SEASONS' GREETINGS

My Christmas Message

Those silent moments when all about

   flows and makes perfect sense;

When all the wrongs are made right

   and furtive shadows flee;

And the man of worried brow, though burdened with woes,

   may know he too belongs. In that moment then he knows.

He belongs in that fluid time freely given.

  All to hear that creation is a song.

Each wayfaring soul then it enchants

   each of us, each of us all come to dance. 

Come to dance! Come to dance!

   Each of us to belong, to belong;

To belong at last in sweet embrace.

   Each footfall this song enchants!

In the rich weave, that blood-red weave,

   we sail and swing, sail and swing!

All hearts alight, limbs alive,

   hearts alight and limbs alive!

Hearing the secrets of a song

   that whisper of a blessing,

  and in a sweet embrace at last to belong.

At last to belong. Ne’er again to leave.

Ne’er again. Ne’er again to leave.


All I Want for Christmas

A happy mailman. A patient and more cooperative bus driver. Don’t leave us panting after you in a cold downpour! (Maybe these professionals could take fewer poison union pills?)

Civil drivers, especially among our immigrants who seem hell bent to import their aggressive and dangerous driving habits into their host country. Not nice.

Let all our crossing guards be allowed to high-five the little pedestrians (see recent news story re banning them from any touching). Lighten up folks!

New Christmas songs. How ‘bout it all you Vancouver creative types? Haven’t we heard ad nauseam about We Three Kings of Orient Were…?

More face to face smiling with strangers which translates to LESS TEXTING!

More respect for our elders (now that I’ve become one).

Less pornography. What happened to Ladies and Gentlemen?

Merry Christmas all.

SHOTS ACROSS THE BOW

The Buck Stops Here.

Enough already. The native trick of guilting the white folk has run its course. That dance is over. Put away your war drums and let’s stop pretending that aboriginals of North America ever believed in private property ownership and entitlement to certain tracts of land. Most tribes fought among themselves for river control for fishing and some fought for hunting ground. No lines were drawn in the dirt to delineate private land belonging to tribe or nation. Just ask your grandfathers. Those elders. Remember them?

It was the white lawyer who got your braids in a knot when he suggested you could trounce all us white folk for betraying land deals of yesteryear. Yawn. Ancient history. (Any aliens out there?)

It’s time to get to a resolution. No more fancy dancing to get up our skirts with little guilt trips nipping at our nuts.

So here’s the deal. (Or at least my idea.)

All land currently described as reserve land must immediately be handed over as their private property, including its resources. Hands off feds. No more leasing, or fussing about or insinuating your laws into their private holdings. Let them build their own homes and be assured of having enough land that they can sustain themselves with gardening, fishing and hunting etc. Let them knit, quilt, carve, howl, sing, tap-dance, drum- pound and holler all they like. And let them have whatever industry they choose to put on their property including casinos… open even to us naive white folk, (and what a perfectly ironic way for them to get a little old-fashioned revenge. Booze us and fleece us at the gaming table!)  Let them carve whatever the hell they want and sell it for whatever the hell they can get, (even those boogie-man masks). They can bring back their languages and their hunting ways etc etc. It's hands off feds.

And if the urban native is a drunk, then send him back to his reserve and let their counsellors, elders and family spend the time, energy and the cost of the rehabilitation.

Further: all natives must be guaranteed an education right through to university completion, hopefully with an emphasis on trades-orientation. And throughout this education, inasmuch as it is likely to occur off-reserve, all natives must be guaranteed free housing for that entire duration and a modest food stipend.

With this program in place, it then precludes all negotiations related to huge funds transfers or ongoing financings of dubious band councils or any further ancient settling of affairs.

And that’s where the buck stops.

AND NOW FOR THE MAJORITY OF YOU IMMIGRANTS

It’s high time to clear up another mess.

The president of Germany had the balls (Ms Merkel no less) to finally admit that multiculturalism has failed. Too much tribalizing of immigrants; too many lawyers in the mix; too may freebies at the original Canadians’ expense; too much of a free ride while we originals carry all their bills for refugee claimants right up to rich importers of horrible manners; aggressive driving techniques; cultural indifference to our sociology and our history – you know that stuff that makes us Canadian? Heretofore, the prospective immigrant must know our language, our customs, our history, our economic ways, our driving habits etc etc. and be willing to read and sign a document along the lines of an Immigrants’ Charter of Responsibilities – akin perhaps to what the Honourable Pierre Elliot Trudeau co-scripted and allowed me to publish as The Universal Declaration of Human Responsibilities. As Mr Trudeau made very plain to me, "If we have rights then we must also have responsibilities." We do have rights thanks to him as enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; now let's take that next step and insist that immigrants' acknowledge that they have responsibilities to their host country. This new charter is just a document to help remind them that they are here in our glorious land of endlessly beautiful resources by our permission and our willingness to accept them into our midst and we have reasonable expectations that they will behave civilly and contribute to our cultural and sociological mosaic in a positive and well-mannered way.

No more buying one’s citizenship for $200,000 invested. No more stacking families in single family homes. No more tribalizing. No more lawyers at our expense. No more sneering at us from aggressively driven jaguars and other such arrogant nonsense. (I monitor the drivers every day and the aggressive ones who push their way through offering free, involuntary pedicures to pedestrians, are easily 90% Asians.) If you want a piece of our beautiful pie, get busy and set that table and by God wash the dishes too.  

AND FOR COPS GONE GUN-HAPPY

It’s time to DISARM the Canadian Police Forces. Period. Follow the Brit model where those brave beat cops march about their neighbourhood unarmed except for a swinging baton and manage quite nicely diffusing the criminal problems, arresting the ding-dongs, tackling the a-holes etc etc with never a shot fired – except in extreme circumstances when special armed squads are brought in – and even then they have only had only three shootings by their entire force in one year. If it works for them…

This goon squad business of over-militarizing our police is exactly backwards and leads to cops murdering drunk dummies, the mentally ill wielding pencils, or threatening the world with a two by four. 

The cops are getting away with murder. Period. That has to stop. They show up in gangs and tend to panic and reach for their firearm before even an attempt is made to diffuse the situation. Who after all in our lovely country wants to emulate the over-armed urban Yankee cop all hung-over and trigger-happy? This isn’t Hollywood, folks. It’s Canada. Remember?

TIME FOR GLOBAL POLICE?

Radical Islamists under whatever pretext in whatever country are murdering innocent women, children and men. Corrupt Mexican mayors and cartels are  equally guilty of atrocities. Some countries are overwhelmed and unable to fend off these attacks. The monstrous, deluded perpetrators must be stopped and annihilated. The United Nations is fraught with political complexities, and is legitimately suspect of the political influences of its membership.

Is it not time to incorporate an international fighting force mandated to thwart and put an end to these extremist maniacal organizations? Why not cull from every civilized nation in the world our best fighters equipped with the most modern military equipment and intelligence to bring about the long overdue demise of these radicalized murderers? Let these murderous zealots taste first hand absolute military defeat at the hands of an internationally sanctioned army of ‘super-warriors.’ Why not a bring to bear a global police force serving all countries in dire need of being freed from the terrifying grip of rampaging murderers mouthing off their bizarre dictums?  Write a simple, clear constitution to guide them and give them a clear path to respond with alacrity to these growing threats. Equip them with every ounce of military firepower the world can muster and give them a straight shot across any border under attack.

Like hell yes it’s time!

For example: after besieging the Islamist radicals, charge this global force start with the burning of the poppy fields of Afghanistan specifically responsible for the production of the world's heroin and replace them all with another sustainable, unhurtful and tradeworthy crop of export. 

No Surprise Here

And is it any surprise that it’s precisely from a generation of violent video game players that these Islamist killers are finding their recruits? Nope. No surprise there… while mummies and daddies everywhere planted their children in front of these ‘benign’ little babysitting game screens they fertilized the adolescents' mental ground with murderous seeds.

“Oh good on you Johnny! How many points for that beheading, sweetie?"

Meanwhile, an international band of righteous teachers of sorts can outlaw all web sites preaching Jihadist doctrine; and wipe out any internet access whatsoever to this kind of mindbending propaganda. Clean that blackboard, please!

It’s time for a global challenge to this very real border-crossing threat to world stability.

Let's design and put in place this global moral compass... and give it teeth. 

The Mindless Approach to Mindfulness Programming

This is bordering on mesmerism and student programming.

BEWARE.

NOTE: To all and sundry politically correct, self-appointed language and racism monitors: Allow me to assure you that I am equally offensive to the gay (weird word) hypocritical ‘community’ of riotously sexually active attention hogs; the whining minorities of any stripe or colour; the whining majorities of generations X, Y, Z and the millennial text-blahzers; the militant poisonous unions; lawyers who charge by the syllable; snoozing judges; prosecutors; jailers; the dope-addicted; the drunks; the wealth addicted; the police who “slow down and drive by” dope dealing en route to their free pay cheques; and the deliberately unemployed anarchists; and if I’ve left anybody out be sure to keep those cards and letters coming.

Remember: in a thoroughly corrupt society, any agitation may be a righteous act, (with the exception of violence, unlawfulness and anarchistic aimlessness).   

DAY ONE OF SALES

Well yup that's me pushing books at the atrium space between Nesters and London Drugs on Hastings at Abbott, the Woodwards complex. 

We were looking for a table this morning to use. And Voila there was this lady there who said we could use one of hers. After I set up she then informed me she wanted for her Downtown Eastside Arts Organization 20% of my action. Handed out a good number of my little posters and cards and sold some books.  Will go back on my own next week with improved table display. It'll pick up before Christmas.

Despite outreach, no one from common media showed. Will work the media angle harder. 

A lingering thought re my man Obama. I've been quite supportive of this president since his election but I am seriously spooked by what I view as his mishandling of the military affairs re ISIS. Tipping off the enemy about when you're going to send in the planes for their bombing sortees is paramount in my mind to an infantryman sneaking over to the Nazis and spilling the beans about when we're going to attack their position. That infantryman would have been shot for treason. 

The Irrepressible Handwriting

My local variety store owner disappeared mysteriously for a month, leaving his store pretty much unattended and closed to the public. He reappeared the other day open for business.  "And how have you been? Same old, same old?" he inquired of me. I felt a bit miffed with my unreponsiveness as though in fact my life had indeed been blase the whole time he was gone. So I returned today to mention to him, "No, Eunace, my life has not been 'same old, same old.' How could it be when I see in every face the handwriting of God?"

Excerpt from The Adventures of an Urban Wizard

The Arena of Words and The Memory Wind

Diog’s library collection was comprised of books which had been assembled from words he had recorded surreptitiously - at first scribbling furiously after positioning himself not unlike a fly on the wall, then in the latter day he placed his recorder into a machine and it splendidly transcribed the tapes, setting them out with an elegant typeface in a six by nine inch format. Easily carried about, alluringly designed, each book was leather-covered and beautifully bound. The interior architecture of the library was reminiscent of an ancient Roman facade borrowing as he had from the Vancouver Central library frontispiece.  His library of which he was rightfully proud was visually an arena of words.

His mission with Lyla was to gather all these words and make them some day available to all. He hadn’t conceived yet of how exactly he was going to introduce this wealth to humankind. Lilith, of course, had all sorts of fantastic ideas.  From a 76 tromboned parade of militants marching into university grounds to parachuting every one of the books from a shuttle returning from Mars. They were working on it. It was a charming pastime.

The love letters of Stendahl recorded in his bedroom, the essays of Tesla read aloud in his study, the sociological observations of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell during conversations with other geniuses, the enthusiastic orations of Thomas Jefferson, the lighting of the intellectual fires of Darwin and Einstein, the almost unintelligible contemplations of a young Stephen Hawking, the moments of discovery of Alexander Fleming, the fierce ramblings of Helen Blavatsky, the hollerings of Graham Bell and the mirthful dialogues of Tolstoy and Tolkein to name but a few. These minds were the refuge of Diog Innis. And his library was his home, his spiritual fortress. Not only was he recording these sage soothsayers but he was discovering too his listenership - those students of truth whose appetites for cerebral release was almost unfathomable but surely daunting for their relentlessness. 

At first Diog tried indexing them by subject matter but their mercurial minds defied any such limitation. He simply sorted them all alphabetically starting with their last names. He had compiled more than three thousand tomes and being immensely pleased generally with how his life’s task was resolving itself he did find relief from excrutiatingly frustrating days in Happinessland. Lilith and he both knew they were approaching the saturation point. And this was a subject they cared not to dwell upon.

The next morning Diog had awakened startled. Not often at all did one of his dreams have such an effect. All he could remember was that he had been called upon to speak aloud to participate in the discussion of God which had been transpiring in his dream. He did and it was his voice which had awakened him… but he could not remember what it was he had just said. He shared his consternation with Lilith who seemed to make much of it while he was letting it all pass away, as go most dreams. Besides, he had recently opined that dreams were mere mental dumpings, similar to what our bodily functions insist upon every day. He couldn’t quite ascribe that dream to a dumping though.

   He might cogitate on it later but for now he was in a building mode. But first he had to broach the subject of this new building with Lilith. And when it came to making any changes on this property Lilith was usually loathe to agree.

   He started with compliments on her new hairdo. “Your curls dear are so much more pronounced. Good choice.”  He proceeded to the breakfast she had prepared. Poached eggs on wheat toast with salmon jerkie, native style. "Smartly done, gal! Smartly done!"

   After the smarm had settled in to a delighted Lilith, Diog realized the approach to the idea of the new building was going to render the compliments rather transparent, and him the guiltier. So in typical Diog-esque style he blurted onward: “Lilith, dear, I have a mind to do a little building… here on the property. Nothing much, not really more than an outhouse in size. Cedar-shaked and quite comfy for sitting, there by that patch by the river. You see, it won’t disturb our view at all tucked away there and it will serve an important function.”

  “A sitting room like an outhouse? I don’t get this, Diog.”

   “Well, it’s more than just a sitting room. It’s a room for contemplation and some magic-making.”

   “Oh yes. Indeedy. More please.”

   “Well, it’s like a sweat lodge. Very hot. Heated rocks brought in. Pour water on them to get a good steam up. Much like a steam room, a cleansing room.”

   “Oh. Our own little sauna?”

   “Yes dear. That’s how it functions with one little addition.”

   “I really don’t like your pregnant pauses or surprises, especially about the property. Now you’re on dangerous ground. Tread gingerly.”

   Diog felt he was losing the whole gambit. “Just the addition of a mirror. A round mirror. Where visions might materialize. It could be very helpful.”

   “Helpful? In what way?”

   “For our seeing. I seem to be wasting an inordinate amount of time seeking the righteous out there in Happinessland. The library is at risk of getting dated. Methinks this mirror might truly help. These little buildings are referred to as psychomantiums. There is precedent.”

   “Indeedy.”

   “And really dearest, if it doesn’t work out, we can disassemble it.”

   The silence was deafening.

   “As a project…”

   “Hush! My hair is bristling with your calculated compliments.”

   Diog blushed the depth of a ruddy colour he was pleased not to be viewing in any mirror, magic or otherwise.

   “We will build this psycho-thing of yours. Must be pretty though. I’ll put flowerbeds outside it. No outhouse for me.”

   “Oh dearest, you’ll see…”

    She cut him quick. “As a temporary experiment.  We’ll see. We’ll see.  And where did you come across this information? Somewhat obtuse, this psycho-thing.”

    “I can’t recall. In one of our books in the arena I reckon.”

   It might have been clumsy but Diog had won the day and was set then to go over the plans and make the preparations, all of which he gladly then shared with his beloved Lilith.

The early autumn weather had been most cooperative. A good omen thought Diog. They were on the new roof, only a few shingles left to nail home. It was a simple, austere layout. A bench, the place for the hot rocks and the bucket. No windows, just small portals for an air flow. It was time for a break and Diog seated ambled over to Lilith and put his arms around her and they watched silently the sparkling river flow on, ever embellished by flocks of birds and the breeze animating all the leaves of the surrounding forest of pine, birch and the shoreline arbutus, their gnarled, wind-driven limbs all grasping sideways to heaven. This quiet moment was saturated with love.  

“Now the piece de resistance!” announced Diog. Lilith had been fussing over how to find a mirror which would be of such critical importance to the whole shebang. He clamored down from the rooftop and tucked into the woods and reappeared carrying a just manageable concave mirror, half his size and having just polished it mightily brightened by the sun.

   “It was used in a telescope. Just imagine Lilith”… he enthusiastically explained, “this little honey has been witness to the goings-on of our very universe!”

   “Well my heavens Diog. Where on earth did you come up with that?”

   “Our neighbour Brindle suggested we make a run to the observatory and see if they had anything there to fill the bill et voila!! Can you believe my luck?”

   “It’s bloody perfect you old trickster.  Can’t imagine a better resolution!” added Lilith, standing now precariously on the rooftop and much to Diog’s pleasure, equally enthused. Diog affixed the warped mirror by himself within the hour and now there it sat eight feet up across from the sitter’s bench facing just slightly downward but not quite reflecting the face of the room’s occupant.

   They were both well pleased with the project.

   It will need to be blessed, Lilith. Before we put anything to it.”

   “Yes, dear. I suppose. Yes.”

By twilight Diog had excused himself for his time of prayer beseeching once again God and His emissaries the power to break the spell of agoraphobia that had encumbered Lilith ever since she had made the promise to be so unnaturally housebound. While Lilith had taught him well the powers of wizardry those centuries ago, this spell was in trade for their freedom from incarceration in that dungeon where he had been so unceremoniously dumped. They had been given their immortality by the evil maniac who thought it the perfect poetic irony: to be enslaved forever. Maniac had underappreciated Lilith’s power and willingness to sacrifice. Diog owed her his freedom and vicariously his immortality and his power.  It was now incumbent upon him to find a release for her from this spell of agoraphobia, and he believed the mirror and the psychomantium were going to be the devices he needed to achieve the victory in this mission. 

    Never a dull moment in the life of wizards. While Diog and Lilith were inclined to see the handwriting of God in every face, Maniac saw puny mortals to be made subservient to his will. His ungodly will.

Meanwhile, Lilith had been pondering Diog’s lack of remembering his dream about the God conversation. She realized it was an important dream and understood Diog’s earlier consternation for not having remembered those words he spoke aloud. This dream was important and needed to be recalled. With this in mind she approached the psycho-thing and resolved to invoke the Memory Wind to help her focus on her husband’s memory stream and there she would extract those important words. And at the right moment surprise her lover with her rendition of them. What a perfect surprise this would make! And then, too, she would perhaps gain a greater appreciation of this new edifice on their property. 

   With some apprehension, a rather foreign state of mind for her, she poured water over the rocks they had heated and up billowed the hot steam. She sat there on the bench and laid her eyes on the mirror and began her chant invoking the Memory Wind. She detected soon a cool breeze, the arrival of the mystic wind.

Diog on his way home detected in the wind by the river something amiss. He paused in his step and attempted to zero in. He raised his hands and swept them about and danced to the rhythm of the wind. A subtle and inviting series of light movements and then he cupped his hands in front of his eyes and peered at his palms and there taking shape was the figure of Lilith, almost ghostly at first, wavering, and then crystallizing well enough that he could make out the expression on his beloved’s countenance. Lilith was frozen in terror in the psychomantium. He began running, thrashing through the forest, crying out “Lilith! Lilith! The mirror! The mirror! It has not been blessed!”

   He arrived. Threw open the door and reached out to her. Her body was stiff. Her eyes all a’gawking. Her hair, her beautiful reddish curls upwardly immobile. He lifted her gingerly and marched out to the daylight. He laid her down and stroked her face and her stiffened hair. His heat his body was communicating to her and then finally she gasped and colour returned to her face.

   “Where am I?” She held her hand to her forehead, “Who are you? What’s happening here?”     

   “Lilith, Lilith it’s me Diog. It’s me Diog.” He helped her stand. She wobbled a little and then she said, “I don’t know you. Where am I? What’s happening?”

  Her amnesia was seemingly total. He escorted her up to the house to the porch… and at wits' end he played music, hoping maybe some of her old favourite songs might help her regain her memory. He couldn’t imagine who he’d call, how to explain any of this. An hour passed, the sun was setting. Setting it seemed on their lives. Now he knew this mission had become the greatest challenge of his mystic career. To bring Lilith back, to restore somehow her memory. Mosaic piece by piece if necessary.

    He withheld his tears but when Willie Nelson began singing “Who will buy my memories?”, they waltzed and he held her close and as he said, “I will keep your memories, dearest. I will,” that’s when he wept quietly on her shoulder.      

    

  

Making Room

Let us picture for a moment our mind as a house, a place of limited space. Well in order to make room for peace and happiness to abide in this space, how 'bout we evict the evil cousins - unfounded judgments and complaint. 

Now stretch those spiritual muscles and enjoy. 

And guess what? Others will enjoy you more. Much more. 

Poverty is a Death Sentence

Fairfax County, Virginia, and McDowell County, West Virginia, are only 350 miles apart. In suburban Washington, D.C., Fairfax County’s median family income is $107,000. That’s five times greater than the median income in rural McDowell County. The stark difference has life and death consequences. Residents of the West Virginia county die years younger. The link between income and longevity was examined at a Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging hearing. “Poverty is a thief,” Michael Reisch of the University of Maryland testified before Sen. Bernie Sanders’ panel. “Poverty not only diminishes a person’s life chances, it steals years from one’s life.”

Only the Night Breeze

Only the night breeze sees you

     the way I do. The way I do.

Not even the loneliest star,

The loneliest star

Covets you the way I do.

Only the night breeze sees you the way I do.

You’re my vision come true

Only you know that song

That comes in the night

And only that night breeze

Sings for you the way I do.

Not the loneliest star, the loneliest star

Even all the way from heaven sent

Only the wind at night

      ‘neath that lonely star

Knows what your love to me has meant.

Only we hear that song

That comes on the breeze,

On a night no bluebirds along

Can ever my soul to please

On a night coming with a breeze.

Only that violet breeze at night

Knows what your kiss to me has meant.

Ever since came this private light

When you kissed me, my heaven sent.

Only the night breeze sees you the way I do.

And Every Dream to Be

You never leave me, never leave me.
Your love believes in me.

Eyes like pools of mystery; your honeyed hair I see

In my dreams and every dream to be.

You never leave me. Never leave me.

In my dreams and every dream to be.

You never leave me.

Your love bewilders me.

Enchanting eyes I see, your eyes I see

In my daydreams and every dream to be.

Your voice will always be

A song so bewitching me.

Your song awakens me

From every dream and dream to be.

You never leave me. Never leave me.

In my dreams and every dream to be.

Your hands you give to me

And I start to see, I start to see

Every dream, every dream,

You are every dream to me.



A SECRET FLUTTER

Above me, behind me, I could hear it.
A secret flutter.
It knew and I could hear it.
It knew I could hear it…

Fluttering. Your love fluttering away.

Quickly then this dove,
Escaped me.  Escaped me. 
Your love away; away and above.

I’ve lost this love. 
This love I’ve lost.
I’ve lost this love. 

This love I’ve lost.
Above me, behind me, I could hear it.
A secret flutter. Love fluttering away,
Fluttering, fluttering away.

This love I’ve lost.
I’ve lost this love. 
This love I’ve lost. 
Fluttering, fluttering away.

Appealing to the Collective Conscience

The meeting hosted by the good people spearheading Poverty Reduction Plan at SFU Harbour House last night was seriously inspiring. Especially the spontaneous presentation by Dr Gary Bloch who showed glimpses of righteous anger. It was gratifying to see a full house of people obviously from different wealth classes. Dr Bloch’s message in a bottle is: Poverty is a disease. It fosters ill health and the economic mathematics of creating ill people doesn’t add up when they can become well and contributing members of society again.

There was, however, a sense I got that these guest speakers were preaching to the choir. The real challenge is to successfully lobby the professionals, the high income earners; those who enjoy influence as a consequence of their wealth. The Poverty Reduction Plan being advanced by this organization is well thought out and is practical to implement. Its points are as follows:

Priority Actions:

*Increase welfare rates by 50% and index them to inflation.

*Remove arbitrary barriers that discourage, delay and deny people in need.

Simple enough. But our politicians through their repugnant lip service at election time are effectively stonewalling organizations like the Poverty Reduction Coalition, and killing people.

Obvioulsy more lobbying is necessary and timing is critical. Doctors like Gary Bloch and many others have only so much time to commit. Bloch himself has been at this for 10+ years. It’s time to focus: Lobby the establishment: the lawyers, judges, politicians, pharmacists and pharmaceutical companies; the unions, the real estate developers and agents. Start with them. Within every grade of establishment one may find the conscientious either through their religious affiliation of their understanding and appreciation of human value. Every human being has value. Not just the rich. Every human being needs to be acknowledged by all of us that that individual can make a real contribution to his or her society like so many recovered alcoholics and drug addicts can attest. According to the Reduction of Poverty  Coalition, 400 organizations have already signed up representing a collective membership of over 300,000 people throughout the province.

And a lot more are needed. Individuals from every background and profession. If graphic artists and web site developers were among their membership; lawyers and more doctors, teachers and nurses and Yes, even pharmacists then imagine the pool of professionalism this coalition could call upon to help spearhead this campaign. Within every grade of establishment one may find the conscientious either through their religious affiliation of their understanding of human value. That’s where we’ll find these people. Are there not real estate agents of social conscience who can join? And developers? Executives from Big Pharma are welcome too. They all have a conscience in there somewhere.

And the holdouts? SHAME THEM!

The Right Honorable Pierre Elliot Trudeau taught us about striving to realize a ‘just society.’ So let’s get on with it!

The process is simple: Join this coalition. Help them inspire; organize; consolidate the organizations of like-mindedness; pitch to the professionals and the general public and then shame the establishment hold-outs. And with or without the unions on side but with strong enough numbers, stage a general walkout. Freeze the economy. Only in the wallet will some people get the buzz.

To quote the coalition’s literature: “We can afford this! BC has had the highest poverty rate in Canada for the last 13 years. We are very generous. Once a comprehensive poverty reduction plan is fully implemented, it would cost between $3-4 billion per year, while the cost of not addressing poverty is costing BC $8-9 billion per year in higher public health care and criminal justice costs, and lost productivity.” Who can argue with these numbers? Here’s hoping that economists will join this coalition and volunteer some of their expertise to lay out these numbers creating a ledger that we can all understand.

Let your conscience do the talking now and join this coalition by visiting: http://bcpovertyreduction.ca/take-action/join-the-call.

Thanks to a Caregiver

Dr Gary Bloch will be in Vancouver this week speaking at an event organized by the B.C. Poverty Reduction Commission. He believes poverty is intrinsically related to one's health. He's right of course and he's trying to raise the awareness of the establishment (other doctors, care providers, government members etc etc) that maybe some thing might be done here to make a positive change for us extremely poor folk. So thanks to Dr Bloch. Meanwhile, here's my two cents worth.

Attention:

Dr Gary Bloch,

St. Michael's Health Centre
80 Bond Street
Toronto
Ontario
M5B 1X2

From:

R Harry Langen,
harry.langen@gmail.com
deadsearevelation.com

September 23rd, 2014

Dear Dr Bloch:

Was intrigued and encouraged to read about your concern for the desperately poor people of Canada. You may count me as one. You are right to acknowledge that good health and a livable income are intrinsically connected. I can cite myriad examples. Housing that isn’t hopelessly bug infested and is equipped with a separate bathroom and little kitchen fridge to store and prepare decent food is a rare find. As you well know, unhygienic living conditions and good health do not go hand in hand. To the extremely poor, medications must all be free; not just certain ones. For example: itch medicines are not covered by the ministry in B.C. This means that if you have a horrible, itchy rash it’s only going to get more insufferably worse. People who are not on disability are docked any funds they might make outside their paltry welfare cheque. This is nothing short of draconian.

Rather than extend this letter by 10 pages listing other insults to the poor suffice to say that once you’re on your financial knees it is extremely difficult to get up again; and almost impossible if you have health issues, mental or physical. Learning how to dog-paddle in a toilet bowl might be useful. 

A disproportionate number of the mental issues here in Vancouver find their root cause in drug use. Ever since the onslaught of $2 hoots (crack), people of all ages have been felled; like a forest of souls being clearcut. When you add street drugs or alcohol to the creepy diet of someone who is suffering schizophrenia for example, you are effectively sentencing them to a life of horror.

When the police arrest mentally ill people for being intoxicated in public they have been no less than brutal and mocking. So much for ‘sensitivity training.’ I have advocated for them at sentencing hearings and finally the judge will get the drift that they are simply not capable of functioning normally in this society (a society I consider and have witnessed to be thoroughly corrupt). The system successfully criminalizes them twice which goes to their lack of self esteem; and eventually clinical depression.

Whether you can agitate effectively to make any changes in our society is open to question but that you desire to do this, to champion our plight, makes you a hero in my book. Allow me to make a few suggestions that you might want to include in your discourses with the powers-that-be.

Absolutely guarantee that all homeless people be immediately housed and that the $375 a month be paid directly to landlords who aren’t thieves. (A national study was done recently about how to resolve the “homeless crisis” and after two years and millions of dollars paying the hands-off bureaucrats for their wisdom they came up with their grand solution: Find them a home.”

The police need to enforce the law. The state of east Hastings with its constant 24 hour solicitation of crack etc (the chant around here is “Rock, powder, down…)” needs to change drastically. We have parades of these solicitors out front of the Carnegie Library on Main Street and along east Hastings for two blocks. Within spitting distance of the main police station. These dope peddlers are dangerous people and they are fronting for gangs like the Hells Angels. The cops’ excuse: They just get released again. Too many in court. No room in jail etc etc. That is not their business. Their business is to enforce the law. Let the system clean up itself after the law is enforced.

Now with the solicitors out of the way, let’s give these mentally challenged (thanks Crack) a chance at success by housing them; and where there are no structures in which to house them, then tent them as a temporary resolution. If the natives can do it at Oppenheimer why can’t the city/province/federal governments manage it?

When you have people in homes with some dignity and off the dope, you will soon have increased your labour pool. Train them in the simplest tasks; give them the integrity of employment and Hello world! They’d be thrilled with their first paycheck and all their old excuses would, as my mother was apt to say, “Dry up and mildew away.”

Anyway, it’s a crisis here. The wealthy new property owners are conveniently oblivious and uncaring as they leave their new and outrageously expensive homes vacant; and the politicians only seem to ring this alarm bell around campaign time. Lip service of the most cruel kind.

So if you’re ever in the market to find members of the extremely poor community to contribute some realistic ideas and possible resolutions while sitting on one of those nicely paid committees, keep my name front and centre, huh?

Thanks for showing some real care…

R Harry Langen

A Little Query

Is it a source of pride to members of the gay community that rates of HIV and syphilis infection are highest among their social ranks? 

Excerpt from The Adventures of an Urban Wizard

The Old Sycamore Tree at Victory Square

“Diog! Diog!” The voice as from a great distance and in some turmoil or at least dismay roused Diog from an unusually satisfying slumber. So as not to waken his beloved he shifted off the bed and slipped into the kitchen where dawn colours were glowing on the white granite countertops.

“Diog!”

“What? Who is this?”

“Come now to Victory Square. I have little time… little time.” And as an afterthought but urgently: “Bring Lyla!”

Whoever belonged to the disembodied voice from seemingly afar he knew about Diog and his secret lamp, Lyla. Peering out the kitchen window below the decorative red and green stained glass bar he noted the spring wind, the leaves rustling madly and opted to bring his green cloak, both for himself and the keeping of Lyla.

Arriving at Victory Square he approached the magic tree which had called him.

“You have come. Now climb in before you are noticed. It is time.”

Awkwardly at first and then as though with the aid of the ancient tree himself Doig with Lyla swinging in tow made their way the first joint in the old maple. He threw the cloak about his body and its green velvet melded with the leaves, all verdant and dazzling silver undersides. 
“Greetings Diog. Those buildings there you see, the Dominion and the old Sun Tower building, aren’t they hummers though eh? They are like hallmarks of a different era, when the artists who designed them were inspired by the victory of moral life which cried out for beauty as a rejoicing.”

“Yes, so it seems,” agreed Diog.

“I have heard and seen so much. My little messengers, the Grundlers you call squirrels, and the many varieties of winged wonders, the most gossipy of them all, those Werdlings you call goldfinches. The hummingbird is an annoyance but quite telling. Now I have been storing their stories and have captured in my joints some images that recall these tales and conversations my little messengers have witnessed. Peer into that very joint there Diog and see and hear.”

Diog knew the old sycamore had his ways and didn’t doubt the veracity of his words and so did look into the old tree’s joint. And looked harder.

His face had to nearly bury itself in the old limbs to get a view and to hear the exchange of what appeared like foreigners. Now his face was fully engulfed in the joint of the tree and he did see two old oriental gentlemen considering the bid they’d place on purchasing that block of Hastings Street from the Queen of Repugnant Window Displays and John Wayne Gacy Memorials. They chortled as they schemed to make their pitch when she was drunk. Then the scene changed abruptly and Diog could see Arab robes on princely men as they pointed and scanned the block where the Vancouver Art Gallery stood, there by the fountain and right over to Robsonstrausse. They too had an offer in mind. Other Asians now appeared and the old Hudson’s Bay came into view and that of the new American owned Nordstrom’s. The owner of the Vancouver Hotel, Majid Mangalji, appeared to want in the game to parlay with the Arabs for the old Courthouse. The one thing missing in all these discussions was a sense of history or the personality of a country. These dealings were banal despite their reach and ultimate consequence. It saddened Diog. The insignias of a country were on sale.

“I don’t suppose much rejoicing will be erected in the architecture thereabouts.”

“No I suppose not,” lamented Diog.

“Now arise and alight upon another joint of mine up a climb there.”

Once again Diog had to plant his face into the joint to see the images and make out the muddled voices. Not unlike getting a snootful of armpit but in the sycamore’s case it was aromatic and damp in a pleasant way. This time he was aware of men huddling, making complicated arrangements, colluding and swapping papers. Their language was secret and ugly for its cadence and twisted syllables. The atonal hemming and hawing went on relentlessly and it came to pass toward one end only – the amassing of somebody else’s money. Then he realized to whom he was listening. They were wigged lawyers and pencil-chewing bureaucrats gleefully baking cockroach cakes and playing games on bedbug infested tables. In their childish glory, all; their pale, gaunt faces precursing their death masks. Ready to serve. “Take a breather, Diog. Here have some syrup.” 

And Diog beheld a slender branch begin to leak its golden draught. And thereof he drank. 

“Diog, I have witnessed much and heard stories and conversations over the decades. You would have enjoyed Rudyard and Oscar as they sat there on the grass at my base. Hilariously drunk and full of mirth, Rudyard bragging about the little properties he bought up in Mount Pleasant and Oscar on about that picture of Dorian Gray, a story Rudyard could seriously not get his inebriated head around. Rudyard had his Sabu and his elephants and Oscar had his silken jacket puffs, cigarette holders and between the two of them they could drink the hobos dry. There was a great mutual respect and even love in their conversations and ones I’ll always recall with a true contenting.

No TV in those days. One solid newspaper per city, none of these free nonsense dailies regurgitating everything twice and blowing all over every acre of greenery left. What unearthly waste of my fellow trees.

“Alright now Diog. Another joint if you please.”

While reluctant, Diog acquiesced to the old Sycamore wondering what might be in store. Aside from a brief glimmer during the Rudyard and Oscar telling, the light of Lyla’s lamp remained dormant.

This time he saw uniforms and heard the roar of motorcycles. He smelled sweat. And urine-soaked alleyways. And cheap wine. And blood. He heard chortling again, but gruff and ghastly. And suddenly a vicious dog salivating and wild-eyed leapt right into the face of Diog almost knocking him from his perch there in the joint of the maple. He held on to a firm branch swinging. Then he pulled up and returned to peer in again. This time he could make out the armory carried by the men: truncheons, taser guns and bullet-loaded guns, helmets, gloves and leathery interiors of dark, push-bar cars showcasing shotguns. And in concert with them were old and bedraggled, bearded, beer-bellied gangsters wearing their colours cavorting with their painted women. Then two of them started rubbing noses together. And Diog could hear them, “My mind to your mind,” accompanied by their frightened cackle. Soon though, this weird parlay was drowned out by the eerie echoes of zombiefied addicts on their Pride Parade playing little boy drums marching solemnly to the monotonal refrain, “Rock, powder, down…” And down they marched. Down into an abyss of anxiety-driven horrors. Then, to the shallow steps of a jib dancer, one frolicsome zombie handing out candy-flavoured rocks was rushing his one-liner: “Some baddie touched my dinky when I was ten, when I was ten, so I get to be a brat, a brat all my life, all my life or better yet, better yet a dopey dick, a dopey dick, a dopey dick. Yay.”

Then one of the bearded gangsters got in the push-bar car and started the engine and one of the helmeted guys with a shield got on the Harley and roared it into action. This was confusing. Diog gave his head a shake and taking a moment envisioned all these players in their bumper cars at the carnival giddy with delight, unabashedly indulging their juvenile dreams riding shotgun and juggling their blood-spattered truncheons. And something was missing in this joint. This joint seemed more like a shallow grave to Diog. Even the dog looked sick. And the grave was missing a corpse. And of this one he had had enough.

“Yes,” said Syc the old maple, as if reading Diog’s thoughts, “There is something missing there. You see, Diog, how I live according to the law of nature. This is my ground and upon it I have grown, oh since the 1890’s now, and my leaves very tender every one blow and toss in the many winds and are put upon by the many forms of rain and throughout all we have that law of nature bestowing upon us more life, more thrills in the sun and billowing about under the marching clouds and in all of this there is a respect. A great respect for nature as she respects me and all of my creatures, even my limbs and leaves, roots and canopies. But man has lost something. He needs not only to live by the Law of Nature but to live by a Law of Men. And this Law needs to be enforced, enforced to preserve the freedoms of man and his mobility as I have mobility but differently so.” (His branches lifted and bent to a brisk wind.) “What was missing in what you were witnessing was the Enforcement of that Law of Man. And now freedom is appearing more like costumed funnymen purveying chaos. And there is no rejoicing in Chaos.

“The litter of the addicted is a perpetual visual blight all about my skirts. They use their holy gift of speech to whine and curse and bemoan their fates. Even the natives are littering. The wisdom of the aboriginals who never did believe in entitlement to private property has been betrayed. Now, rather than acknowledgment of the Sun Chief as giver and holder of all titles they hire mouthpieces to smudge over their new version of entitlement. All I see around my park here are empty bottles and once proud men who have demeaned themselves into dereliction. Well I suppose they feel entitled to that too. And the sloth I witness. People young and old will sit idly all day here and let the litter grow like weeds all around them, not lifting a finger. At least you can upchuck.

“See all those luxury cars that drive by here? Oodles of money to go the same speed as that jalopy there, jerking back and forth in the same stream of traffic. They revel loudly in their wealth every chance they get. But what do I hear of them at the witching hour? Weeping. A lamenting of their loneliness. Even the sister moon has taken note.”

“Syc, what will you have of me?”

“Another joint, Diog. Onward and upward.”

“Oh dear.”

“Not to worry. The worst is behind you. Or pretty much.”

Diog climbed higher. The view was enlarged now to include an impressive vista of buildings, windows populated by solemn workers and other trees backgrounded by layers of ancient mountains; flocks of birds and streams of cars and coughing buses; clouds scudding across the pale blue and the occasional plane and sounds of subways and trains.

This time he witnessed the simple goings on of ordinary looking people doing their day to day chores with little élan but stalwart and plodding. Upon deeper scrutiny he picked out the occasional slippery maneuver, gladhander and double dealer among even these ordinary folk. And the little knowing glances, the gossip and hurtful exaggerations, the passing of paper and the arousal of greed were becoming more common until this malaise was becoming the ordinary, the expected. And their brows became stitched with the workmanship of the long suffering. No reddish flash of the fierceness of the righteous. The scenario was becoming nauseating for its mundane routine, lack of originality and loss of personality. What somebody had used whose special vacuum to suck out all that human spirit? At least the mountains remained impervious.

“There’s something to be said for being impenetrable, eh Diog?”

“Reading my mind again, Syc.”

“Just one more joint and you’ll be done. Now two important points. This next one is dangerous in that it is very tempting. It might be described as a life event of sorts. And now the other point is: Syc is not my name and you of all people should know how religiously important a name is. My name is my history. The embodiment of my spirit. I have become as it were the manifestation of my name. But later. For now, rise to the top joint.”

The first thing he noticed was the scent. Very alluring. This joint was truly seductive. It had an airiness, vapours of hopefulness seemed to rise as though from a pristine pond at daybreak. A smartness about it as though a man attired beautifully were hosting you with utmost concern for your comfort. And the hole from which all this was emanating was vast. Young faces appeared, all willing to serve you. All appealing to your enjoyment of attention. Songs and ditties arose from the joint, all playful and promising and Diog, after being so ruthlessly bandied about by the previous joints was finding this one quite to his liking.

He peered deeper and therein he saw a billowy swirl and smelled cigar smoke. This wealth smelt just fine. It was his wealth he detected and he liked it and he liked the bringer of it. He got in closer. Ah, the women. The prestige. The swanky car. The luxuries, all of which he could manage humbly he was sure. He was truly deserved. All this he felt belonged to him. Just that paper to sign, that one profferred by that handsome mature fellow whose gait was one of success and windy confidence. Even the man’s face was pulchritudinous and engaging, so reassuring; and he was – what was he doing? – he was… puckering? He was puckering! Puckering! Diog flew back so hard he bumped his head on the limb above him and now was swooning. Dazed he vaguely heard Syc’s old voice, “Hold on there, Diog. Hang on. Can’t fall from there!”

“Whew. Ouch. That’s an owie. Dang! Who was that man? I recognized him from somewhere just in time. Devious. Yes, he was devious. And cunning. Oh my. Very cunning. And God he was wearing lipstick! He was preparing the kiss of death. No. It was more than that. It was the kiss of the death debt. God it was my bank manager!”

“Now take it easy, Diog. You’ve managed now to get through all the stages of my joint rot. And you’re going to be fine. Just take a deep breath. And try to relax. Enjoy the view.” The wind picked up and the whole tree rustled about and Grundles scurried down the limbs. Birds took flight and even the insects seemed to be on the bailout. And there came the rumble. A mighty unearthly deep and strange rumble.

“What’s going on Syc? What’s happening?”

“Diog! I told you that’s not my name. My name is…” and then the old tree gave out a horrendously loud cracking sound.

“Diog! Get down now! Get down!”

And Diog obliged and gymnastically swung limb to limb bearing toward the earth while the old maple began its toppling. Right there on Cambie by Pender it crashed and Diog in all the cacophony thought he heard the tree utter one more word. Just two syllables. But he couldn’t make them out. Even though they sounded similar to that of a lumberjack calling. Diog was more intent on surviving this collapse uninjured. It was a calamity to be sure. Old Syc, or whatever his name was, had truly met his demise right there on the street atop two vehicles.

While everyone there at Victory Square were agog with the aftermath and busy trying to unpuzzle what had just transpired, Diog made his way home cloaked. There his wife was dutifully chopping the garden’s delights for a dinner salad to be served with that lamb roasting. And thence Lyla lit up nicely and the day unfolded with a loveliness. Just before the setting of the sun, Diog spied a Grundler on his window sill nipping at a nut.

He divined that the Grundler was there to communicate something of import to him so quietly and without disturbing the wife at her porch chair, reading, he ambled over and lent his ear.

“Did you hear the old maple on its way down. What he said?”
“No. I was too distracted. All that thrashing and such.”
“He was naming himself I believe.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I heard clearly two syllables.”
“Yes! Come to think of it, so did I but I couldn’t make them out.”
“I could but it was as though he hadn’t finished by the time he hit the street.”
“What were the syllables?”
“Well he said, in a holler like a lumberjack, ‘Van Koo…’ and that was it.”
“Ah. Yes.” And despite all he had seen that day, Diog chuckled. He laughed wistfully remembering the old Sycamore with affection and gratitude.

The Ordinary Criminals Among Us

If love is necessary to a man’s life, necessary to the survival of every individual on the face of this planet, then gossip is a spiritual crime.

Hem, Haw and Dither

Putinistas shining it on Obama from a desecrated graveyard in somebody else's country. Alongside them tap-dancing are a just 're-elected' Syrian dictator and Lybian and Iraqi tribesmen, holy fucks of Al Quaeda and a camping Nigerian girl-raping demigod. And that picture of his blushing wife holding her home-made sign "Bring our girls home!" must be, I'm sure framed in silver by now at the White House bedside. 

CIA geniuses charging around throwing billions of Yankee dollars at secret projects of their dashing choosing. 

Go Barach go. Or spread your hawk wings, fast.

The longer and faster you chant "hem-haw-and-dither" in the shower and no matter how many repetitions of that mantra you can squeeze into a minute of air time means nothing more than chaos getting out of hand... like a bar of wet soap.