 90th birthday party for a lady in our congregation - you only turn 90 once and she is a lively lady despite the year on her birth certificate.  What a lovely time: lots of small tables set up, a nice bowl of unpretentious soup for everyone, cake and ice cream.  Conversation, smiling.  Kids, old people and everyone in between.  Another lady played the piano intermittently while we ate.  We all sang happy birthday together, whether we felt we were excellent singers or not.

Which brings me to the point:  this generation (the one that lived through the Depression and WWII) knows how it's done.  They can enjoy the simple pleasures that truly matter: a meal with friends, lighthearted music, kind words spoken and time well spent.  Nothing flashy, no pressure to participate by buying stuff (who really needs more stuff now anyway!!).  What a nice change from the emotional ambiguity of text messages, the narcissism of the online world and the lack of human contact that makes us all retreat too far into our own heads.

Thank you elders for reminding me what really makes life wonderful.

Meat or no meat: still a big question (for me)

We live in a consumer society, there's no escaping it.  Even after ten years of consciously attempting to avoid giving my money to multi-national corporations (as much as I can in this economy), I have to admit, I still get a little thrill out of buying things.  I don't imagine this will ever go away - whether it's the Mad Men and their effect on me, on the evolutionary thrill of getting something new, I am not certain.

But today our household signed up for a food box delivery from Speerville Farms (Stu Fleishaker and Nancy Cantafio and their lovely girls).  Every two weeks we will get bread, eggs, cheese, meat, and veggies delivered to our door.  The price is excellent and everything is organic.

About ten years ago, I quit eating meat.  Lots of people ask me why.  They also ask me how I get my protein, which really bugs me, but that's another story.  Here is a handy reference chart, in case you were wondering:

Food                  Amount of protein (grams)
Dried Parsley    1 cup       31
Lentils, cooked 1 cup       18
Black Beans, cooked 1 cup15
Tofu, firm 4 oz               11
Quinoa, cooked 1 cup     9
Peanut Butter 2 tbsp      8
Almonds 1/4 cup            8
Sun-dried Tomato 1 cup  8
Brown rice, cooked 1 cup 5
Broccoli, cooked 1 cup   4
Potato 1 med.               4
Lambsquarters 1 cup     4

I quit eating meat because I didn't trust where it was coming from - this is the system that gave us listeria, mad cow, swine flu and has increased antibiotic resistance.  I don't have a beef with farmers, but I didn't want to give my money to the corporations who have made it impossible for small pork farmers to make a living.  I also think ten years as a vegetarian has allowed me time to really think about killing and take responsibility for my ethical decisions.

However, in the past year I have noticed an increase in local meat offerings, and I have also noticed that soybeans - which I consume in the soymilk I drink - are driving the destruction of the Amazon rainforests.  So, although I am not ready to go hog-wild just yet, when the food box comes on Monday I will see if I am ready to take on a bit of animal protein.

So, buying feels good.  But buying something that helps a local family make a living feels better.  We live in one of the most food insecure provinces in Canada.  I think we would see a big change in our families, our schools and our economy if more people supported local food.

Word of the day: mendacity

Until today, I had no idea who Chris Hedges is.  My bad.  You can find his bio here but you should really watch this interview with him in Times Square. He is talking about the similarities between the Occupy movement and the people's movements that brought down totalitarian governments in Eastern Europe.  Hedges was a war correspondant for 20 years overseas so he brings a lot of experience to the table.

Mendacity: unthruthfulness; the act or process of lying.

Hedges makes lots of insightful comments about this movement but it's his remarks about the consensus decision-making process that I think most people don't understand.  In our working lives (and in our school experiences) we are told what to do by a 'superior' and we do it, or else.  This is how governments and corporations exert control over massive numbers of people.

In the case of the Occupy movement, the decisions are taken by consensus, where everyone is informed, the terms of engagement are completely transparent, people have the power to amend, support or block motions, and the discussion can't be shut down at will by the chair (or any other party).  It's slow, it can be very frustrating but it is also rock solid when the group finally reaches consensus.

Hedges says that he has written about why the corporations that control the global economy need to be taken out, but never thought about how.  When ordinary people reach a consensus about what to do - whether withdraw their money from mainline banks and put it into credit unions, or something else - that solidarity will be real.

Here's a great video of the people's mic in action.  Blogger won't let me format the link so here's the address to put in your search bar: vimeo.com/30513599

Global Women

I'm halfway through this great podcast about how women are in the process of claiming their rights and standing together for greater equality all over the globe.  It's hard to hear their suffering, but it's so uplifting to know that half the world's population - nearly 3.5 billion people - stand a better chance than ever of being healthy, equal and productive citizens.  It's well past time that happened, and we owe our thanks to all the women and men who struggled to make this happen.

One interesting point they make in this podcast is that policy makers, economists and politicians all around the world have concluded that to make progress on poverty, health, violence and the economy, you have to give women an equal place in society. 

In New Brunswick, we all know our economy could use some improvement (so could our health, not to mention poverty).  This makes me wonder what we are and aren't doing to include girls and women and to ensure that they flourish.  Neglecting to deal with women's issues here only serves to put us a greater disadvantage.

The past is never entirely over

If you're interested in the history of New Brunswick, or forestry or the Irving Companies, you really should go to the CBC.ca/nb site and read the story - and the comments - about the closing of the Deersdale sawmill and the debate about wood from Crown Land vs. private woodlots.

It encapsulates so much of the issues we are facing (and have faced) here in New Brunswick.

The 'Crown Lands' are a creation of the British colonial government - part of the empire of the 1700's and 1800's.  The private woodlots are predominantly in Western NB, which was settled by American Loyalists after the war of independence from the British, and in Miramichi, where more prominent Irish and Scottish immigrants were able to buy or be granted large tracts of land.

I often think about how NB is like a developing country - very concentrated wealth and land ownership in the hands of a few - brain drain - largely disfunctional government - bright people but lacking education.

It's all there on the comment boards, if you're interested.  As for me, I say history lives.

Back to the Forest

I wrote about the opening shots here and here.  This week JDI announced that it is closing the Deersdale sawmill due to lack of wood supply. Deersdale is in the middle of NB, east of Juniper.  Here is a handy dandy map of where the Crown Land is in our fine province.

The Supreme Court of Canad holds that New Brunswick's Crown lands are held by the Province of New Brunswick for the benefit of the people of New Brunswick, not as their owner but as their trustee.  The "public trust doctrine" handed down to us through English Common Law says that resourced of the commons are "gifts of nature's bounty" to benefit present and future generations."

Here is a handy dandy map from JDI's website about their operations.

The NB Federation of Woodlot Owners, which represents 30,000 people in New Brunswick, says that the price JDI is willing to pay from private woodlots is too low.  The Federation says its members are harvesting 72% less wood and revenues have fallen from a combined $100 million to a combined $30 million.

Here's what Ken Hardie has to say about Crown Lands and private woodlots in NB.

"Essentially Crown land is our biggest competitor in the marketplace, which fundamentally has been our fight for many years, is the fact that we're in competition with our own land, pubicly-owned land," he said, noting that they have been in discussion with the Department of Natural Resources on the issue.

"At this time there is some positive.  The department seems to be recognizing that in order for private woodlots to survive, maybe some Crown land needs to come off the market."

You Deserve Good Things

Once I had a conversation with a very wise woman whom I respect very much.  We were talking about why people who are in bad relationships stay there.  She said that it's because they don't feel they have options, or because they are attached to the people who are mistreating them, or because they're not ready to leave. 

I related a conversation I'd had with one of my extended family members, who always seemed to blame himself when someone else treating him poorly.  I asked him if he thought he deserved good things in life.  He avoided the question.  So I asked him again, if he thought he deserved good things.  You mean like, nice stuff, he asked me.  No, I said, like being happy, and being treated with love and kindness by the people around you.  He did not want to answer this question.

The lady looked me squarely in the eye and she said "many people - most people - do not believe that they deserve good things in life.  They don't feel they are worthy." 

I didn't grow up in a Jungian family where my parents told me I was entitled to good things.  But I did grow up in a family where people (inevitably) screwed up, owned up, made it right, and moved on.  I think this was an important lesson that there can be justice in families and relationships, even if it is difficult.

Now that I'm older, and I've seen so many people in bad relationships - and I don't just mean romantic relationships.  I mean with their friends, or siblings, or co-workers, bosses or whomever.  And I see them stick around and I think back to the conversation I had with that woman. 

I wish I could tell people that they deserve good things in life, and I wish they would believe me.  Overall, I think people are much tougher and resilient than they think they are, and when fear keeps them from moving forward I wish they could sense that better things await, and that they are worthy.

Sabbatical: Month 7

Somehow, time crawls by so slowly and I look away - only to look back and find it's been weeks.  A friend of mine mentions she's been reading my blog and I think to myself "my blog?! there's nothing on there to read..."  Which may or may not be true, depending on your perspective.

All around me, I can sense that people's relationships are struggling - word of breakup after breakup reaches me, and other people who normally seem so together seem a little unhinged.  Personally, I feel okay, I feel like things have settled down tremendously after a turbulent and financially stressful summer.  But almost every day I see evidence of how people are equally capable of hurting or supporting each other.  Sometimes it seems like a fine line and I wonder how anyone survives into old age with a positive outlook.  Maybe it's willful ignorance, or wishful thinking, or luck or grace, depending on how you look at it.  I'm not sure. 

The elegy of fall is hard to bear sometimes, and this year since I've been on 'sabbatical' I feel wasteful.  I feel like normally I would be working harder, investing time and energy in projects and seeing them come (hopefully) to fruition.  This year I am not investing in anything, I am watching the time pass. I feel idle sometimes, and guilty as a result.  At the same time, I can feel my inner battery re-charging and I feel much more resilient and joyful than I have in the past few years.


We also have less money in the household, which has been a very interesting process. Since the spring, we are eating a lot of stored food that previously would have gone to waste, altering or repairing clothes that would have gone unworn, visiting people and generally just slowing down the pace of life.  It's been good.

Sometime I wonder about human generations in years past - without the iPhone, with less 'options' but more time for making bread and visiting family, less 'wordly' but more connected to the earth.  I think everything in life is a trade-off and this sabbatical has really made me wonder what I am trading.  Overall, I feel immensely thankful for the gentle and kind people we seem to have in abundance here in New Brunswick.  I realize without a doubt that human relationships are so complicated and difficult, yet so rewarding, and I am thankful for my tiny place in the midst of this great cosmos.

Happy or not, here life comes

Time and time again, I hear people talk about being happy - as in "he makes me so happy" or "I just don't feel happy" or the ubiquitous "do whatever makes you happy."  And then, of course, there is the infamous reference to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in the US Declaration of Independence.

Lately happiness has become a major topic of discussion around here - with some projects completed we have time to reflect on what might be next.  As I work further into my adult years (indeed, the big 30 is just around the corner) I can see why people get worn down and start to lose touch with the joy in their lives. Being an adult is tough and sometimes I wonder if my generation is prepared for the realities of adulthood - the necessity of working, whether it be for financial gain or in relationships with those around us, and the realization that bad things often happen to good people.

In any case, here is a great podcast called "Just Say No to Happiness."  It begins with an interview with the author of "The Happiness Project," which has been on best-seller lists since 2009, and concludes with great discussions about suffering, the psychology of morality, the necessity of faith and how ultimately, depth and meaning are more important than 'happiness.'  So if you're wondering if you'll ever be happy, check this out.  It may re-assure that there is much more to human existence than yellow smiley faces. 

What to do with two gigantic zucchinis

It's the most wonderful vegetable time of the year!  Late August and September are when I revel in being a vegetarian - so much to eat, so little time.  This year our garden hasn't been the greatest but I have been getting some local produce from George at Uphill Garden and also bought a decent supply of winter garlic from my friend RW.  Delicious!!

My mom also gave me two gigantic zucchinis - so now everyday we are trying to eat it so it won't go to waste.  Below are a couple of recipes I've been using.  Maybe you are also faced with a glut of zucchini and don't know what to do with it.  Enjoy and happy Labour Day weekend.

Zucchini Bruschetta

Make or buy a pizza dough. 

If you make it from scratch (which I like to with 50% Speerville Red Fife Flour), pre-cook it about 15 minutes so it will crisp up better.

In the meantime, thinly slice 2 cups of zucchini and grill them in the oven to eliminate some of the water (big zucchinis are bad this way).

In a bowl, mix:  fresh or dried basil, (1/4c fresh or 1 tbsp dry), 1 tsp. dried oregano, 2 tbsp. dried parsley, 1-3 cloves of garlic depending on your love of garlic, 1/4 cup diced onion, 1/2 cup chopped tomato, the zucchini from the oven, 2-3 tbsp. olive oil, salt and pepper.  Mix well so oil and spices coat toppings.

When the bread comes out of the oven (or if you bought the dough) cover with toppings and spread out evenly.  Add feta or mozzerella cheese to taste.  Bake in oven for 15-20 mins. @ 375 degrees.  Cool and slice.  Great as a group appetizer (makes enough for a 14-16" dough) or with a meal.

Zucchini Muffins - today's project

•2/3 cup vegetable oil

•2 large eggs
•2/3 cup granulated sugar (I will use less)
•1/2 cup light or dark brown sugar, packed
•1 teaspoon vanilla extract
•2 cups all-purpose flour (I will use 50% Red Fife)
•1/2 teaspoon baking soda
•1/2 teaspoon baking powder
•1/2 teaspoon salt
•2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
•1 1/2 cups finely shredded unpeeled zucchini
•1/2 cup finely shredded carrot
I will also add 1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Grease and flour 12 muffin cups. Heat oven to 375°.


In a mixing bowl, beat the oil with eggs, sugars, and vanilla extract.

Combine the flour, soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon; add to the wet ingredients; stirring until blended. Fold in the shredded zucchini and carrots.
Fill muffin cups about 3/4 full; sprinkle with cinnamon sugar or granulated sugar, if desired. Bake for 20 minutes.  Makes 12.

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If all else fails and my zucchini are still around on Monday, I will make a big veg lasagna and could freeze it for later.  Enjoy!

A Learning Farm

This interview on CBC's Shift tells the story of a 114-acre farm near Woodstock that will become a learning centre for marginalized people.  Very exciting, especially considering all the problems I was reading about yesterday.  Thank goodness for practical people who actually attempt to solve problems.  What a debt we owe these guys. 

Never forget that a farmer wrote the Declaration of Independence.

Food, jobs, debt

Debt seems to be a topic-du-jour around here lately.  Not only personal debt, mortgages and student loans, but also national debts ceilings and 'bailouts.'  We watched "Inside Job" again, which you really need to see. It does a great job explaining how Wall Street bankers made a system 'too big to fail,' pushed it off a cliff, and then collected a huge payout from taxpayers.  But I digress.

On the topic of debt, this afternoon on facebook, my friend Dru shared an interview with British activist David Graber entitled "Debt, Slavery and Our Idea of Freedom."  In the article, Graeber talks about how we now use the same langugage to talk about debt and morality - for example, that we have a moral duty to be financially responsible and pay our bills, and if we don't, it's because we're 'bad' people.  Now, I'm not calling you bad but if you've ever had a phone call from a collection agency, you know what I'm talking about.

Graeber also talks about how very wealthy people often write off each other's debts, and very poor people often give each other 'loans' that are actually gifts, but when the transaction is between a rich person and a poor person, then it becomes a question of 'moral obligations' for the repayment to be made.  He also points out that "Sanskrit, Hebrew and Aramaic all use the same words for ‘debt’ as for ‘sin,’"  which was interesting, but maybe not too surprising. 

Knowing you are highly in debt - or "highly in sin" as Graeber might say, is mentally exhausting. It has a tremendous impact on your day-to-day life and stress levels.  Many people are struggling to juggle bills and make ends meet, and when another person posted a link about how school breakfast/nutrition programs are not fixing the problems with child hunger and food insecurity in Canada, I was very disheartened.

The author says that movements towards local and organic have overwhelmed the discussion of policy changes needed to eliminate food insecurity in Canada - that we should also be focused on "housing, employment, childcare, and the protection of staples."  She echoes what I have read elsewhere - that gainful employment is increasingly hard to find.  Apparently many people who are food insecure are not welfare recipients, they are working poor.  In her words:

There are some very important issues emerging now with our working poor, such as the precariousness of employment, the notion of employment protection and eligibility for employment insurance. This means the vast majority of those who are food insecure in Canada are those whose income is almost exclusively from earnings and salary, and not from income support.


It concerns me that we have a system that pays corrupt and morally bankrupt bankers, but working people cannot earn enough to keep an warm apartment and food in the fridge.  These are not people laying around watching reality television all day, they are people serving coffee at drive-through windows and caring for the elderly. I couldn't help but think of those famous words from the King James version of the Lord's Prayer.

                                    Give us this day our daily bread.

                      And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

As much as I love to trash facebook sometimes, the links people post really do make me think.  Frank McKenna famously stated that in his opinion "the best social program is a job" but you've really gotta reconsider when that won't pay the rent and put food on the table. Methinks this song is due for a revival. 

Not so fast, funny girl

I used to read the Globe and Mail a lot.  A major part of my Saturday student routine involved getting some take-out curry and German pastries, and hunkering down with the massive Saturday paper, to read all afternoon.  What luxury!  When I was at Mount A., I read some excellent features about the HIV/AIDS epidemic and women, a great piece on Jean Chretien's wiles as a Shawinigan schoolboy, Mark Miller's eminent jazz reviews, not to mention an entire section devoted to book reviews.

Occasionally, I would read Leah McLaren's column, and although sometimes her sarcasm directed at people who take themselves too seriously made me laugh, I never was into her 'cool girl' vibe.  I am too much of a nerd at heart, go figure.

So, when I came across this article in Maisonneuve Magazine - which I love, love, love for its intelligent eclecticism- I wasn't too surprised tolearn that Leah McLaren had written a column about why women aren't funny.  Turns out she was opining about a piece by Christopher Hitchens ( here it is too ), who basically says that women aren't funny because we have ovaries, which lead to babies, which leads to a one-way ticket to no-funny-land.  How about that.

But although I do think parenting must inevitably make your life more serious, I think that women are funny.  I have seen many gatherings of silly women who laugh until the tears stream down their faces.  My sisters and I have done this on many occasions - and not just because we were being wooed by a man (do men today still woo?  hmmm).  And I know some funny, funny girls who have a way of just putting the truth out there, in a roarious, pants-down, how do you like me now kinda way. 

So although many of the standard forms of humour may have been originated by men, I do think women use them, and I am thankful for anyone and everyone who can make me laugh.  Sometimes it's the only defence I have against this grim world.

It doesn't fall from the sky, you know

I love watching elections, and I stayed up til the bitter end for the last federal election.  Now I am glad, because although I was maddened by the majority government the Conservatives achieved with a minority of the popular vote, I did get to see Jack Layton's speech as incoming Leader of the Opposition. Watching Layton, Harper and Ignatieff that evening (not to mention the jubliant Elizabeth May), it wasn't hard to see why the voters did what they did.

So it's heartbreaking to see Layton's passing without him ever having the chance to put the heat to the PM, in Parliament, as the Leader of the Opposition.  There are no guarantees in life, are there?  But beyond elections, when I watched Jack Layton speak I could tell that he was a 'man on the move' and that he was the rare sort of leader who pushed his staff, not the other way around.

Here's what Paul Wells said about Jack Layton:

Today everyone will be writing and talking about his last campaign, the one he fought with a cane and a smile, as sustained a feat of physical courage and political agility as any I’ve seen in all my years covering this business. But I think it’s important to recognize that his party’s final breakthrough was no fluke. It was the product of a lifetime’s preparation and a decade’s effort, concentration and adaptation. It was the work of a man who won over his party, then his caucus colleagues, then his party’s traditional voters, then hundreds of thousands of new supporters. Jack Layton promised to build, and he was as good as his word.

So here's to you Jack - well done, good and faithful servant.  Thanks for reminding us it can be done.

"Out of the Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope

It has taken nearly 20 years to complete a monument in Washington, DC, in honour of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Over the summer, I read an excellent biography of Thomas Jefferson.  The book details Jefferson's many intellecutal accomplishments: the writing of Notes on Virginia, the Declaration of Independence and Jefferson's remarkable intellectual strengths and his depth of feeling for fellow human beings.

This biography also dealt with the issue of him being a slave owner and maintaining a life-long relationship with his slave Sally Hemings (after the death of his first wife).  Since then I have been reading a bit about the British colonization of North America and their attitudes towards the slave trade, all of which has given me a much greater perspective on the struggles of a.) Americans to gain their democratic freedom b.) the descendants of African slaves and their generations-long attempt to win justice and equality for themselves.

Oftentimes, we who are involved in movements for change are too impatient and we sell ourselves short.  We think we have not succeeded because tomorrow things will be largely as they are today.  But reflecting on the 'long train of history' - from 1948's "I Have a Dream" until today's reality, that a black family lives in the "white house,"  we see that culture does change, and that individuals do make a difference.

So when I heard they carved on the side of the monument "With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope" - which comes from the "I Have a Dream" speech, it reminded me that human beings have the remarkable capacity to change the world for the better. 

It's hard to believe that it took so long for a man who did so much for so many to be memorialized (rightfully) among Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln.  But some things do change, after all.

Thanks, kids!

The subject of children seems to be everywhere in my life right now.  We can't decide if or when we might want to have our own children but people ask me all the time - people at work, relatives on both sides of our family, even strangers.  I love kids and I always have - they are so interesting in the way they look at the world.  I find their observations to be so clear at times, they have a way of getting right to the truth, and it's not always the truth we are looking for.

Recently my friend Richard Wetmore completed an album of songs about food and food production.  He is an organic farmer and works at Speerville Mill, where you should be buying your grains, if you aren't already.  Although Richard's songs have a lot of strong statements about the dangers of industrial agriculture, it is his attitude towards children that stands out for me.  When is the last time you saw a fitysomething man state (sing) in public that "childcare should be at the top of our list, because what's more important than that?"  Not lately....

I had a wonderful childhood - despite my mom being sick with cancer and despite my family not having a lot of money.  But we weren't 'hurried' and we weren't medicated and we ate food straight out of the garden and were very close with our extended family.  So looking back I do miss those sunny days of bike rides and swimming and playing on our grandparents farm.  And I look at what some kids have to contend with these days (lingerie lines for 8 year olds, princess culture, bullying, etc.) and I don't feel too good about our society.

Here's a great article on the need to protect children from big business and here's a link to a great CBC podcast about the trend towards turning 2 year olds into academic stars.  Not kidding, unfortunately.  Something to chew on just in time for back to school.

One of the best parts of the Dooryard Festival was watching the kids go nuts with the sidewalk chalk at the mainstage on Saturday.  They had that place as vibrant as could be, and they told me they were making a dance floor.  Now that's a world I can enjoy.  Thank goodness for kids, the world would be a terrible place without them.