END POVERTY. How About Trying Things That Might Work?

I am fascinated by things that some MPPs in Ontario (and some municipal and federal representatives) believe and champion about poverty despite the fact that they do not work and never will work.  Worse, some of their wrong-headed ideological forays succeed in exacerbating the problems they hope to solve.  Few of them have the wit or the gumption to tackle the wrenching systemic problems now beggaring the efforts of people who actually comprehend the problem of poverty and are doing their gritty best to solve it.  Here are examples from the Ontario scene.

• Ontario Works (Welfare in a new dress).  The stated aim of this program is to help people without assets or income survive and ultimately find legal income-producing activity.  The driving principle is laudatory but the program itself often is of miniscule help to many folks participating in it.  Apart from providing a woefully inadequate monthly stipend, it is bound by suspicion driven rules that claw back portions of the laughably inadequate benefit and often penalize people who are making great efforts to get back into the workforce.  It provides a pittance to many participants who cannot obtain work no matter how many seminars on resumes, interviewing and networking they are required to attend and no matter how many hours of counseling and encouragement the O.W. front line workers provide.  As an example, a 55 year old Tamil woman immigrant, recently widowed, possessing zilch work experience, speaking only rudimentary English and a frightened, lonely stranger in a strange land is flat out not employable. On the tiny stipend she gets from O.W., her only productive activity is that of surviving day to day.  The O.W. counsellors are required to keep trying to help her despite the futility and so they often neglect other clients who might actually succeed in finding a living wage.  They yearn for a government program that would simply support this beleaguered soul at a decent subsistence level but there isn't one except Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).

• ODSP, like OW is an excellent plan in principle.  It actually provides enough money to support a prudent person at a subsistence level.  To qualify for this program, you must have a physical or mental health disability severe enough that a physician or psychiatrist would assert that you are unemployable and will remain so for as long as the disability persists. Guess what?  OW counsellors and administrators are motivated to search for disabilities among their unemployables and encourage them to apply for ODSP if they find anything that might pass medical muster.  Many unemployables (and a few lazy employable people) find out about the program and limp, wheeze or babble to physicians in hope of being declared unfit to work.  Many do not qualify.  Being older and creaky in the joints is not considered a physical disability.  Being ill-educated, inarticulate, hungry, lonely and scared is not a mental health disability.  And so, many seek to appeal.

• Eligible and ineligible applicants alike get turned (again) down in wholesale lots.  The review tribunals have of late become cost driven and bloody-minded such that applicants who turn to assistance from their Community Legal Aid Clinics and obtain representation before the tribunals end up no further ahead.  This only serves to increase their distress and fuel their cynicism about a faceless "System" that apparently doesn't give a shit about them.  The Clinics - another excellent example of principled government response to the problems of people living in poverty - are themselves hamstrung by inadequate funding and wrong-headed micro management by their funding organization.  Not surprisingly given the problems with OW and ODSP the staff are overloaded with ODSP cases and spending gobs of unproductive time in hallways on uncomfortable chairs waiting to present to the review tribunals.  Meanwhile, new cases pile up on their desks to the extent that they feel like they are using sieves to bail out sinking boats.   The fact that they keep trying is a wonder of the modern age.  As if the situation was not bad enough, the income level at which people qualify for legal aid was established over ten years ago.  It was too low then and is now so out of line with economic realities that it should be an embarrassment to the government of the day.  But politicians do not embarrass easily.  Their priorities lie elsewhere.  Meanwhile, the legal aid clinics have to turn away many people who are losing their homes, being jerked around by bureaucrats, abused in their minimum wage non union workplaces, fired without cause or compensation, denied Employment Insurance benefits - the list could go on - because the rules say that they are just too well off.  Is someone earning $30,000. per year and caring for two or three kids in our current urban economy too well off?  Someone in that situation does not have a hope in hell off affording the services of a private practice lawyer and so is left to suck it up.  Screwed again.

The meta problem here is not just ignorant or uncaring politicians who do not grasp the nettle for all that they have considerable culpability.  It is not simply a matter of the government coughing up more money, for all that a few more bucks would really help.  Nor is it lack of effective cooperation/communication among social agencies although that lack is real and apparent.  It is certainly not  deficiency in the skill and dedication of front line workers who work with a will to ameliorate the corrosive effects of poverty but are not equipped to bring money, resources and collective wisdom to the pressing problem of actually eliminating poverty.

The problem is our collective failure to understand the causes of poverty and concurrently realize that poverty does not just grind the hope and humanity out of the poor and their children, it damages all of us as it tears at the fabric of our society.  Ultimately, it makes us less free, less safe, more frightened, callous and withdrawn.  It causes us to retreat to indifference and denial or treat those in poverty with contempt and abuse.  We tell the panhandler to get a job or simply yell "Piss off!"  We call the police when some homeless guy pees on a wall.  Slowly but surely we come to see the poor as "lesser than", undeserving, lacking in character and gumption and authors of their own sorry situations.  Our politicians hear this and respond.  Alas, their responses too often demean them and demean all of us.

Municipal politicians enact by laws that turn the marginally housed into the homeless.  They support or ignore the caustic whining of community groups who oppose shelters and hospices in their neighborhoods despite the transparent stupidity of their complaints.  These people of the narrow view seem to think that it is better to leave impoverished, addicted often disabled "losers" on the streets unsupervised and creating mischief than to have them safely housed, respectfully supervised, receiving medical attention and being helped to reclaim their tattered lives.

At the provincial and federal levels our elected leaders cleave to costly and demonstrably ineffective responses.  For them, it gets votes to be "tough on crime", build more prisons, attack mythical welfare cheats and "save" money by reducing support programs.  The reality is that this punitive chest thumping approach costs unconscionable gobs of money and worsens the problem.  It drives people into petty crime, addictions and worse.  Incarceration is hugely expensive and has little rehabilitative effect.  The incarcerated eventually return to their communities embittered, more unemployable than before, more prone to addiction and more likely to engage in crime.  As the problem worsens as a result of the political non-solution, our senior levels of government respond with more punitive action and the cycle continues.  I think it was Albert Einstein who declared, "... the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over in hope of a different result."  Some call this the triumph of hope over reason.  Others use stronger language.

Better minds than mine have engaged the problem of poverty reduction.  Wiser men and women have spent uncounted years yelling into the political void through learned dissertations, finely written task force reports, "hair on fire" popular articles, letters to editors and passionate challenges to politicians.  The effect has been one of sending prayers to the gods for intercession and having them all go to voice mail.

"Your call is important to us...".  Apparently, it isn't.

I cannot propose a grand solution - I do not have one.  Fortunately, others have.  What I can do is remind everyone I can reach that Ontario goes to the polls on October 6th.  Please vote, and as you make your decisions give some thought as to which contending party and which individual candidates have the best grasp of the destructive problem of poverty and therefore which ones might champion some approaches that would work.

Votes do not go to voice mail.

911 Pornography

I avoided radio and the idiot's lantern (TV) today.  For me, there would be no pleasure or learning to come from listening and watching the broadcast networks. These absurd propaganda generators are engaged in grotesque competition to achieve the nadir in mawkish, dribbling and self-righteous ejaculations of piety, faux empathy and jingoistic dick-wagging.  I would feel only anger bordering on rage to suffer splatters of rhetorical vomitus from the likes of George Bush, Dick Cheney and their ilk. They are little men of little character who ignored solid, accurate warnings of the attack and once they occured hastened to extract maximum political and ideological benefit from a day of shock, sorrow and tragic loss.

Equally, I have no wish to revisit the craven failings of North American media as they became complicit in turning the American people into a tribe of bed-wetting children convinced that the evil "Moozlims" might kill them in their beds.  Worse, they became cheerleaders for the Iraq adventure, an ill-conceived campaign which killed twice as many young Americans as did the Twin Tower attacks when there was no logical reason for doing it.  They went along with Draconian assaults on freedom and privacy.  They approved of the theatre of the absurd airport security measures that plague us still. And they never championed truth.

The successful attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were classic terrorist activities.  Their purpose was to terrify the populace, incite massive, ill-considered reaction and invite the Muslim population in the US to rise up in revolt.  On the first two counts, they achieved splendid success.  On the third, their failure was complete.  American Muslims, secular, many of them were Americans first and foremost and wanted no part of military Jihad aimed at their country of birth or choice.  Still do not, despite the repeated insults they have suffered since at the hands of profoundly stupid, vicious people.

Terrorism succeeds when those attacked agree to be terrorized, shit their collective pants, buy canned goods and emergency radios for their hidey holes in their suburban basements and attend to the frothing nonsense delivered by witless media and ignorant pundits.  Bin Laden won the day.  On this day of national breast beating you will hear no admission of this lamentable fact.  Beyond that, Bin Laden accelerated the rapid decline of the American Empire.  On this 10th Anniversary consider;

• America ranks behind dozens of countries in educational achievement.
• It is unable to provide adequate health care for millions (around 47 million) citizens.
• Its effective unemployment rate is over 16%
• Its production in both manufacturing and service sectors has been delegated to low wage countries.
• All of the current Presidential wannabes believe that the world was created "as is" 6,500 years ago, Jesus was friends with dinosaurs, The Flintstones is a documentary, global warming is a lie promulgated by atheistic scientists trying to cadge grant money from "hard workin', tax payin' patriotic Murricans", taxation is an evil when applied to the rich like us, and the poor should not have the right to vote because they are moochers and not producers.
• Young American veterans of unnecessary wars are lionized by rich, fat old creeps who artfully avoided military service for lack of courage.  These same veterans are suffering, unemployed, in trouble with the law, committing suicide and languishing in mental hospitals at rates far above the national average.  The rich, fat old creeps declare that it would be imprudent to spend money on them because "...we have this deficit problem...".  Of course.

Is this decline in economic, moral and social terms?

What, exactly are Americans celebrating on this, the 10th anniversary of the 911 tragedy?

Beats me.

FORLORN

I am now back home from stomping around Germany and Austria for three weeks.  We had a great time; stories to follow in a later post.

Recovery day today.  I am parked on the porch, beer in hand and exchanging plaintive whistles with a sad little cardinal who visits regularly.  The poor little bugger is absolutely crestfallen.  Its problem, I think is that he/she is a transvestite.  It is tiny.  Baby sparrows push it out of the birdbath.  It has a manly red head but the dull, brown body of a female.  What I know of cardinal social systems is that bigger and redder  males get the pick of females.  As a result, my little buddy sits for hours in the 'phone wire or on top of the bramble bush hollering, "I'm horny!  Wanna do nest?" but no winsome chicks reply.  He has to settle for my sympathetic whistles in reply.  He needs to find a social network and through that a plump, red-assed, brown-headed cardinal of uncertain sexual orientation who would at least hang out with him/her.  Perhaps then he could raise his crest with pride and adopt a couple of abandoned eggs.  I wish him the best.

My forlorn cardinal reminds me of a remarkable soldier who once reported to me in my paratrooper days.  Corporal Vince was a short, muscular man with the bootprints of military life on his craggy face.  Along with his campaign ribbons he wore two medals for uncommon bravery under fire.  He was as tough and intrepid as you could ask, honorable, decent and as gentle or hard-assed as the situation required.  He was also gay.  He rarely spoke of this beyond saying when questioned, "In uniform, I keep my fly buttoned.  I am a soldier and a responsible NCO".  He was.

Vince hit retirement age after a lifetime of soldiering.  He did not want to retire.  I pushed for an extension for him and got no-where.  He departed for Montreal where he grew up, "came out" and attempted to invest himself in the city's gay community.  That community was nasty and unwelcoming.  Vince didn't look or act gay and so he lived a solitary life, friendless after 25 years in a military community in which he was welcomed, respected and even honoured.  Eventually, he gave up.  He stuffed his medals and Service Book in his pocket to aid in his identification, walked to the Jacques Cartier bridge and, in the way of old paratroopers, bailed off the highest point without benefit of parachute.  Exit a fine Canadian hero in a way that only a soldier would understand and salute.

I hope that my forlorn cardinal has a happier ending.  I will continue to offer encouragement.

WHY GROWN MEN SIGH

In the midst of e-mail exchanges with fellow members on a provincial board I serve, I produced an over-the-top, hyper-coy euphemism for looming trouble ahead by declaring, "The anal effluent is moving toward the rotary air handling device".


Afterward, I wondered where in my grotty psyche this came from.  Then, I remembered.

Years ago as a young pup consultant in an old, prestigious consulting firm I was tasked with reviewing C.V.s of hundreds of expat Canadian scholars and recommending which ones the Federal Government might wish to lure back to Canada to counter the mythical "brain drain" then thought to be threatening Canada's future.  How the Feds thought they would do the luring was unclear but they were willing to commission the research so...

My marching orders were clear - look only at those in hard science programs; no unproductive artsy/literary/musical/philosophical people were wanted.  I waded through stacks of turgid stuff about nascent engineers, baby computer boffins  and mad mathematicians in the making in search of those predestined to "Build Canada's Future".  Boring stuff until I hit pay dirt.  I came across a newly-minted PhD in Chemical Engineering whose doctoral thesis was entitled, "The Effects of Axial Rotation in Sewage Flotation Tanks." 


 Wow!  I discovered the first Canadian to have received a doctorate in Shit-Disturbing.  Here was a young man who could become a great political leader or Canada's answer to Saul Alinsky.  I delivered this exciting news to the solid grey Partner to whom I reported.  He stared at me for a moment, sighed and dryly inquired, "Evans, did you find any nuclear scientists?"


My solid grey boss often wondered about me and sighed.  He began doing so after the day I recommended a Ribbon Cutting Ceremony to celebrate the firm's first ever hiring of a foreign born, dark skinned consultant.


These days, others stare at me and sigh.  Let them.  I still think that a PhD in Shit Disturbing is a rare and wonderful credential to have.  

MORE ON LEADERSHIP - A Folk Tale

I go on about leadership because it is mostly evident by its absence in the Canadian polity.  We do not see it in business, political life or the media and we all suffer for its lack.  I wrote a book about it (MORAL LEADERSHIP:  Facing Canada's Leadership Crisis - McGraw-Hill Ryerson.)  I have lectured about it in the tradition of, "Them what can, does - Them what can't teaches".

There is an old Spanish folk tale that gets at the essence of leadership, which to my mind is simply the exercise of moral courage.  The tale goes as follows,

There was a little man and he led a little life.

One day, he began to pack his little bag.

They came and they asked, "What are you doing?  Where are you going?"

He replied, "I am packing my bag and going to Conamera."

They said, "You mean, you are going to Conamera God willing."

He replied, "No, I mean I am going to Conamera."

So God changed him into a frog, and placed him in the Frog Pond for seven years.

When God changed him back, what did he do?

Well, he began again to pack his little bag.

They came and they asked, "What are you doing?  Where are you going?".

He replied, "I am packing my bag and going to Conamera".

They said, "You mean you are going to Conamera, God willing".

He replied, "No, I mean I am going to Conamera...

Or back to the Frog Pond."

The Little Man reminds me of another Little Man I met only once, several years ago.  I was called in my role as a consultant to do damage control and trauma intervention at a necessary but lamentable firing of a long-serving Vice President of a major Canadian university.  The President - the Little Man I refer to - was on sick leave.  He was in the last stages of dying of ALS.  When I arrived, the executive who retained me and was to have delivered the bad news to the VP informed me that he received a note from the President which read as follows,

"I hired her.  I mentored her.  She reported always to me.  I will dismiss her - personally.  I owe her that respect."

An hour later the President was helped from the ambulance and for the last time into the big leather chair in his office.  He was given a pad and pen because he no longer had the ability to speak.  He wrote a while and handed to result to his distressed executive to read on his behalf.  The VP was invited in to the office.  The appointed executive read the words written to her while the President maintained unswerving eye contact.  He then held her hands for a moment, nodded farewell and went home to complete the process of dying.

Afterward, I glanced at the handwritten script.  At the top of the page the President had printed in caps,  

"DIGNITY".

This Little Man (he was tiny in stature) was one of the special people who enriched and informed my life.  He was a leader; an exemplar and a man of real courage.  I met few like him in my long business career.  I see none like him in the world of politics, the big bureaucracies and the importuning social service agencies.  To find his like I have to hark back to the gritty, raucous NCOs and officers in the military from whom I received my earliest training in being a leader and in just being a man.  They did the right thing, usually, these gutsy ruffians.  They did it sometimes in ways that would curl your hair and send smarmy, politically correct nice nellies to the fainting couch but dammit, the right thing.  Honouring dignity can come in interesting disguise.

I suspect that I wrote this to challenge myself.  I invite you to do likewise.  Our screwed up world needs all the help it can get.

PS:  The previous post below about Irshad Manji may be helpful.

A NOTE ON LEADERSHIP AND A BOOK PROMO

What does a young, mouthy, brown-skinned Muslim dyke have to say about leadership in this complicated, fucked-up world of ours?  A lot.  And, she doesn't just say the words, she lives by what she says.  She is making a difference.

Irshad Manji's spark burns bright.  I met her years ago at a couple of Couchiching Conferences.  She would not remember me but I surely remember her.  As my old buddy Sister Ginny remarked at the time, "When Irshad matures a bit and gets focused, watch her go."  Well, she went.  And continues to go.  Her latest enema for a world in need of a good purge is in the form of a book,

ALLAH, LIBERTY AND LOVE

the Courage to Reconcile Faith and Freedom

Random House Canada 2011

Is Irshad a leader?   How many devout Muslims have you heard from who distinguish between Islamic faith and the corrupt, backward culture surrounding it?  How many are prepared to say in public, death threats be damned that the destructive, bloody-handed culture must be flogged into the 21st century?  How many are willing to challenge ossified old Imams on their own turf - interpretation of the Koran?  And how many speak with power and conviction to the fact that no woman of any faith or none is "lesser than" because she has indoor plumbing?  Irshad does these things with sometime ferocious passion and is heard.  She is a leader.

Since I am expiating some crankiness here, let me offend my Christian friends by inquiring not gently when Irshad's counterpart will emerge among them to shred the equally corrupt and backward Christian culture that is increasingly anti-science, anti gay, Islam-phobic, angry, insular, fearful, bellicose and intellectually barren?  When will we be done of abominations like the Vatican, The American Family Association, braying fundamentalist preachers on TV replete with bad hair and worse attitudes, the incoherent clattering of thousands of warring protestant sects speaking their crabbed versions of truth and the anti-social navel-gazing of ultra-orthodox Jews?  When will the humanistic sensibility so evident and so ignored in the texts and histories of the great religions regain its footing in this philosophically knackered world?  To their credit, at least the Buddhists manage not to add to the confusion.

As you might guess, I am a-religious and a bit anti-religious.  I am not a proponent of atheism.  That is one more "ism".  I am done with "isms"for they slam and bolt the door on the thinking, wonder and hope that sustain us.  If you want a label for me, try Pain in the Ass.

Once you all have given me a ritual beating for my rhetorical excess I will return to this subject.  For now, think about leadership in a world in need of it.  I have little talent for it but know it when I see it.  I wrote a book about it - MORAL LEADERSHIP: Facing Canada's Leadership Crisis (McGraw-Hill Ryerson).  It is out of print but is still around in university and public libraries if you are curious.  The essence of the book is a simple aphorism,

Leadership, stripped of all its rhetorical trappings is simply the exercise of moral courage.

The Epilogue read as follows,

"A down-at-the-heels fifty-something man in a dirty raincoat with a lunch bag protruding from his pocket stops at a newspaper box.  The door is not latched.  He opens the box and looks at the stack of papers.  A moment later, he closes the box firmly, rummages in his pocket, finds a toonie and shoves it in the slot and again closes the door firmly.  Having presented his morality play to an audience of one - himself - he proceeded down the street to the subway entrance.

This one very ordinary man performed a solitary act of faith and citizenship that speaks to the heart and soul of leadership.  He works for a company somewhere in the city.  He will vote in the next election.  He asks no more of his boss and of his chosen political leader than that they be as worthy of leading him as he is worthy of being led.

He asks for the exercise of moral courage and by his little act of faith, exemplifies it.  He is, after all, a leader."

I suspect that all of us can perform little acts of faith in defense of humanity and damn the personal consequences.  Better to speak out and risk being catastrophically wrong than to stand silent for you can always apologize, clean up the mess and step aside if need be.  May our failings be in commission rather than omission.

Here, the rant ends.  My next post will engage with something fun like proctology or castrating camels.

Note the Comments section.  Have a go - I would love to get some feedback here or on Facebook.

Read Irshad's book.

STUNNING FILM

Here is a link to a three minute film with six lines of dialogue.  It is breathtaking in its power and simplicity.

It reminds me of Hemingway's example of a six word short story,

Baby shoes for sale.

Never used.

The Link:  http://www.porcelainunicorn.com

DECISIONS AND EXPLOSIONS

Life is not fair.  It is merely interesting.  Accept that and your universe will begin to unfold splendidly.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Here are two related anecdotes in support of this philosophy.

The Commander of the Canadian Forces in Korea during that conflict was Brigadier (later General) John D Rockingham.  To his fans, and there were many, he was referred to reverentially as "Rocky" and his troops were called "Rocky's Army".  To his numerous detractors he was known as J. Roaringham Frozenballs, the biggest self-adulating jackass ever to accept the Queen's shilling.  Polarizing, he was.

Long after Canada was done with Korea and I had begun my military career, Rocky was fond of making the rounds of military units to reconnect with "his boys", the still serving Korean vets, drink a lot of scotch and tell wondrous tales.  He happened upon my unit one night as we officers were having our monthly formal dinner.  In he came in scarlet jacket and three decks of medals, looking like an Hungarian Bandmaster or a refugee from a Village People concert.  He bellowed bonhomie.  He drank and told his stories.  Eventually, he cornered Lt. "Libby", an over-the-hill vet with his own impressive rack of decorations.  As Rocky soon discovered, Libby was a charter member of the "Frozenballs" contingent.  He called Rocky on his over the top stories, failed to laugh at his clumsy witticisms and finally wondered aloud about Rocky's acquaintance with the truth.  Rocky took a swing at him and missed.  Libby didn't miss.  Rocky ended up on his ass behind a couch.  The Rocky fans rushed to the aid of their comatose hero.  The Frozenballs gang locked Libby in a storage closet with some beers and a bucket to pee in.  Libby saw the wisdom in this - it is never a good idea to punch out a General, whatever the provocation.

Rocky awoke and couldn't remember who whacked him.  Libby remained incarcerated until Rocky departed.

This Libby saga actually goes somewhere - bear with me.

Libby thought that he would like to retire as a Captain or maybe a Major - better pension etc.  Accordingly, he kept trying (and failing) his written promotion exams.  Now, incoming mortar bombardments and small arms fire he could handle with aplomb but a written exam?  Pure terror time.  The last time he tried I was writing for the first time.  The big question in the three hour marathon (60% of the total marks) was to find and document an elegant solution to a complex, time sensitive tactical dilemma.  So, there is this bridge being defended by an armoured regiment while the tattered remains of an infantry battalion limps to safety across the wide river.  Approaching at speed is a Fantasian mechanized brigade intent on crossing the river to lay waste our crops and ravage our womenfolk.   The problem posed:  As commander of a smallish force of infantry, armour, demolitions guys and artillery on the safe side of the bridge, how do you get the retreating infantry and armour to safety and concurrently delay the Fantasian advance until heavy re-enforcements or a tactical nuke arrive to drive them back?

We were given lots of stuff to work with - maps, situation reports, intel on the Fantasian capabilities and equipment etc.  In the silence of the examination hall there was only the rattling of maps and the tap-tap of calculators as we estimated targets, calculated movement speed, inventoried demolition supplies and otherwise pondered myriad possibilities.  Libby fretted.  He sweated.  Threw pencils on the floor.  Took pee breaks.  Mumbled.  Then, the solution came to him.  He shattered the quiet of the hall with a roar,

"BLOW THE GODDAM BRIDGE!" 

 He then scribbled furiously in his exam booklet until the closing bell.

Those of us who passed, Libby among us discovered after a fruitless search for an "elegant" solution that there wasn't one to be had.  The good, or at least adequate course of action was to get some of the retreating troops to safety riding on tank decks then curse the gods and take out the bridge.  In an odd way, Libby's winning solution was like the one he chose when Rocky took a swing at him.  They both had serious down sides and ethical implications.  In short, they were just plain nasty decisions that in a just and fair world would not arise.  And both involved dropping pursuit of the perfect to achieve a good or at least the passable outcome.

Dilemmas like these abound in our personal and work lives.  Organizational leaders face them frequently and how they respond often predicts how well the whole organization does on its perilous pursuit for survival.  Two examples come to mind, both of them involving excellent social service enterprises.  

The first one is a multi-faceted not for profit shop serving a large urban community.  Its clients are individuals who for various reasons are homeless or hungry or unemployed or suffering mental health problems or are among the working poor or all of the above.  The organization's driving ethic is that of unconditional acceptance of and respect for all of the people it serves.  This ethic has worked wonders over the years because it gives its clients a place of safety, support and genuine encouragement.  In response, the clients find the resolve to tackle their grinding problems in creative ways and in many cases become productive, contributing citizens after years of fruitless wheel-spinning or worse.  It is not just a happy accident that the organization employs a number of former clients.

But all is not well in Camelot.  The grand and laudable ethic has become for some senior members of the organization an ideology that invites no questioning.  This rigidity has consequences, among them exhaustion and burnout among front line workers who feel that to give up on clients because of their intransigence, inability to accept a shred of personal responsibility or in some cases their malevolent and potentially dangerous behaviour is to break the faith or earn the disapproval of the leaders.  And so they invest huge gobs of time and psychic energy in these hard cases, often to the neglect of other clients.  Alternatively, they confront their hard cases and say, "Enough" - in effect, they throw a punch or, "blow the goddam bridge" but are then fearful that they will face censure for having done so.  Equally troubling, the organization's ideology subtly  but effectively inveighs against confrontation of any kind.  For some of the client hard cases that is received not as acceptance and respect but as license to do whatever they goddam well please.  And they do.  Finally, the unspoken injunction against confrontation constipates and distorts internal communication and applies a layer of misleading moral treacle to most internal discussions.  In short, folks learn that there are some things best not said.  In this organization, throwing a punch or "blowing the goddam bridge" is an absolute no-no.

The second organization serves similar clients but province-wide through a close affiliation of independent operations oriented to their local communities.  Their services are specialized but they work in close harmony with organizations like the one described above.  With their client first ethic and strong community orientation they value cooperation, trust and fair play.  No-one could accuse them of intransigence or militancy.  Their modest funding comes from a single provincial agency that traditionally was responsible for championing their work, getting maximum bucks together, distributing them fairly and thereafter auditing to ensure that they were being spent with caution and fiscal prudence.

Something changed over the years.  The funding organization through a succession of increasingly power hungry CEOs and increasingly compliant boards of directors began to meddle in operations under the guise of ensuring financial probity.  Demands for elaborate reports grew.  Cost-cutting directives flowed out to operations already on tight, controlled budgets.  Salaries for front liners went unchanged for years and they were skinny to begin with.  Meanwhile, the funding organization hired additional highly paid help and cranked up managerial salaries over the six figure level while crying poor.  At first, the community organizations responded in good faith by questioning some directives and offering creative solutions to the calls for economies and cost reductions.  Their responses went largely ignored and unanswered except for veiled and not so veiled threats about forced amalgamations, salary reductions and demands to find cheaper accommodation.  Their Association went to bat for them on a province-wide basis and came away with similar results.

Now, folks are getting seriously irritated and feeling threatened.  As much as they would rather tend to their clients and communities and as much as they favour conciliation over confrontation, they are coming to realize almost too late that there comes a time to throw a punch or "blow the goddam bridge". They desperately do not want to take the risk of losing but are accepting the need to confront and live with the marginally acceptable result they may achieve.

I believe that both of these fine organizations will survive and grow but I believe equally that both will need to suffer their palace revolts and redefine themselves in specific ways.  Both will have their equivalents of Libby's night in a storage closet with a bucket of pee for company.  Both will have to incorporate into their thinking and actions the ugly truth that life is not fair and that noble pursuit of ideal solutions without accepting the messy reality of confrontation and marginally OK results is ultimately an exercise in futility.

Organizational psychologist Douglas MacGregor once offered a subtle, insightful aphorism as a guide to effective managerial behaviour.  He declared simply that, "People will behave in about they way you expect them to."  He went on to caution that this was a guide and not an ideological absolute.  While most folks and organizations will respond to courteous, trusting behaviour by being trustworthy and respectful, some will not.  For that troublesome minority I suspect that MacGregor would agree that you have to throw a punch or blow the goddam bridge if you hope to survive with your integrity intact.

REQUIEM FOR A NEW FRIEND

Big, rude, cranky Robert died today.  He had lived for the past year in a splendid semi-hospice for street people where I work part time.  Robert was an "original" - one of the first three to move in around opening day.  His gloomy, whiskery picture hangs in the office and will remain.

I came to know Robert a little.  God, knows, he did not make that an easy task.  For months, I was the "nemesis on his premises", someone I must have wronged in a previous life for he reacted to me as if I had put X Lax in his coffee and nettles in his jock strap.  My friendly greetings were met with silence or a mumbled, "Fuck Off!"  Cheerful goodbyes produced, "Bout fukkin' time!"

Time passed and Robert acclimatized to me.  He discovered four things;

1. I could cook, make coffee and sort out his meds as well as the regular staff.
2. I was an easy mark for a ciggie or a Loonie for a lottery ticket.
3. When pushed to serious annoyance, I would get in his face and tell him to fuck off.
4. I was around to be helpful and enjoyed being so.

There came a turning point in our fractious relationship.  One evening, after a fuck you - fuck off exchange, Robert told me that he was going to the variety store for a lottery ticket and did I want anything? 

"Nope, but here's a fiver.  Get another ticket but the deal is, you win big, we split it."

Once he had finished his "Scratch & Lose" tickets, I brought him a cookie and a decaf as a consolation prize.  Minutes later, he shambled into the office where I was dozing in a chair and surprisingly, sat down.  He shyly offered me a rather decent Cuban cigar (which, for a heavy smoker and a guy who lived on pocket change was no small thing) and thanked me for the coffee.

For the first time I was able to look into his eyes and get a visceral impression of the man.  The sadness I saw behind his eyes brought me close to tears.  As he talked haltingly he gave clues about the profound hurt he carried, the losses, the fear of dying and the feeling that the world gave him lemons without ever showing how to make lemonade.  He did not say much - he was not given to introspection and was far from talkative - but he did make it clear that he valued friendship and was seeking mine.

I am too late to tell him that I would have been happy to be his friend.  I hope that he recognized that I saw who he was.

Robert was a big, handsome man with a good soul, sore wounded.  He was a man, a citizen, a Canadian and of this earth - not just on it for a while.  He lived his little life as best he could and saw his end with the usual terror followed by peace as he realized that he would no longer be.

Most of all, he was a new friend.  I mourn his passing.

THIS POST MAY GET ME IN TROUBLE

Iain Macdonald (Best Friend, Reverend, Mench, Political Pot Stirrer etc.) mentioned the iconic Joe Btfsplk in a recent Facebook comment.  Joe, he of permanent black cloud fame was the creation of satirist/cartoonist Al Kapp whose deliciously subversive humour was expressed through the long-running (1934 - 1977) comic strip, Li'l Abner.


As a teenager of my era I was a virginal, sexually clueless doofus with a permanent erection who wasn't sure why Marilyn Munroe pin-ups gave me such interesting feelings.  I was also a Lil Abner aficionado not least because of the scantily clad and voluptuous  women of Dogpatch.  I fell in love with two of them - Moonbeam McSwine and Stupifyin' Jones.  Both scared me as much as they appealed to my fermenting supply of unemployed hormones.  Looking back now on Kapp's feminine archetypes I realize that in the over-the-top physiques and behavioural extremes he gave his characters, he was describing personality types he encountered in the real world.  If this is so, I believe that we could invent a self-validating personality test using Kapp's lovelies.

Here is how the test might work.

Read the following character descriptions.

If you are female, determine which character's personality is most like yours.  Don't focus on your physical appearance or your persona - the way you want the world to see you.  Go instead to your witchy private place and consider how you really are or how you would like to be if you were free of societal pressures and expectations.  I will give you one bit of wiggle room here.  You may if necessary combine two archetypes and become for example a Moonbeam/Mammy Yokum.

If you are male, select the archetype that most closely epitomizes the personality of your ideal woman.  Never mind your cultivated image as upstanding citizen, responsible parent and moral paragon free of all impure thoughts.  And don't even think about how your mother would react to your selection.  You may have the same wiggle room and combine two archetypes.

Here are the characters,

Daisy Mae:  A Parton-esque long legged beauty of paralyzing innocence and indestructible good humour who yearned above all else to marry and raise lots of children.  She fancied Li'l Abner over all others but, unlike some of other characters described below she would not even think about grabbing the big dolt by the ear and hauling him to the hay loft for some advanced sex-ed.  Daisy Mae was a woman of infinite patience.  Her approach was to exude her doe-like charm toward Li'l Abner while ingratiating herself to Abner's Mammy, the ferocious Yokum clan matriarch.  This was a tough act for her in that she was a member of the hated Scragg family.  The Scraggs and the Yokums had been at war since Christ was a Lance Corporal.  It is fair to credit Daisy Mae with the virtues of determination,  courage and diplomatic skill.

Apassionata von Climax:  (How did Kapp get that name past the censor in those repressive times?)  Apassionata was a sophisticated, well-educated working woman from the Big City who visited Dogpatch and met Li'l Abner.  The result was electric.  The primitive, lizard part of her brain took over, screaming, "Breed with him!  Do it now!  Yes, here on the kitchen table and keep doing it until he is a slobbering wreckage!"  Her calculating logic was no match for her hormone explosion.  Never mind that Abner would not survive in her world any more than she could survive in Dogpatch.  She knew that but fell victim to the pernicious mythology embraced by all women that, "I can change him - he can learn some table manners and quit picking his nose and he will look splendid in a tux and and and..."  Apassionata never gave up trying.  She could never visit Dogpatch without being enveloped immediately in a damp fog of pure lust.  Clueless Abner found her fascinating but didn't know why.  He never responded to her obvious invitations.  As a result, poor Apassionata remained single and mostly alone.  No men in her world of power lunches, cocktail parties and avant-garde theatre could ever arouse her the way that Abner did.

Moonbeam McSwine:  In appearance and radiant sexuality, Moonbeam may well have been modeled on Jane Russell.  Her style of dress was haute Dogpatch - 85% skin to 15% strategically placed bits of cloth.  Every male in Dogpatch was acutely aware of her charms and at the same time frightened and repelled by her disinterest in personal hygiene, her choice of friends, unique living arrangements and especially her haughty disregard for the lot of them.  For her part, Moonbeam had looked over the gentlemen of Dogpatch and concluded that pigs made for better company in the sense that they were more intelligent, better behaved and more reliable.  Her whole persona seemed to boil down to, "If you are man enough, come closer and you may be rewarded but do not dare question my lifestyle.  I am WOMAN,  dirty feet, pigs and fragrance included."

Stupifyin' Jones:   She was so named because of her extraordinary beauty.  Men (and most women) were struck dumb and paralyzed by her appearance.  Poor Jones was unaware of her visual charms and was puzzled, no, saddened by the fact that no man ever approached her with friendly or lustful intent.  She thought of herself as OK looking and nice enough but would have laughed at any suggestion that she was possessed of ethereal beauty.  Poor Jones.  Men took one look at her and concluded that no-one that gorgeous could possibly be interested in them.  Accordingly, they escaped what they figured would be instant disappointment and embarrassment by avoiding and ignoring her.  (Guys: Did you ever work up the nerve to ask the Prom Queen or the Head Cheerleader on a date?  Thought so.)  And so, Stupifyin' Jones, possibly the best catch in Dogpatch struggled on in stoic resignation.

Mammy Yokum:  Mammy was no looker but when she spoke, folks listened.  As Li'l Abner's Mammy she was continuously engaged in cookin' up po'k chops 'n turnips for her ravenous clod of a son and his lazy no-count Pappy.  Seven meals of chops and turnips per day was standard in the Yokum household.  When not cooking she was washing, cleaning, forcing Pappy off his butt and out to work and nagging Li'l Abner about callin' Marryin' Sam and gettin' hitched up with Daisy Mae.  Beyond that, she was The one woman Dogpatch Dispute Resolution Committee (sweet reason followed if necessary by a devastating left hook), the Community Social Organizer and a Good Samaritan always happy to whomp up po'k chops and turnips for hungry folks.  She was in every way the precursor of the Super Mom currently either saluted and reviled across North America.  Nobody messed with Mammy, not even Earthquake McGoon despite his formidable bulk and reputation as "world's dirtiest rassler".

There are your personality types.  Pick one or any a combination of two - I dare you.  I also dare you to confess your selection in the Comments section below.  (Anonymous submissions are welcome and expected.)  As is the case with any self-validating personality inventory, there are no wrong and right answers.  And if you believe that, you never took a psych course and learned that psychologists lie a lot.

If I get enough comments and good reader advice I will attempt to construct some sort of a rating protocol for this.  It would likely take the form of,

If you are a stupifyin' Jones/Mammy Yokum combination, you see yourself as.... others see you as... and you would really prefer to be...
 
You can then inflict the test on your friends at the next wine enhanced party you attend.

Have fun!

OSAMA BIN LADEN. I Hear That He is Dead

Sometime in 2002 I attempted to start my own conspiracy theory - Canadian made - as to the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden.  The American wingnuts were having all of the fun and getting all of the press coverage, here and elsewhere.

My foray into that land of lunacy consisted of an e-mail blast (This was pre Facebook and Twitter) alleging breathlessly that the elusive terrorist capo had been smuggled into Canada by the Mossad and was living in Montreal east sans beard and robes.  My top secret sources advised that he was earning his keep by delivering bags of fresh bagels for a Jewish bakery.  He had taken the pseudonym "Ozzie Ben" and because of his daily labours was known on the Anglo street as Ozzie Bun Laden.  Further, Mossad had retained the services of a local Jewish biker gang called Hillel's Angels to provide him protection.

As a conspiracy generator I was a failure.  Not even the Toronto Sun bit on it.  The RCMP never called.  CSIS yawned.  The CIA did not bother to tap my 'phone let alone stuff me in a sack and Fedex me to Syria to answer some friendly questions about my sources.

I failed.  To console myself I did some solid research and wrote a long article about the historical context and longer term implications of the 911 attack on America and the rise of Al Qaeda.  It was well-received by all readers including the print media.  But no publication was prepared to print it because it ran so against the grain of the then prevailing public narrative.

I re-read the article today and am dismayed at how little we have learned over the past nine years.  Here, unedited is what I said in 2002.  I stand by it.  More, I recommend that you take the time to read it.

__________________________________________

THE WORLD OF OSAMA BIN LADEN

March, 2002

"Man would fain be great and sees that he is littls; would fain be happy and sees that he is miserable; would fain be perfect and sees that he is full of imperfections; would fain be the object of love and esteem of men and sees that his faults merit only their aversion and contempt.  The embarrassment wherein he finds himself produces in him the most unjust and criminal passions imaginable, for he conceives a mortal hatred against that truth which blames him and convinces him of his faults".

Pascal, Pencees

"...a mortal hatred against that truth..."  Bin Laden.  Jerry Falwell.  Arafat.  Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in some ways.  Even our own mostly harmless Canadian Prime Minister is, in minor and silly ways a sometime stranger to the truth.

Truth has gone begging.  In its place we have the cant of the Believers and the fierce mass movements they inspire.  Of these - and there are many about - Bin Laden's pan-Islamic fundamentalism has our exclusive attention, for obvious reasons.   We do not understand it.  Certainly, the Americans do not.  George Bush is at pains to declare that America's War is not against Islam but rather against an amorphous group called terrorists or madmen or Islamic fundamentalists.  Millions of Muslims worldwide would take issue with his claim..  For them, the war is religious and the President can think and say whatever he wants without changing that fact in the least.

Let us not adopt the ugly slur that most Muslims are terrorists or murderers prepared to strike down the infidels in the name of Allah.  Remember - Germans were by no means unanimous in the desire to destroy the Jews and "misfits" in order to create an Aryan heaven but the Holocaust occurred.  There is a parallel here which might help us understand and deal with the current terror walking the land.  The parallel lies within the nature of mass movements and mob psychology writ large.

The Bin Laden Movement - it is best to call it that - is not a social dysfunction exclusive to Muslims, or Arabs or any other ethnic, national or religious group.  We all have that capacity to go collectively mad and visit unspeakable acts on others.

The first step toward understanding the Bin Laden Movement, which has millions of supporters and apologists is available close to home among fundamentalist Christians.  There is an anti-abortion organization, one of many, called Pro Life Virginia - Army of God.  It is led by the charismatic and ferocious Reverend Donald Spitz.  To call him bellicose would be to understate his passion.  Spitz does not make apocalyptic statements from a cave somewhere in Afghanistan.  He is a thoroughly modern Believer with an elaborate website (www.armyofgod.com).  Read it - all of it.  From his perspective, he and his followers are engaged in a Holy War against the infidels, which to him are all those who provide abortions or submit to them or support, even through indifference those who do.  He proclaims a higher Biblical morality which permits he and his adherents the right to kill or counsel the killing of abortionists.  Army of God has its heroes and martyrs, these being people that we would call murderers, terrorists, psychopaths or all of the above.  Each martyr has an honoured place on the website rather in the manner of Palestinian suicide bomber photos on village walls.  Currently, first among martyrs is "Atomic Dog" who shot and killed Dr. Bernard Slepian in front of his family.

Spitz and others like him have formidable followings but most Americans, whatever they think about abortion, birth control or Biblical authority despise his bloody extremism.  Nor is the law amused.  Police and courts will act when Spitz terrorists resort to violence but US constitutional protections ensure that Army of God can de facto counsel criminal behaviour.

To understand Spitz and his Army of God is to understand Bin Laden et al in a more helpful way; in a way that might lead to action capable of countering the extraordinary danger he represents to Western democracies and the Arab/Muslim diaspora he presumes to speak for.

America's current initiatives seem to be yesterday's solutions to tomorrow's problems.  Bin Laden is the face and voice of a mass movement involving millions of people.  That movement has no geographic epicentre, headquarters or uniformed army - like the Army of God.  But it has soldiers willing to give their lives in the service of a higher moral calling as 911 demonstrated.  It follows that we need to speculate that the bombing/invasion of Afghanistan and supporting the rapacious Northern Alliance may do nothing more than replace one ugly dictatorship with another while turning an impoverished country into a major supplier of crushed stone.  An attack may also serve to strengthen Bin Laden's movement - hardly the avowed intention of the Bush Administration.

What is the genesis of the Army of God?  How does this vicious, vitriolic lot sustain itself, find funding and gather new adherents?  How does Bin Laden focus and fuel the anger and sometime zealotry of millions of Muslims - particularly Arab Muslims?  The answer to both questions may be the same.
Page Break

FEELING A BIT OFF

Ellie says that when I am sick, I look cranky.

Do I look cranky to you?

A FUNERAL TALE FOR EASTER

Three times in my military career I delivered dead soldiers home and supervised the intricacies of their military funerals.  The troopers had died for a variety of reasons, including breathtaking stupidity but in death they were all equal and given in full measure the slow march cadence, Last Post, creaking antique gun carriage, volleys fired and fragments of Wilfrid Owen verse.

In life they were not given adequate equipment, a living wage or the support of a political leader (George Hees excepted) who gave a Royal Canadian Crap about them, dead or alive.  This made the ancient warrior celebrations I stage-managed for them something of a moral imperative.  They would receive their moments of recognition - come too late and only from their comrades but salutes, dammit, at least salutes.

A military funeral is a complicated exercise, particularly when staged in a small town far from the panoply of pomp readily available in Ottawa or Halifax.  It does not help that rural funeral directors do not know how to dress soldiers properly and so medals show up on the wrong side, buttons are green for lack of polishing, shirts dirty, jackets unpressed and neckties look like hangman's knots.  (The ghost of Corporal Canuck looks down at his earthly remains and declares, "Oh Shit! - the Sgt Major's gonna drill me a new one for this cruddy turnout!")

I relocated medals, shone buttons and badges, laundered shirts and re-tied ties.  In the case of Captain "Eggs", a huge guy who didn't fit too well in his box, the funeral guys and I had to reposition him so that the casket lid would not bonk on his forehead during the formal closing.  I thought for a moment of dribbling some egg yolk on his tie in celebration of the eating habits that gave him his nickname...

Lt. "X" died of some loathsome disease he acquired as a U.N. Observer in Viet Nam.  Two months earlier I had supervised the funeral of Sgt "Y" who got run over by an IDF Centurion tank after ducking hostile fire from an Egyptian fighting patrol.  The patrol was trouble-making by taking pot shots at U.N. vehicles.  The Centurion crew was drunk.  One might say that his death lacked reason and so it did.

The funeral of Lt "X" was a problem.  Nobody liked him.  He had no known next-of-kin and no friends, this ill-tempered staff officer serving in a bureaucratic warren.  We knew only that his ribbons and service record spoke of serious sharp-end service in WWII and that he was born in Kitchener, Ontario.

I got to be master of ceremonies.  My C.O. and I dragooned mourners, appointed pall bearers, organized a Firing Party, found a bugler, requisitioned the antique gun carriage, alerted the Chaplain and set in motion the ritual honour this country owes to all old soldiers including the ones we don't like.

At first, things went well.  The Reverend Captain "K" found fine words to say about a cranky SOB he had never met.  The Priest spoke in vague eloquence about noble service and life eternal justly earned.  The flag-draped coffin went from the Sanctuary to the waiting gun carriage.  Then, the real fun began.

I became a Pall Bearer and "slow marched" beside the carriage.  On the last bend into the cemetery the carriage turned short and the big hardwood/iron wheel flattened my right foot already half-wrecked by a bad parachute landing.  I entered sacred ground determined not to howl aloud.

Then, Mr. Murphy and his goddam Law took over.  The graveside service began well enough despite the cold rain.  The Reverend Captain "K" found a rhetorical line that conferred meaning to the life of the sorry soul we were burying.  Then came the finale.  The Firing Party discharged its first volley over the grave and from behind a high hedge about 30 feet away came an uproar from 20 or so beagles housed there.  Two more volleys and the canine choir was in full lusty voice.

A mournful bugle sounding Last Post in the cold rain and a chorus of squatty tenor quadrupeds singing a dirge may not be what Lt "X" expected or wanted but were he listening I would tell him that his send-off was nothing if not memorable.  Sometimes we get things right in spite of ourselves.

Pro Patria.

HOLY WEEK? HOLY COW!

I see that Governor Rick Perry of Texas (where else?) has issued an official proclamation enjoining Texans to spend the next three days praying for rain.  Careful what you pray for, Governor - you have nothing set aside for ark construction.

In Kyrgyzstan, a place rather like Texas, legislators have sacrificed seven sheep in hope of driving evil spirits from their parliament.  If this gambit works, the place will be totally empty.

Pastor Terry Jones,  a cretin of 17th century sensibilities recently held a celebratory Koran burning.  In response, some 17th century cretins in the Middle East went on a killing rampage because the Pastor "insulted Islam".

Several politicians currently trolling for votes cheerfully wish folks, "Happy Easter Week".  Say what?  I seem to recall from my early unhappy encounters with things churchy that this week is called Holy Week and is not regarded as a happy time - you know - crucifixions and things.  I think that next week is called Easter Week and is usually considered a happy time.  I am afraid that I cannot help you with where the rabbits and eggs fit in all of this.  Ask your Preacher.

Another cretin, this one a Conservative candidate from the Canadian version of Texas let it be known that Planned Parenthood was not his favorite social organization because, among other things it assists poor women in dealing with unwanted pregnancies.  When pressed, he expressed the view that silly women must be prevented from exercising the wrong-headed and un-Christian notion that what goes on in their uteri is any of their business.  Harper and others told him to put a sock in it, not because they necessarily disagreed but because he exposed the thinking of the closeted and silenced conservative majority.  And that thinking is a sure election loser.

Oh, well.  I will play it safe and wish everyone a pleasant long weekend.

OOPS!

This is what happens when you put a white cat in the washing machine.

The cat didn't like it.

EXPOSED FLESH FREEZES...

Been here, done this, do not recommend it.

There are some things best done in the comfort of a heated, well-appointed bathroom.  Pity then the poor soldier trying to survive in the arctic or sub-arctic.  The Great Queen provides him with a tent, concentrated rations, warm clothing and snowshoes but alas, no heated bathroom.  He has to make other arrangements when his digestive tract is in need of purging.

There is an essential ritual involved.  To begin with, he doesn't even think about answering the urge while on the trail.  He can act only after last light when the tent is up and the mountain stove has raised the interior temperature to a balmy +2 C.  Fortunately, the delay is not difficult thanks to the concentrated rations that apparently contain something normally used to set concrete.

Once the five troopers stuffed into the smallish tent have lit the Coleman lantern and put on the coffee, the soldier in need of a dump signals his intention and begins the preparation.  He unzips his parka, unbuttons his nylon wind pants, drops his suspenders, unties the drawstring on his flannel insulation pants and unbuttons his boxers.  He then grasps the garments in his wiping hand leaving thumb and index finger free to pinch a pad of toilet paper and with his gloved hand indicates that his buddies should open the tent flap.  When the flap opens, he steps manfully out into the night.  The flap closes behind him.

On a moonless night it may be blacker than the inside of a moose and it may be -40 C. or worse.  For the former reason and in deference to esthetic and sanitary sensibilities, he shuffles five steps forward, turns left, goes 10 steps, turns left, takes 5 more paces, turns about and tramps down the snow.  His time has come and this is the agreed drop zone.  He releases his grip on his undone garments and assumes the crouch position.  At that moment the words of his arctic instructor come to mind - "...exposed flesh may freeze in as little as 45 seconds."  He is acutely aware of exactly what he has exposed which gives him motivation to make one almighty, eye-crossing, vein popping heave followed by a cursory wipe.  He reaches down with his gloved hand, grabs his various drawers and hikes 5 paces forward, right 10 paces and as he turns for the last 5 steps he bellows, "Open her up!"

Once in the tent his buddies join him in a careful inspection to ascertain whether he laid it in the snow, dropped it in his wind pants, crapped on his heels or flung it over his head with his dangling suspenders. Any outcome other than the first results in his being sent back into the cold to rectify the problem.

There were several reasons why I elected to leave the army.  This was probably one of them.

SAY SOMETHING!

This demonstrates how a narcissistic blogger responds to people who fail to make fawning comments about his graceful prose, brilliant insights and witty anecdotes.

J'accuse...

A DIFFERENT EVIL BIRD

My kids and I lived for a year in Nigeria.  Absurdly, we adopted (the kids adopted) a rowdy, mouthy African Grey parrot named Ms. Penelope P. or Penny in less formal situations.  Time came to go home - back to Canada, Penny in tow, with stops in England, Scotland and the Scandinavian countries.

The travel arrangements were tricky.  Parrots, I learned were "birdies non grata" in a number of countries, therefore Penny had to travel undetected.  I figured that if Penny were stowed in unremarkable check-in baggage and flew only in aircraft with heated, pressurized holds, we might get away with it.  In preparation for this adventure in international smuggling I went to Ikeja Market and purchased a rusty budgie cage.  I found a sturdy cardboard box into which the cage would just fit.  Bird in cage, cage in box, lots of stealth air holes, a bit of twine and tape and Voila! - standard immigrant travel baggage that would attract no attention.

The ruse got us out of Lagos, through Ghana and past Customs at Heathrow.  The cab ride to a spiffy hotel in Marble Arch was uneventful thanks to a chatty cabbie who talked more than a tree full of birds.  At the hotel, I left my ragamuffins in charge of our formidable baggage heap and went to register.  In the midst of the formalities, a blue rinse dowager late of some Brit comedy show steamed by my tattered luggage heading for the Desk.  Moments later, the lobby resounded to piercing wolf whistles and cries of "Messy Fucking Bird",  "How Are You?" and a stream of Yoruba insults.  Penny was getting restive.  Dowager turned to glare at my kids who tried to look innocent.  Mahogany-tanned,  unwashed and clothed in rags a Nigerian ditch digger would have burned as they were, they appeared anything but innocent.  Let us say that Fagan would have found employment for them.

HMS Dowager sailed on.  We dodged the bullet that time but not in Copenhagen a week later.

We arrived a 7:00 AM, collected our cartload of tattered luggage and headed into the "Nothing to Declare" lane.  Penny, silent and invisible in her box sat atop the load.  The sleepy Customs Officer asked his routine questions while my ragamuffins remained mostly out of sight behind the cart.  All was well until the bird joined the conversation.  "Hello, Bird! - Messy Bird! - Shit! - Supper Time! - Acaro, Ade! - More Yoruba, mostly obscene."

This outburst aroused the official's curiosity.  He was not used to being yelled at in two languages by a cardboard box.  He pointed to the box and beckoned.  I complied; he opened it and gazed sourly at Penny, who continued to offer cheery greetings and suggestions.

"Nicht in Denmark", the officer declared.  "Not since 1937", he added.

We were marched to a secure holding area to await the arrival of the Port Health Veterinarian.  The vet arrived at noon and was clearly unamused by his summons.  His dress suggested that he had been enjoying some sort of elegant affair appropriate to a warm Sunday in August - beige ultra-suede jacket, snowy-white shirt and gleaming tasseled loafers.  Inside his office, Dr. Elegant consulted a large book dealing with birds and diseases thereof.  ("Nicht since 1937".  He did not know from parrots.)  After a few minutes, he explained that he was required to ascertain the bird's rectal temperature.  Before I could intervene he thrust his hand into the cage to capture Penny.  Big mistake.  With an audible snap, Penny seized his ostentatious gold ring with her usual 800 foot pounds psi.  No contest - he was not going to escape unaided.  Lying engagingly, I said that Penny was simply being playful, pried her beak free of the ring and extracted her from the cage.  Next, at the now wary Dr. Elegant's direction I inverted a seriously pissed off bird to allow the insertion of a rectal thermometer.

Do you see where this is going?  Thought so.

In the way of all escalating disasters, Penny indicated that she didn't much like this uninvited penetration by violently expelling the offending object together with everything upstream from it while freeing one large wing and flapping it vigorously.  It was The Perfect Shit Storm.

Think ultra suede.  Snowy white shirt.  Gleaming loafers.  Throw in gold-rimmed designer glasses.

There ensued a long, thoughtful silence.  Dr. Elegant dabbed his face and gazed ruefully at his splattered clothing.  I wondered how I would explain to the kids that the Government of Denmark had sentenced their buddy to death for assaulting an official in the performance of his duty.

At long last, Dr. Elegant spoke in icy, measured tones.  "The parrot appears to be healthy.  You may keep it in Denmark for seven days.  "On the seventh day", he continued Biblically "...you must remove this bird from the country.  My fee in this matter is 235 Crowns, payable immediately."  The fee seemed a little steep.  I think that he rolled in his cleaning bill and a few Crowns for a jug of Aquavit but I was not about to argue.

Penny made it to Canada and continued her irritating ways until her untimely death.  Whenever I see a parrot (daily, thanks to the presence of EVIL BIRD - see previous posts) I remember the Perfect Shit Storm and the calm and decency of a good vet who did not wring a wretched, defecating parrot's neck on the spot.

Good people, these Danes.  Even since 1937.

MORE PARROT LORE COMING SOON

EVIL BIRD

GEEZERS WITH RAZORS: A Tale of loss and Rembrance

I live on a little stub of a downtown street, an unremarkable locale except for a recurring ritual that plays out several times a month.  The performance consists of a car rolling down the block and coming to rest in the approximate vicinity of the curb.  The driver - always a gentleman of a certain age - emerges bearing an antique electric shaver and a puzzled expression.  After a few moments of shuffle-footed indecision, the geezer proceeds to the door of a small building clearly labeled LAW OFFICE, there to be greeted by a smiling young woman.  There is a conversation much punctuated by pointing and rueful shrugs after which the geezer climbs into his semi-abandoned car and departs, razor in hand.

What is the meaning of this?  Well, here is the back story.

In the late 70's the iconic marketer/promoter Victor Kermit Kiam bought a business wreckage called the Remington Products Company, producer of the Remington Electric Shaver among other things.  A few months later, Victor's cheerful, guileless mug appeared in TV commercials touting the Remington Shaver.  Victor would declare with signature sincerity, "My wife bought me this Remington Shaver and I liked it so much...I bought the company!"

These commercials had a remarkable effect.  Not only did Remington Shaver sales go ballistic but also electric shaver sales generally.  Victor caused a mighty marketing tide that caused all electric shavers to rise.  He accomplished this by breaking the manly shaving protocol.  You see, Victor was and was considered to be a manly man from an era in which manly men shaved by applying cold, sharp steel to exposed jowls and displayed the resulting wounds (and attached bits of toilet paper) as marks of honour, rather like Heidelberg dueling scars.  In Victor's day only girly men used electric razors.  Thanks to Victor, a whole generation of men found permission to harvest their whiskers electro-mechanically and without any diminution of their precious testosterone reserves.

Around the time that Victor made electric shaving respectable for manly men, a smart guy named Steve opened Small Appliance Repairs on my street.  Steve could fix almost anything electro-mechanical and so people came bearing hurt Hoovers, testy toasters, maimed Mixmasters and yes, sick electric shavers.  For 27 years, men turned to Steve when their treasured shavers malfunctioned and Steve would fix them promptly at modest cost.

Steve prospered, Victor made pots of money and contented men declared their grooming universes to be unfolding splendidly.

But nothing is permanent.  In 1988 Victor departed for The Great Ad Agency in the Sky.  (Where St. Peter is now clean-shaven.)  A few years later, Steve retired to the west coast.  The end of Small Appliance Repairs was memorialized by a forlorn phalanx of expired vacuum cleaners on the sidewalk awaiting the city's weekly junk rapture.   We locals remember it as the Hoovering - a poignant moment.

Steve's old shop has been converted into an elegant, funky law office.  Despite the LAW OFFICE sign the geezers come to the door, antique shavers in hand and depart in sorrow.

We need a monument honouring Victor and Steve, a place where geezers with razors could assemble in manly conclave to share memories of razors past and great moments in shaving.

PEACE IS TOO IMPORTANT TO BE LEFT TO THE POLITICIANS

MEANWHILE...

Three men walk into a bar,

Order beer

And discuss crabgrass.

Meanwhile, three soldiers

Far from home

Get blown to rat shit by a mine.

Politicians snipe and chivvy

About things

And the soldiers no longer give a shit.

The Sergeant, older than his years

Sits alone in his tent

And weeps.

"Best thing for crabgrass is dig it out."

"Yeah, too true."

"Another beer?"

Meanwhile, the TSX tanks,

Politicians bray and

Only a few rich guys give a shit about either.

Drumbeats.  Slow March. A Piper.

Flag draped coffins.

Normal morning in Trenton.

Three soldiers exit the Herc

And take in the barren landscape.

It is hot on the tarmac.

The Sergeant meets them.

"Gear in the truck and follow me."

("Oh, fuck - they're so damn young.")

"We must stand with our NATO allies"

Says the politician.

"Stupid bastard" mutters the General.

Last Post.  Casket descends.

It is raining.

A gull craps on the gravesite.

Meanwhile, the crabgrass persists,

The politicians insist

And the Sergeant dreams of home.

PRO PATRIA

SEX ED FOR THE BED AND BORED

KINKY IS WHEN YOU USE A FEATHER.

PERVERTED IS WHEN YOU USE THE WHOLE CHICKEN.

I speak from some experience in this matter (not what you are thinking).  In years gone by I was a pup subaltern in an Airborne Infantry Regiment.  In my ignorance of recent unit history, I selected one Private RR to be my radioman because he was a middling good shot, a competent signaler and easily able to haul a 300 pound. arctic sled on his own. 

 RR had a rep., as I discovered.  While stationed in Soest, Germany he loaded up with fine German beer one night and, in the company of two equally wasted buddies went wobbling back to base.  Their route took them through a local farmyard and, because it was raining, through a chicken coop.  Now, Private RR was love-deprived (read: horny) and having read something about a purported oriental practice involving pheasants, he found a comely young hen rather appealing.  The rest, as they say became history.

Early on in my tiny command I was puzzled by the habit of other soldiers to refer to my stalwart troopers as CF's.  (Fowl Fornicators might be a contemporary P.C. translation.)  I pulled Private RR's file.  Oh, my.

After the usual stuff about qualifications, training completed, airborne wings etc. I found eight glossy B&W photos of a sexually abused hen together with a turgid CProC (Military Police) report;

"...and, according to witnesses interviewed, Private RR seized the hapless chicken by the neck, divested himself of encumbering trousers..."

Alas, I knew the awful truth.  By association I was a CF.

I had never before contemplated a feather as a useful adjunct to my manly appeal.  But a whole chicken?  The mind boggles.

For those of you in bed and bored, try dirty movies or uplifting pharmaceuticals.

Beats chickens.

SINGING, MURPHY'S LAW AND COOL RECOVERY

I once sang with a big, semi-pro chorale that did all-bells- and- whistles productions of light opera and Broadway stuff complete with elaborate sets, lots of flys, fancy lighting, Malabar costumes and a gazzilion set changes.  Now, Murphy says that, "If something can go wrong, it will".  Evans says, "Murphy was an optimist.

Music Man is a neat show.  In our opening to a full house, all went well until Marion was to appear on a porch set, this to be wheeled on with her aboard to sing her soulful Goodnight, My Someone to the stars above.

The porch appeared.  The gels dimmed and the spotlight went on.  No Marion.  Panic in the orchestra pit.  Conductor suffered severe anal clenching.

Meanwhile, in the wings Marion appeared on time to climb through the back end of the porch set and pose becomingly for her entrance.  Betty, who played Marion was a pro.  She noted the problem with aplomb, having sung leads with Doily Carte and other noted groups.  She smiled sweetly at the dithering stagehands and inquired gently, "When does the next porch leave?".

She then strolled on stage, posed before the empty porch, looked skyward and when the conductor got the orchestra back to watching the stick she delivered a shivering fine aria to 2,000 happy folks in the audience.

Moral of this tale?  Murphy's worst fears often pale in the face of experience, goodwill and a bit of old fashioned guts.  Betty is a heroine of mine.

How is that for being preachy?

SINGING UNDER DURESS

Three years ago, I was a back row baritone in a big local choir led by a gifted conductor/composer I shall call Herbie.  Herbie is an hyperactive German-Canadian who has defined conductorial temper tantrums for all time.  Normally a gentle, thoughtful soul, when given a baton and a music stand he becomes the Attila of the music world.

Herbie hatched a Really Big Idea.  He decided to combine our 60 voices with those of an excellent German-Canadian choir that he also conducted and mount a choral extravaganza to be presented in at the Centre in the Square (Kitchener's Roy Thomson Hall).  Many rehearsals ensued; the choirs separately and then together.  One Tuesday evening I misread the schedule and ended up at the wrong rehearsal.  Before I could slip away Herbie noticed me and invited me to sit in.  Herbie invitations tend to be ultimatums and so I took my accustomed back row baritone place.

Mistake.  This choir was rehearsing an Herbie composition written in a weird time signature and with more moving parts than a Heath Robinson device.  I had never heard the beast before and, given my negligible sight-reading ability, I settled in for a long, sweaty evening of running my finger along the score and faking it when I got lost.  The rehearsal was not going well for anyone.  Herbie grew agitated.  His face reddened.  As the tension rose it gave several altos bladder distress, resulting in their wiggling their way through the baritone section on the way to the loo.  As each one passed, I had to close my folder, clutch it to my chest and haul my bony legs out of the way.  I then had to find my place again and rejoin the chorus.

Finally, Herbie lost it.  The tenors just didn't get it - wrong notes, wrong entries and general screw-ups.  Now, having sung tenor in the past before ciggies and Jack Daniels demoted me to baritone, I had some sympathy for them.  Chorus tenors rarely get to sing on the notes.  Mostly, they sing in the cracks and worse, unlike the 2nd sopranos you get to hear their miscues.  But no sympathy from Herbie. For two or three minutes he bellowed his distress in German, English and possibly Urdu. When he paused to wipe the spittle from his chin, a fellow baritone spoke up.

"Herbie", he asked,  "Ve are a choir, no?"
"Yeah".
"Ve come here to sing, no?"
"Yeah."
"Then whydafuk ve are not singing?"

The sopranos tittered.  One of the bases guffawed and farted audibly.  I am sure that some 2nd sopranos farted too but nobody heard them.  Two altos headed for the loo.

Herbie tried to look stern but finally cracked up.  The rehearsal ended with order and bonhomie restored.

Oh, and the concert was a rousing success - full house, the altos wore Depends and the tenors nailed it.