Generation Obsolete

Generation Obsolete

Every generation it seems has its own label these days. There was the “Me” generation, generation “X”, the “Baby Boomers, etc. Now there’s generation “screwed”, referring to our grandchildren. But there’s another generation everybody’s forgot about. Let me tell you about it.

An Ojibway Elder once told me that there are four recognizable generational stages in life. He actually called them the four hills of life’s journey. The first stage is infancy he said, where one soaks up knowledge and information necessary to maneuver in the upcoming what’s to come. We soak up everything around us holus bolus without reasonin’ or examinin’ its efficacy. The next stage is adolescence. This is where we begin to test out the things we have so far learned but not proven. We all know what a disaster THAT stage is. It’s a well known fact that with the onset of puberty, one’s brains leak out one’s ears and we are left rudderless to steer our useless selves (except for those smart ass adults who keep correcting us). By the time we get through these turbulent years of absolute idiocy and our brains start functionin’ again, we suddenly realize the magnitude of our folly, and our parents and Elders become a little smarter than they used to be. An’ it’s a good thing too because we suddenly realize that we’re goin’ to need all the help we can get in order to get through this other stage called adulthood.

Even the Ojibway acknowledge that this is the most difficult stage of life. Scratchin’ and clawin’ one’s way through adulthood has never been easy. Whether you’re chasin’ down a buffalo herd on the prairie or flippin’ hamburgers at MacDonalds, it’s just a bloody rat race, filled with politics and plain hard work. Not pretty, that’s fer sure.

Well, you finally get to hang up yer skates an’ embark on the gentle down slope into old age – the “golden” years they call it. Now you’ve got it made! Ha ha! It might be all right if your damned hip wouldn’t a’ broke, or if your barrel chest hadn’t fallen down to yer waist, or ya didn’t have’ta get up every hour of the night for a wiz, or any number of other ailments you never use’ta have.

Fool’s gold is what that is. An’ then you discover there’s another little hill. It’s not very big, but it goes almost straight up! HALLELEUJAH! The hill of obsolescence, that’s what it is. By now everybody’s forgot about you, well except in an archaeological sense. Your picture was put up on the top shelf long ago an’ is gatherin’ dust. They figure yer too old to do much harm to yerself so they don’t worry. Well – talk about yer freedom! Now you can really do all the things you always wanted. Not really ‘cause yer too old an’ decrepit, but it don’t matter. Yer pride went south along with everythin’ else anyways. If you can’t do it, you just imagine it an’ that’s good enough. That way, when you go to sleep for the very last time, it’ll be a peaceful sleep. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’. 

Easter Week

Easter Week

            Let’s face it. Not everybody celebrates Easter, or Easter week. And even those

 who do, celebrate something other than the historical significance of the events some two thousand odd years ago. It’s all very confusing. There are those in the Christian churches who mark the event of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection as the pivotal point in the establishment of the church. I think that’s what Easter is meant to signify.

Yet there are others who celebrate it with new hats and whole outfits to promenade around in and show off what they bought at Macey’s that’s different from anything anyone else bought. Woe betide any woman who is caught wearing the very same outfit as anyone else she knows.

Then there’s the chocolate culture. Chocolate Easter eggs, chocolate Easter bunnies, chocolate this, that, and the other. You add to that the Easter egg hunts for children to take part in and you’ve got total confusion on what this time is really about. All this commercialism has diluted the meaning behind the occasion to a competition between Macey’s and Walmart and all the candy companies. So this then is what one man gave his life for, it seems.

Actually, crucifixion was not all that uncommon a couple of thousand years ago, witness the pile of bones on Golgotha. Back then they did some gruesome things to people as a matter of course. That wasn’t really the issue. It was the fact that Christ was sold into the hands of his accusers for thirty pieces of silver. It was the fact that he was wrongly tried and convicted. That came to be the heart of the issue. And it wasn’t even Pontius Pilate, his executioner who was as much to blame for his death as it was Rome and the Jewish people who pressured him into it. Thus you have the original basis for anti Semitism.

The sad thing is that if you read human history all the way from King Herod through the execution of Christ, and have a look around you at the world today, we haven’t come very far. It’s a sorrowful commentary on humanity that it is able to preach about love and respect for one another and human kindness and then do the exact opposite. True not only of society, but of the church as well.

When you think about it, it wasn’t Christ who was the Christian. It was (St.) Peter who started the church business, based on his interpretation of the teachings of the Teacher. And the many forms the church has taken since are no better. It seems we are not destined to be tolerant and loving of our fellow man, but rather, greedy self serving predators bent on taking everything for ourselves at anybody else’s expense and the devil take the hindmost. So in the end, Easter has become a celebration of Macey’s and Walmart, or so it seems from up here on the top shelf. Happy Easter everybody.

Just sayin.     

Tempers in the House

Tempers in the House

I had just about given up on findin’ a topic to rant about this week. I didn’t want to start in on the Ukrainians again. Lord knows, they got enough people yellin’ at them. But I was interested in the news clip showin’ their parliamentarians expressin’ theirselves in the form of a good ol’ fashioned fistfight. I was impressed. Now that’s government in action! I don’t know what its conclusion was or how much blood was left on the floor, but at least these buggers were willin’ to back their opinions up.

Almost made me wish for the days of John Crosbie an’ Sheila Copps. In fact I was thinkin’ bout that when I caught a news piece on my ‘puter ‘bout how International Trade Minister Ed Fast made a gesture of pointin’ a gun at NDP critic Nikki Ashton. Actually there was a camera honed in on Ashton as he’s doin’ this. Well nobody’d a noticed except for NDP MP Dan Harris pointin’ it out as “an inappropriate gesture” an’ makin’ a big stink about it. In fact he challenged Fast to apologize for it. Of course, Fast refused, sayin’ it never happened (inspite of the incident being videotaped).

That’s it? THAT’S IT? Fast an’ Harris haranguin’ over an inappropriate gesture that Ashton never even noticed? What kind of stupid confrontation is that? It’s no wonder we have an ineffective, lame duck government. What would have happened had Ashton seen this gesture? Would she have also aimed her finger at Fast Eddie in retaliation? That would have been hilarious – a shoot-out in parliament with trigger fingers. Just like playin’ air guitars. At least Justin Trudeau had the courage to put on a pair o’ boxin’ gloves against Senator Brazeau an’ turn his lights out. An’ even that was a celebrity event not related to any disagreement.

I’ll tell you what. I haven’t seen anything appropriate that the government has done since the days of Lester B. Pearson. They can’t even get into a decent fight. The best they can do is to snipe at one another in the currently popular attack ads (which are all lies an’ innuendoes, by the way). It’s no wonder they don’t get no respect.

It seems to me that a good dust up in the house – you know, like they do in the NHL “hockey games”, would liven things up a bit. Who knows, people might even start to pay attention to these big-mouthed crooks. Might even change the way people vote. Might even MAKE people begin to vote again for a change.

 I think them Ukrainians are on to a good thing. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.

  

Foreign Aid

Foreign Aid

Five point six BILLION dollars! That’s what we spend on foreign aid every year. That ain’t no chump change an’ that’s a fact! An’ we’re about halfway down the list of donors.  Altogether there’s about a trillion bucks leaving our collective coffers every year to help somebody do somethin’ or other.  Here’s the thing. Nothin’ ever gets better for the receivin’ nations an’ yet we keep on dolin’ it out. It’s like they’re on some sort of a pension or somethin’. I can’t help but think it’s somethin’ like the senate. Ya sit around doin’ nothin’ an’ wonderin’ when it’s payday.

Well here’s what I’m thinkin’. A recent study shows that sixty percent of Canada’s northern population doesn’t have enough to eat. They go hungry every day. An’ when they do get something to eat, it’s just fast food junk anyways. That’s a pretty good gig for the food suppliers, the truckers an’ the airlines. An’ we already know there’s no drinkin’ water up there, no sewage systems no schools, no hospitals, no roads or nothin’. We been too busy buildin’ them things in places like Afghanistan. So what’s wrong with our northern population lobbyin’ the International Monetary Fund for foreign aid money to provide them with the necessities the same as them other countries we’re dolin’ out our money to?  When Lester Pearson suggested seven percent of our GDP go to foreign aid, he wasn’t countin’ on it bein’ taken away from Canadians in need. As it stands, we’re only givin’ three percent, so we’re rippin’ EVERYBODY off. I guess you could follow the money trail to where the rest goes.

I suppose you could paint an analogy of an itinerant father leavin’ his children to show off his benevolence to the world, except that he’s a cheapskate an’ doesn’t do much showin’ off except in his own mind. The upshot is that the father’s neglected children suffer in silence while the recipient others are somewhat disgusted with his tight pockets.

What the northern community needs to do is to mobilize the “Idle No More” gang to take up the cause and make as much noise as possible. There is enough evidence of its third world status and pressure needs to be brought to bear on the world for Canada to mend some of its fences at home before goin’ off into the wild blue yonder to flash it’s benevolent smile to the world. After all. A country that can’t look after its own affairs has no credibility in looking after the affairs of others. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.

 

 

 

 

 

Hey, Hey, Hey!

Hey Hey HEY!

Well, what’s important here anyways? That whole crummy Crimean crisis is knockin’ places like North Korea, Iran, Syria an’ other places right off the news map. Then on top of everythin’ else, that Malaysian airplane goes missin’ for three weeks an’ puts a cork in everbody else’s agenda. Holy H E double hockey sticks! What’s the world comin’ to anyways?

I mean, you got your prime minister flyin’ down there to be the first dignitary to show his support for the new Ukrainian government, beatin’ out all the others. What’s that all about? Is he shootin’ for a spot on the U. N. for his next career move? The missus says she don’t care where he goes, just fix the {God Damn} pot holes in Winnipeg first! She’s got a good point. Him flittin’ around here an’ there in his big airplane, and he’s gonna tell the G 7 a thing or two about his position on the Russians, like they give a rip about his opinion.

But I digress. People are startin’ to notice where all the attention is goin’. There was a sudden blip on the news the other day that Iran has announced that a nuclear deal is imminent. No response. In fact, once announced, the whole thing disappears from the news. I couldn’t find it anywheres. An’ Assad? Who’s heard o’ him lately? Remember him? He’s the evil butcher, slayin’ his own people to the tune of about one hunnert thousand so far. Nobody knows. What’s a person gotta do to get some attention around here? Even the Oscar Pistoreous trial just gets a casual glance these days. It got a little boost when they extended the trial with more disturbin’ evidence, but just barely.

The thing is that the Crimean situation is really old hat, when you come to think about it. Back in 1853, Tsar Nicholas decided to take it over. Well he never saw the end of it ‘cause he croaked in the meantime an’ his kid was left to clean up the mess. Well the kid wasn’t havin’ any o’ that so he took his troops an’ went home. The Brits an’ the French were a little more robust in them days an’ they kicked the Russians’ arses right outa Crimea. Good job they weren’t dumb enough to follow them to Moscow like Napoleon done.

I dunno, maybe Putin is tryin to make amends for THAT disgrace. Now THERE was a war worth talkin’ about. Remember “The Charge of the Light Brigade?” Would’a made old Mr. Cook, my high school English teacher proud. Seems the protagonists are a lot more timid these days than they used to be.

The whole business kinda gives you a sense of the same old sandbox game. Makes me think we ought’a make up our own news stories. They’d be just about as true as what you see on the news today anyways, an’ a whole lot more entertainin’ to boot. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.

How Many Solitudes?

How Many Solitudes?

It's far too easy to take up positions of opinion and align oneself with one side of an argument or another unless all the facts are fully known. I'm talking about the Ukraine of course and the Crimean situation. It's a very complicated affair to say the least. If you put yourself in the shoes of each and every faction, they can all be understood and empathized with. Not that any of them are right, but justifyable in their own minds.

Most of the Tatars living in Crimea and the Ukraine aren't old enough to remember when their forbears sided with the Germans to go against the Russians in WWII. And even if they know about it, they're not talking about it. In 1944 Stalin signed a decree uprooting them from Crimea and scattering them all over Russia away from their homeland. The loss of their personal possessions, and their homes and farmlands, THAT'S what they remember. The fact that these were reparations for the war damage is lost on them. They need a reason to hate the Russians, and there it is. Of course that's not how the Russians see it. I mean, somebody's got to pay for the damage done and who better than those who caused it? They did the same thing to the Mennonites who had followed the Germans back into Germany, pulling them out of Germany and populating Siberia with them.

And the Ukrainians of course remember Stalin's manufactured famine which killed millions. But you know, these things are all past. Somehow everyone overcame these terrible atrocities. In fact, until just a few weeks ago, Russians, Ukrainians, and Tatars were living side by side in Crimea as brothers, having buried their predjudices and opinions in some secret recesses of their minds. Then someone pricked a pin into the bubble, disagreeing with the Ukraine bowing to Russia's bail out program over the EU's offer. You can bet it was some cowardly politicians and not the people who started that! They knew the argument would raise the old memories and excite the people into mindless demonstrations. And that's exactly what happened.

Political leaders like Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandella don't exist any more and so you don't see millions of Ukranians marching to Moscow or wherever Putin holes up. Instead they're just yelling and screaming in the local square in Kiyiv while the politicians hotly debate the issues in the comfort of their parliament buildings. Everybody is just whistling into the wind.

In the meantime Putin is doing exactly what he wants and the devil take the hindmost. I know I've called him a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them. Neither is cowardly. The rest of the world should take a lesson from that. At least that's how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin'.

Dust, Dust, Dust!

Dust, dust, dust!

My neighbor is one o' them storytellers who's got to give you every detail of a story no matter how mundane. He's an old geyser like me so he's got nothin' but time on his hands. For example, this is what he says to me the other day:

'What in blazes? The missus is runnin around the house with her dust mop like Errol Flynn in a sword fight. Duster poised in her hand like a deadly rapier, she's stabbin' here an' there with pin point accuracy, all the while mutterin' loudly about where is all the dust comin' from.

“Didn't you vacuum just yesterday?” she wants to know.

“I did.”

“Well then, you tell me where all this comes from?” she says, takin' another series o'pokes at one o' the picture frames on the wall.

“I dunno, from in the air I guess.”

“It's driving me nuts!”, she says.

“Don't touch it – don't see it,” I tell her.

“There's a limit to that,” she says, quite rightly.

I don't know what to say to that. It's not that the missus is lookin' for a solution, cause there ain't none available. You can't just go an' get yourself some cataracts so as you can't see nothin'. An' I can't believe that this is a new phenomenon neither, cause dust has been around forever. It ain't as bad as it used to be back when Saskatchewan was migratin' across the country to Kenora or wherever in the dirty thirties mind you, but there seems to be a lot more of it around. I don't know, maybe it's just comin' loose from the ground an' hangin' around, suspended in mid air. Wouldn't surprise me none neither, what with all that sand and stuff they scatter all over the roads in winter. You'd think in winter there'd be no dust around, but the missus is right. It's all over the place.'

That's the story he told me, an' it got me to thinkin' about dust an' all. See, I got a theory that it's comin' from someplace else, maybe from Japan or someplace like that. It wouldn't surprise me one bit. Well you can see by the junk in the ocean which way the tides are blowin' where that garbage comes from. We seem to be havin' an Asian invasion of sorts, so maybe that's where the dust is originatin' from too. An' the way them volcanoes keep spoutin' off too, it's no wonder we got dust in the house.

An' the other day somebody discovered some kind'a disease germ in the permafrost up north that could'a been responsible for killin' off them dinasaurs way back when. They say it ain't contageous, but do you believe everythin' you hear on the news? We're getting' to be somewhat dinasaurs ourselves an' who knows if there ain't some o' them germs floatin' around in the dust. I wouldn't put it past 'em. Gives a whole new meanin' to; “and the meek shall inherit the earth” don't it?

Holy crap! We ain't gonna put up with that! So we went out an' bought one o' them dust buster hand vacuums you can do some serious dustin' 'round here with. You gotta fight fire with fire, I always say. Well I don't always say it but by gum, we ain't gonna take this lyin' down! If somebody's gonna send us dust, we got the equipment to bust it. At least that's how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin'.