Organic Words and Genetics

Recently, scientists have finally published their theory that "conduct and behavior" can change one's DNA.  The genetics of the host. The good conductor. 

Let's just have a longer ponder here. This may lead to good conduct increasing in goodness the spiritual field (well orchestrated genes) of our descendants, which I've been writing about for 30 years. 

What about going from the conductor outwardly?


The well spoken words of charitableness and empathy, the example of generous conduct all heard and witnessed by the impressionable child leads to a biological change not only in the Speaker but as importantly that child. Generations may be born into this enhanced field. Until a spiritual field is perfectly set for a visit from the Heavenly Father, as it has been set out and created buy our collective good will. Perhaps a private village would be enough.

We create heaven. We make the way passable for Him to return and Live among us. Wake up, all. Wake up to this undeniable connection between science and theology - the link between God's creative intelligence and good will and man's discoveries of that will at work. 

Wake up to Words spoken in Light.

Vancouverisms and Morbid Parlours

In the Parlour of the Dying 

Recently, I was sidetracked with a free ambulance ride. St Paul’s in Vancouver took receipt of my body and after I borrowed their bucket and toilet for blood-filled evacuations, my stretcher was shipped by elevator to the 10^th floor for an operation. The only thing I recall about that was a doctor awakening me to tell me to open my mouth wider… so he could insert his instrument down through my esophagus.

The next place I awoke was on the fifth floor in the parlour of the dying. There I was visited by specialists and teams of students all agog.  I spent three days in this ‘holding cell’ listening to the long-winded death throes of a man in particular who pretended to be so disoriented that he thought it was fine to holler all night and attract attention to himself while keeping the rest of us awake. Healing requires rest. Maybe somebody should have mentioned that to all those nurses endlessly fussing around him, and the doctors and students rambling through.

One fellow was shipped elsewhere and replaced by another curmudgeon who couldn’t stop pressing his nurse call button to everyone’s chagrin.   The third man needed ‘help’ with his gown, “down there” by his crotch every time the prettiest nurse showed. Being the father of a hospital board member may have indeed helped his member chances.

So there lay the four of us. Waiting for Godot I guess. I was strung up with two IV units, one in each arm and plastered tape over my hands to hold the needles in. Try going to the bathroom with that configuration. I got tangled in wires every time. My only visitor turned out to be my schizophrenic boyfriend who dutifully brought me some clean clothes and a book to read. I met a few doctors who were working on their impersonation of Goebbel’s bedside manner. Apart from that a volunteer brought me Ladies Home Journals and National Geographics to thumb through. 

After blood transfusions and a infusion of white blood cells I survived and returned home.

My General Practitioner, who’s usually out of the loop about my health anyway, did manage to comment after seeing the hospital file, “You would have died if you didn’t get to the hospital when you did.”

Interestingly, at least to me, I had earlier that week received a visitation from my father’s father, long gone now but whose last breaths I witnessed. I was there in his modest room again, there in New Brunswick, listening to his slow rattling.  He seemed so present in this visitation. This grim reminder of my own mortality. Within the week there I was in the parlour of the dying.

The most disappointing discovery in that room of imminent death was the behavior of my neighboring bedridden fellows. They were worse than brat-like: ignoble, frightened, faithless and hopelessly inconsiderate. So much for whatever theology they misspent their lives on. Boy Scouts are better prepared to light a match. All these guys could manage was to darken my day and keep me awake at night.

If, as Hindus believe, we become in our next life that thing we think about last in this life, I shudder to imagine what they are crawling about like now.

I followed up all this attention from specialists with a visit to my general practitioner. He seemed alarmed and I couldn’t help sense that he didn’t feel adequate to the task of being my caregiver. Then it dawned on me he never really was; more of a pharmaceutical delivery agent operating revolving doors. This suspicion was pretty much borne out when I called for a quick telephone consult (thirty seconds please?) to sort out a question re my prescriptions. After I called over a week pleading with his secretary/traffic manager to get him on the line, he won out by not returning my call, forcing me to visit so he could hear that precious chah-ching.

I’m going to include him in my Last Will once I’ve googled what is an appropriate gift for a pig in a sty.

*   *   *

VANCOUVERISMS

Some American outfits (Conde Nast mag etc) recently selected and congratulated Vancouver for being North America’s most ‘liveable’ city.  Most resistant. Most this-and-that. And now a buzz word Vancouverism is making the rounds of urban plights everywhere.

Allow me to introduce my own Vancouverisms – O.K? Ready?

THE ROADWAYS

Drivers throughout this beautiful gem of a city choose to gun their way through, clipping at pedestrians (offering involuntary pedicures), running red lights even in Go Slower districts like the downtown eastside; honking horns and flipping birds indulging their rage at every opportunity.

Very disappointingly the vast majority of these drivers are oriental Asians (according to my daily head count). If they’re importing the driving habits of Hong Kong or whichever other ditzed out, mean-spirited war zone, maybe they should take a refresher course in where they’ve landed. Traditional Canadians are polite, sometimes even meek and obsequious but overall just harmless and civil. Stop targeting us. Should we examine the ethnic stats of whoever is generating this new wave of hit and runs? Might that examination be telling?

It’s always gratifying for me to see the speedsters held up at the next light while I stroll past them from that corner where they almost clipped me.

This Vancouverism will find its genesis in the wild-eyed and underplanned promoting of ‘multiculturalism' – opening of the Pacific Gate and all being “good for the economy.”

THE BUS DRIVERS

Witnessed!: Four runners in a downpour charging to a bus stop out in Port Coquitlam on a highway. They were easily seen by the driver well in advance of the stop. They arrived on time to slap the back of that bus to alert the driver. The driver ignored them and pulled away, leaving them to get soaked for a half an hour on that unprotected stretch of highway. I phoned to register my complaint and heard a recording advising me to write a letter. I did and heard nothing back – not even an offer to reimburse my bus fare. Go Translink Go! (Keep going and going and going, then disappear with your heartless Translink cops.)

Other patrons at bus stops being driven right by. Bus was not loaded. Lots of room. Patrons got bus-splashed.

Drivers threatening broke welfare recipient trying to get to his hospital: “I’ve got your picture on record now!”

Barrelling through red lights (witnessed on many occasions).

THE POLICE

Too often police can be witnessed bullying the mentally ill or addicted on Hastings Street. Sneering.

The police are charged with our protection and the enforcement of the law. They have chosen not to enforce the law when it comes to drug dealing one block away from their headquarters in Vancouver. They blame that (from what I can surmise) on the system which permits these poison peddlers to get back on the street the next day, including the illegal immigrants. Their job of enforcement does not entitle them to make these kinds of decisions that find them turning a blind eye to the crack trade downtown. Let the system work itself out – but they have an enforcement job to do. Citizens want their sidewalks back – not to be obstructed and bullied by cretins barking “Rock, powder, down.”

By cutting off the dope solicitors, they will have made a significant negative impact on the gang leaders who control the traffic of these unearthly drugs. How would the cop feel if it was his 14 year old daughter who was becoming the crackhead?

Witnessed!: Driver standing next to his parked vehicle waiting on driver of other vehicle to swap insurance papers re teensie wrinkle-fender while parking. No visible damage whatsoever. When the two female cops show up in a screeching blaze (thanks to some rat), they breathalyzed the standing-by ex-driver, impounded his vehicle (which he relied on for his work) and handed him a “regulatory prohibition” (new vague law) preventing him from driving for three months and ultimately costing him his job and $7,000. Next time the gals are not getting enough of each other, maybe they can pick on some real criminals – like the gang members selling all that crack a block away. No amount of their cackling can hide their ineptitude (they screwed up the ticket twice) and poor attitude. 20 years ago, a male cop would have said, “Go home, fella. Leave the car here. Sleep it off.”

As to all the accusations of police brutality, I have personally witnessed none of this aberrant behavior but given these overkill attitudes expressed when dealing with extremely minor cases, and their collective sheepishness to take on the gangs, I suppose it wouldn’t take much of a stretch to suggest that they have some unresolved issues to work out, and sometimes under the cover of darkness in alleyways.

Check out their new choice of car design. And the design they’re fazing out. Looks like Darth Vader rolls victorious over Bambi. 

This new design should accompany their new recruitment ad for which I happily submit the following text: Bullies Wanted. Wear a dark uniform with an array of weaponry. Be licensed to kill. Leering and gum-chewing allowed on duty. Camaraderie over drunken pool games in public bars encouraged. No high school diploma necessary. 

Depicted above: Darth Vader aka ThugMobile

For possible daily quenching of bloodthirtsiness, apply today. Get to put siren on hood! (No graduates from Sensitivity Training Programs Need Apply.) 
                                                         Below: Bambi

THE VANCOUVER STOCK EXCHANGE

(Closed due to corruption. Need anyone say more? Well, O.K. go ahead and ask the pump-and-dumpers; and maybe check in with Nelson Skalbania, Murray Pezim and cronies.)

PRACTICES OF NEW CANADIANS

The port trucker strike had an interesting genesis. The New Canadians (this time mostly East Indians) undercut the traditional drivers so seriously that these drivers just quit in disgust. These New Canadians went on strike to force new wages – those same wages to which they undercut themselves, in order to shaft the traditional drivers. To our shame, they won some points after capitulation by the feds.

CONDO KINGS AND THE HOMELESS: Other New Canadians who bought their citizenships through the now defunct federal program of selling Canadian citizenship to the rich for an amount which of course was “good for the economy.”  Well the birdies have come home to roost, except not to live in all these Condo investments. These architecturally sterile shrines remain empty shells not generating one iota of social activity: grocery shopping, community centre memberships, coffee shop chatterbugging etc in the respective neighborhoods while these glassy monoliths loom over the blankets of the homeless sleeping on heat grates below.

Job placement activity is alive and well for Filipinos. Just ask the young Canadians who have left resumes at fast food restaurants lately. Coming to a Mac near you: MacFlips. Now MacDonalds restaurants and Yes, even, Yegads! that bastion of Canadiana - Tim Horton's - are being investigated nation-wide for possibly abusing the foreign worker program. Wave a flag for Filipinos forever becoming New Canadians.

So a pile of bureaucrats (including Vancouverites) huddled together for a year, spent 1.2 million dollars to try to figure out how to resolve the homeless problem. By gawd! Eureka! They found the answer. Provide the homeless a home. Gosh, jolly! Money well spent.

Before I upchuck I thought I’d lighten this load with a song:

SIDEWALKING

Carts of empty cans pushed along

By wrinkled faces and broken hands

In this place of opportunity

For people of distant lands.

Bicyclists and roller-skaters blow past

Men in walkers blaming life for their latest infirmities,

Scooters, hooters and tooters race by the last,

Of old wrinkled ladies of the little hobbled knees.

Long-leashed poodles whose masters declare

Clear the road! Clear the road!

Don’t for one second you dare, you dare

To think for you I care, care , care.

Not for one second do I care, do I care,

More for you than my poodle dear, my poodle dear.

Lessons in sidewalking

No charges, no charge

To avoid skateboarders from behind looming large,

And everyone else freewheeling to the max,

Forcing the elderly to be watching their backs, watching their backs.

Knots of students studying English,

Hog the whole walk, the whole walk,

While they incessantly smoke and talk, talk, talk,

In Mandarin, Korean, Cantonese and Peckanese,

Talk, talk, talk, blocking the walk, and wheeze wheeze wheeze.

Lessons in sidewalking

No charges, no charge

To avoid skateboarders from behind looming large,

And everyone else freewheeling to the max,

For lessons in sidewalking, make tracks, make tracks.

Feel better? Good. Because now we have to back to shoveling. One must shovel first before one can plant the seed.

Underlying attitudes in Vancouver expose broken moral compasses. To wit: plush neighborhoods organizing petitions to keep half-way houses out of their area. Ye gods! Our property values will plummet! (Not.) 

The stuff of Stanley Cup Rioters still brewing in Surrey and Burnaby. When they get really bored, they come downtown for a round of gaybashing.

Vancouver City is the landlord of many bug-infested, unhealthy living environments. Where are the provincial health inspectors? Try visiting the foot long rats after 2 a.m. any time. The bedbugs and cockroaches are generously non-classist. They’ll infest the west side as soon as the east side. No petitions will help. The new development plans for the downtown eastside refer to providing much more ‘social housing’ – which has nothing to do with what a welfare recipient can afford.  And the slum landlords raise their rents as soon as the welfare pittance is raised. These are the same landlords who cash an addict's cheque (who doesn’t live there) and takes 35 – 40% of that cheques for the ‘service.’

For a stroll through the most pathetically unhappy Chinatown in North America, find Pender Street. Service with a scowl now paying out negative dividends. Chinatown Business associations are appearing at City Hall, spare-changing.  

Waiters and waitresses complain often about poor tipping in Vancouver. What about the waitress (Witnessed!) at the Gastown pub who twice tried to shortchange me in two servings (after catching sight of my minor roll of 50’s). The manager took her side. Both times. Or the waitress who got me barred for complaining within her earshot about how seriously bad her service was. The manager took her side and barred me for years – waiting for an apology from me. They’re still waiting. It’s that pool-playing bar in the Denman Hotel. I only tip when the service merits a tip.

Our two centrally located hospitals are overcrowded and one, St Paul's, is made of old red brick; the kind of brick structure that Big Q’s would just luv to rock and roll.  In any morally wounded environment, social panic is always just under the surface of anxiety and fear. When there was a clean water warning instructing the Vancouver populace to boil its drinking water, west enders (for example) almost trampled each other in-store as they stampeded for kegs of water on sale. All those nicely dressed, creased and sophisticated west enders showing their true colours. I wonder how the petition signers of the west side managed their behavior? Can't wait to play shutterbug during the Big Q.

Millions and millions were spent in the land of the homeless on studying the impact of making our beer, wine and spirits more accessible. After years of navel-gazing and head-crunching they approved a new strategy. Resulting in the opening of two new outlets in all of Vancouver. 

But throughout all this turmoil, one thing remained steadfast and true – the paychecks made out to all those bureaucrats who are likely of the same cloth as the ones connected to the federal government who are charged with dispensing funds to natives and veterans and whose bureaucratic bill in doing so usually tops the amount intended for the original dispersal

So, to top off my little hit list of Vancouverisms, suffice to say that while we all take credit for being members of a pretty city, we each of us must carry that truthiness card in our wallets, you know the one that reads:  The rich get richer while the poor get poorer. That's one for your prayer beads. 

Resolutions to be posted soon.

And, by the way: For a real gusher of obsequiousness, see host of http://wn.com/welcome_to_vancouver__the_most_livable_city_in_the_world!

Merry Hypocrites

So there was this young married couple with child in tow visiting Vancouver at Christmas. Infant child became seriously ill. Young couple arrived at the Emergency ward at St Paul’s Hospital. Mother, back at home in the B.C. interior, discovered to her dismay the circumstance of her son and daughter-in-law and grandchild. The parents were spending Christmas Eve in the emergency ward waiting on news of their infant. Mother, poverty stricken, made every possible effort phoning restaurateurs, to get her family a pizza or dinner delivered to them. All she got was NO. Too busy.  

I would be very interested to publish the names of every restaurant owner who snubbed her. Merry Christmas you pricks.

The Movement of a Righteous Teacher

He didn’t talk or yawp. 

He spoke. 

His words created Life. 


He didn’t fumble about. 

He walked with grace as he was Grace. 

He didn’t fret with his hands.

His animated fingers were instruments of Creation. 


He didn’t giggle.

He laughed with abandon and utmost Joy.


He didn’t hesitate.

He behaved with Continuity.


He didn’t creep up on his environment.

He was the Holy environment, all of it.


He didn’t compete in conversation.

He attempted to share his secrets for all to know his Bliss. 


He didn’t squirm in fear.

He was Love which vanquishes fear.


He didn’t wince at a surprising sound.

He was the trumpet of all sounds.


He wasn’t bedazzled by the stars and the heavens.

He was their mystic turning and their music.


He didn’t meander aimlessly.

His every footfall a stamp of Beauty,

Unearthing ragged mountains, and provoking windstorms.


He didn’t dwell on the mundane.

His eyes pierced the veils of Mystery and enchanted more.


He did weep privately.

For His children deaf and blind,

Remained indifferent to His majesty. 

That Wondrous Stuff

Sometimes we just let magic be magic... that wondrous stuff through which every day we move.

It becomes clearer, more ordinary with every charitable act.

As in forgiveness.

Which oddly, requires no energy.

Every experience we have every day; every light and sound we see and hear (all those colours of both); every bad thought we don’t enact; every thoughtful word we speak to a stranger is what makes our life and our death mask a thing of beauty.

KNOWING = PEACE

An Oil Transport Resolution?

Dear Editor:

Re Transporting Oil

All this fuss about oil transport, safety, environmental concerns, job creation etc etc can be rather easily resolved. Taking the Northern Gateway Pipeline as an example: Build the structure so as not to interfere with animal migrations or the growth of pristine habitats. With our super-science and technology today, surely we can do this, barring greedy corner-cutting. Then ship the ‘liquid gold’ in tankers HALF THE SIZE, thus almost absolutely eliminating the real threat – the dreaded oil spill. This possible resolution depends wholly on the oil companies to cooperate and stop overloading ludicrously long tankers and trying to shove them through a tangle of gulf islands and unpredictable seas.  

Advice to a Young Man

Hello young man,

Seldom have I met someone so young whose wit is so acute. Add to that, you’re a sight for sore eyes and some bell is ringing somewhere tolling: “This man is going to succeed!” But alas, bells can be off key. Depends on the ringer. That would be you. 

So I understand you’re taking a year off the schooling business to perhaps examine your options. Probably a wise choice. “Probably” because if you squander this year, it makes you vulnerable to that insidious disease, TV-itis.  That machine with its lights flickering constantly and people on a relentless screen showcasing an act of an act is a serious threat to a good young mind. It’s OK to remove that pacifier before a weird kind of sluggishness creeps in.

So allow me to make a couple of suggestions: take some time to read, perhaps study other languages (French and Spanish?), or cultures; read or pick up a pen and learn better your own language as you script your observations. Daily? Read about nutrition and the thrilling happenings in science; even the old farts are immensely enjoying their doctorates in genetics, physics, medical research and so many more avenues of light. They’re on a frontier and they know it.

Youth and beauty, through which you are just beginning to bloom now, are enchanting not only to others but even to yourself. The difference between a man and a flower is of course, free will. You can actually manage your own beauty and grow into a wise youth. And in that there is tangible pleasure. As your life takes on meaning, perhaps after all your schooling, you may notice how deeply satisfying it can be.

I urge you to use this year profitably… not just monetarily but more importantly intellectually. A man cannot enjoy a spiritual body of any worth leading to a secret continuity of pleasure if he hasn’t developed his intellectual muscles.

Yes, I have a few ideas about how you might make the most of your year off (assuming you intend to return to school which I totally and unreservedly support).

Perhaps a few words from you as to what you want to do with your life in that money-making department might help me give you at least advice that is pertinent.

A career in the creative world is full of twists and turns and tribulations and a horde of egomaniacs, all deluding themselves about the value of celebrity. But that is not to say that such careers wouldn’t be gratifying and potentially very lucrative. (I have two books in the library, another on the way, and I am still faced with ‘making a living.’ Now there’s a term I abhor: Life is given. Only the personality of the infinite can make a life.)

I’ll share in more detail the few ideas I have for you that might be helpful in the event you find anything here of interest. Whatever you decide and whenever, I do wish you well.     

My Hallowed Weeny Experience

Quite at the last hour before the festivities around Gastown, I got the impulse to go out. I had the brilliant idea that I would take a big brown paper bag, illustrate it with my coloured inks and pencils and make it into a mask. Well try finding a big brown paper bag these days. Used to be everywhere at all grocers etc. So I went home, now even more determined, and used 8 sheets of white paper out of my printer and began my Mickyangelello effort. By the time I was finished I had a tight fitting gruesome thing over my head and the closest I can come to describing it is to compare it to Heath Ledger's Joker in Batman. All raggedy and bloody-faced. I completed this look by wearing my Peruvian jacket zipped right up to the mask and crowned it all with my fedora. Off I skulked to the Blarney Stone where they don't charge me the ticket fee nor allow me to wait in line (my dancing is still appreciated).

When asked what was I? I started by answering "A bedbug" and swept my right palm down my left sleeve and asked in return, "Would you like to dance?" Well that wasn't working out too well, so my later reply was "A Bug" and then I got some dance action while having to re-jig my mask so the eye slits would realign themselves to my eyeballs; and eventually through my more dishevelled eye-slits managed to skulk home again with a few hilarious Boo! memories.

Open Letter to Stan Lee

What fun it was to find the nearest store within a mile and for 12 cents find your next books... Spider-man, Dr Strange, Daredevil etc... I had my own gang leaping across the fences in those days.

Why after all these years of my enjoyment of your words and Steve’s Ditko’s artistry (Spider-Man and Dr Strange, Daredevil etc) did Steve leave you?

How is Steve?

I hope he is well-compensated despite your troubles with Sony.

You always use to give us these comic book readers the straight goods.

‘Nuff said.

HARPER'S CASKET

At last. Our P.M.'s office has been exposed. 

Harper's Duffygate works for me. 

Finally, our mortician has found his own casket.

Hello Vancouver. Is anybody home?

Our American friends visiting us are staggered by creepy attitudes and hours of service in this squeaky, pretentious town called Vancouver… named after a brave man.

Who gets their newspaper before two pm? Why is the beer store closed at six?

When you want service with a scowl, go to the most boring Chinatown in the world (right here) or visit your local post office.

And by the way, try the sidewalks these days. The youngin’s think you’re invisible. They walk through you with their stretch-doggie leashes. And you can always depend on skateboarders to roar up your ass. Or get an involuntary pedicure by aggressive hit-and-runners. They paid their way here and don't give a crap about Canadians (my family coming here from the mid 1700's.)

Oh, did I miss something? Read both newspapers written by the same hacks.

DEATH BED FANTASIES

Open letter to anyone to whom I am guilty of writing:

My words about life are meant to be a titch of advice about your philosophy and theology. That's what I contemplate. Not always Your Life.  

Everybody's O.K. to be a philosopher; O.K. to be a theologian; not O.K. to realize on one's deathbed that they got the theology wrong.

Each of us has a private relationship to the personality of the infinite. Sure beats withering with TV violence and politics (the eternal sea of Maya).

The last image I want playing in mind is that after all, I had no idea. 

I hope they clean the sheets.

Your body is your friend telling you methinks the same.

Dear Reader:

STAYING UNDISTRACTED:

Uh, that subject was meant to be a titch of advice about your philosophy and theology. That's what I was thinking about. Not Yours; everybody's. O.K. to be a philosopher; O.K. to be a theologian: not O.K. to realize on one's deathbed that they got the theology wrong.

Each of is has a private relationship to the personality of the infinite. Sure beats withering with TV violence and politics (the eternal sea of Maya).

The last image I want playing in mind is that after all, I had no idea. 

I hope they clean the sheets.

Your body is your friend telling you methinks the same.

The birds are there to free us from our thinking... and expose the grandeur of heaven.

Stonewall the Putinistas
Just one question for union leaders, port managers, liquor store owners, bar and restaurant owners around our quivering globe: is this weekend not an auspicious time to finally close the door on homophobic hatefulness? How? End all movement of all Russian products. Period. Stonewall the Putinistas. You know - those real men who lay out the glittering red carpet in the palace of the King of Communism after jailing our gay athletes. 

FOR:
gaybratbieber.com
AKA:
tom jones and liberace.

Throw more panties!

Brutal Interference

USELESS, BRUTAL INTERFERENCE

During a personal milestone in any individual's life, birth and death for example, it is a time for absolute peace. But the brutal common media does not respect this… unless of course it’s about the cameraman or the commentator’s personal life. Then perhaps (not likely for long) might they appreciate the need for absolute privacy. With all of this celebrity sucking, don’t count on it. This deep snooping will not abate.

Let Mandela, Prince Phillip and others of good note pass away on a quiet note, you morons among the common media. Consider. Consider your own relationships to the personality of the infinite and then consider how would YOU like it if everybody stuck a camera and microphone in your face during your last moment of prayer… you bloody morons. 

We are the words we hear. We are the words we speak. Speaking is a way of sustaining mental health. Agree or not to agree doesn't matter. Engage and allow your humanity to be engaged. Eventually you may discover peace through words of grace.

Finding a Family

After 40 years someone in my immediate family found a broom and found me. About which I, as a great uncle, uncle, brother etc, am pleased.

Close the zoos.

They are not the healthy environment for any animal. Send the animals back to their familes, their natural territories. Let elephants prance with their cousins. Let the tigers find their prey.

Open more museums and science centres for children and the rest of us to understand the globe we live on. Punishing animals for our minor entertainment and little edification is worse than inhumane.

One day in California by the sea I heard the voice of angels laughing and when I looked upward at the tumbling clouds a face appeared. Wise and etched with compassion. Not a grim countenance but a hint of a smile which that day helped me to recover. That same day I heard – and I’m quite sure – that “still small voice” which spoke the one word which also helped me. That word was “persevere” and that face was yours.

And having persevered, I met you. Thank you for everything since then.

Enjoy your youthfulness and during those moments when you are frightened, perhaps you will recall that “There is no time. There never was. Just your relationship to the truth… and perhaps for you the extreme and intense peace of knowing.”

As always dear: best wishes. - Harry

Honey Did I Miss You?

Honey did I miss you?

Where were you?

Where were you?

I was alone, alone.

Waiting. Waiting. Where were you?

Did you pass me by? Pass me by?

I was there, waiting. Waiting.

Honey, did I miss you?

Be beside me. Beside me. 

I need you here beside me.

I was there waiting, waiting, waiting for you.

And you passed me by. You passed me by.

Hooligans everywhere. Finding excuses anywhere. Soccer games. Hockey cups. Rage drivers. Mobs.

What’s the answer? Police brutality? Kill them all? Will that extreme response rescue us from their moronic conduct?

(See for example: BC coroner rules: Dziekanski death at hands of RCMP a homicide,)

Nope.

With all our science, which is good science brought to us by your neighbourhood geek, can’t we find another response? A response to conclude this outrageous inciviltity?

Yes. Yup, there is an answer.

The sleep bomb. 

Use drones to drop and fumigate these bastards with the consequence of their immediate sleep… and make sure they wake up with a hangover and go home whining to mommy.

Let’s start with a biggie bomb.  North Korea.

Tickee, tickee, boom...

Sleep, sleep sleeee…

The first country to industrialise was the United Kingdom during the Industrial Revolution, commencing in the 18th century.

Here we are in the 21^st.

Since Industrialization, we have, according to economists, progressed.

Our earth and our oceans are now under extreme pressure. No economist is going to resolve that irreversible greed.

The globe we live on needs immediate repair.

Leave it alone.

We may eat again from our gardens healthy food. We may drink delicious water. We may get educated without spoiling this planet we call home.

Stop this madness.

While it may ‘cost’ us three generations, do it now,

De-industrialise.


Good Men Lost

How many more?

No matter their minor sins, they remain committed to goodness… and why can’t the rest of us at least see their goodness?

Who among us, dear reader, can say with ease, “I have tried.”

May we, with your permission, increase or at least allow goodness?

All of us, reading now.

Allowing goodness works.

Encouraging goodness is courageous.

The love of a frightened man is a good love.

Dear Editor:

The 2^nd Amendment was not written by God.

 It was written by men during a time of necessary protection to win a certain war which gave strength and continuity to the United Sates of America.

 This is a different time.

 Now is the time to change or amend the Holy 2^nd Amendment.

 Assault rifles are way beyond the original idea of home protection.

 Just change that amendment. Amend it. Stop sucking up to it… all you REAL men.

 Let President Barach Obama win this point and bring peace.

 And then enjoy hunting, as I do. 

CRAT CALLING

Happy and Prosperous New Year to all and sundry 
- (whomever THEY may be).

Having watched a few episodes of Duck Dynasty I was inspired to create my own whistle call.

Background: In case you didn't know, Duck Dynasty is based on a real life entrepreneur whose family is making a fortune selling duck call whistles.

So here's my fortune coming along: I have invented (patent pending) a 'Crat Call.' Very simple: next time you're dealing with (either in person or on the phone) a bureaucrat, and are getting much frustrated, just blow my Crat Call. It sounds like a troublesome and ineffective series of grunts related to your worst bowel movement.  

Blow it long and hard. 

Send me a cheque. Or am I supposed to send a bill first? GST? HST? 

Pucker up.

A Modern Interpretation

Our Father, who art in heaven;
And here by us,

Hallowed be thy Name.

Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth,
As it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

Excuse our trespasses as is Your Way,
That we may excuse them who trespass against us this day.

And help us not to be led into chaos and temptation,
And deliver us from ignorance and conflagration.

For thine is the kingdom,
The power and the glory.

Here with You,
For ever and ever.

Amen.

EASY ANSWER FOR THE STREETS

All of us can stop the killing of minds from drug sales by making one quickie change in the law: All solicitors of crack cocaine, "rock, powder" etc. will be charged and jailed. Any voice soliciting, needs to get off the street. That will stop the suppliers - Hell's Angels who send their kids to private schools while poisoning your children with $2 hoots.

Stop the solicitors. Charge them. Jail them ... and if we had any guts, charge the Hell's 'Angel' every chance we get no matter how many Super-Valu's they control or how many laundries they use to wash their dirty money.

So we survived December 21st. Say good-night to the Mayans. We can survive the wrath of the Hell's Weanies.

AND THEN MY LOVER SAID:

He asked me to write him a poem on the spot so here it is:

All ways,

Your ways,To my happy surprise
Young men awakening wise. 

STOP

JUST STOP.

STOP killing children and civilians.

And find a will for peace.

Israelis and Palestinians are Cousins.

REMEMBER?

Crab Park Encounter

Last summer, strolling through Crab Park, I encountered people carrying paper plates of hot food and then saw the cue, at least 100 strong. Having time to kill I opted to join the freebie feed-in and just as I did was informed by a young woman that it was for abused native Indian lesbians only – some sort of support protest against deadbeat or violent men. I felt a little foolish for not noticing that the line-up was indeed all women with dark hair. (But I suppose the hot dogs might have been a giveaway.)

Oh well, something good did come out of this rebuke of my presence in line there. An inspiration I can only describe as profound and meaningful descended upon me with the weight of a pregnant dove. In keeping with my deep sense of social justice for all, next summer at Crab Park I will be hosting a freebie feed-in (pulled pork) of my own: for stuttering, beakless Jewish homosexual grandfathers with hairlips. (No ringers please.)

Donations of looky-loos will be gratefully accepted on site on behalf of the Foundation to Establish a Retirement Home for Exhausted Hollywood Vampires and Zombies and to offset the cost of memorial services for spotted North Korean lab rats.   

Lest We Forget

Today’s hero is Malala. This 15 year old spoke out on behalf of the girls and women of her homeland and around the world where they are oppressed and refused an education. A member of the Taliban crept up behind her and shot her in the head. Thankfully, she is recovering. The creep who shot her hasn’t been apprehended yet. Maybe we should look behind his mother’s skirt? Or the robes of his Taliban pals? In what dark dimension of thought do those a-holes actually consider the shooter a hero?

SPECIAL NOTE TO TALIBAN WANNABES: A free course in Suicide Bombing is now accepting applications. Come and meet your fellow fanatics on a remote island off British Columbia's beautiful west coast where privacy is assured and free bombware provided. Don't miss this once-in-a-lifetime event!  

Dear Editors

While rows and rows of nicely attired soldiers, cadets and veterans all handsomely parade in front of cenotaphs around our country this Sunday, would it surprise any veteran or members of veterans’ families if the Veterans’Affairs bureaucrats were throwing an in-house Bureaucrat Appreciation Party for their effective stonewalling of veterans’ services? The party bill, of course, to be picked up by the taxpayers who are naive enough to believe that their taxes are there to assist these war heroes and their families.

      With so much largesse to be had, maybe the ‘crats would also appreciate their own uniform to parade in? Maybe a flashy t-shirt emblazoned with a bird-flip in the shape of a cenotaph?  I have the design here. To order, given your usual time schedule, I’ll place inventory in all sizes in my warehouse of mothballs.

-Harry Langen, son of George (war hero),still waiting after seven years for Dad’s war record.       

That man pleading with eyes a’twinkling, with sweet, child-like forbearance and puppy-brows has a shank in his back pocket.

Harry Langen,

#107, 42 east Cordova Street,

Vancouver,

V6A 1K2

November 2, 2012

Re Multiculturalism, Language and the Canadian Society

Dear Mr McMartin:

Thank you for your piece on multiculturalism of October 25^th. I have also observed changes in the social mosaic of Vancouver; in my case since 1968 after arriving alone from Toronto. I recall in those days the debate about the Canadian identity. What or who is a Canadian? Having been the founder of the debating club at my high school, I was always up for a good mind-rattling discourse on vague ideas. Somewhat more mature now I view a society by the fundamental values it embraces and then how much the people actually live by those values. This living I believe will shape the identity of a country. Now as I scan the lay of that spiritual landscape, as it were, I am dismayed; and almost every day that distraught state of mind might deepen were I not to hold fast to my unreasonable optimism. While we native Canadians (I’m of an ancestry that arrived in Nova Scotia before Canada was called Canada in the mid 1700’s) fumbled around navel-gazing about who we are and what makes a Canadian,  successive federal governments swung wide the gates to well-heeled immigrants. At first blush, especially with the Honourable Pierre Trudeau’s effective pitching of that new word “multiculturalism,” we, the great grandchildren of pioneers, nodded our willing ascent and clapped ourselves on the back for our tolerance and new worldliness.

   That’s when, from my perspective, the bloodless revolution began. You mentioned in your column, “I don’t want to see these beliefs (Canadian) eroded.” Well, fella, this country is only one effective legal argument away from hosting on our turf Radio Communism.

   It has become painfully obvious to me as a man on the street that this huge influx of immigrants, from Asia particularly, did not, in the main, come here to enhance Canadianism.

   Generalization is not fair, I know, so I will join you in tip-toeing through this morass. I will write only about that which I observe. On Robson by Denman, the Koreans gather in cues for dinner. Always pleasant to witness the laughter of young people but where’s the sound of English? The East Indians gather in multi-family houses in Surrey and the smell of baked salmon, hot dogs or Canadian bacon (ahem) is hardly pervasive. Broiled tongue-in-cheek sometimes though. (Mine?) I don’t know where the young Chinese are tribalizing but with our Chinatown rotting on the vine, it isn’t Keefer or Pender streets. Night-time in Chinatown is akin to a stroll in Hiroshima, circa 1945. I can imagine what the tourists must think as they scurry away from that dead zone in favour of T shirt purchases in Gastown. The restaurateurs in Chinatown are scratching their heads perhaps wondering why service with a scowl didn’t quite cut it. The Filipinos on Fraser Street congregate in restaurants reinforcing their culture among themselves. And it’s especially disturbing to me to have to negotiate my way past or through or around the knots of young immigrants standing on the sidewalk outside their English schools, smoking and sharing their stories in guess-what language? Not mine.

   We are the words we speak. We are the words we hear. And language is a warm hand-made quilt. We are each of us wrapped in that unique culture, inherent in it is our history as a people. Maritime hospitality is still recognizable when you hear “Lord tunderin’ Jesus, pull up a chair!” There are still remnants of the hippie heyday on Fourth Avenue. The American draft dodgers have successfully integrated, their own accents being subsumed into our Canuckian mix.

   Two incidents, I unfortunately witnessed recently, speak volumes. An elderly woman, clearly in distress, was staggering on Gore street by Keefer by a red light. As it turned green, the drivers, almost ALL Asian, picked their way around her even after she fell on her face to the asphalt. No one stopped. I held out my hand to stop the traffic and approached the Asian elder. By then a store owner (Asian) finally peered out from his door and reluctantly came over to help me help her off the street. I then waved down a police car. I didn’t smell alcohol on her breath. She was ill. A young woman on an overcrowded Skytrain (Asian) was texting right by the door. As passengers were cramming themselves in, she stood her ground and all had to squeeze by her. The long curly hair of the lady in front of the texter was now in her face. She looked downright peeved but didn’t move.

   These incidents illustrate the absolute lack of Canadian politeness for which we native Canadians are so well reputed, even around the globe. But have we natives become so polite, almost to the point of collective obsequiousness, that we will allow our culture, our language to become extinct? Is my quilt burning?

   Allow me to conclude with a simple experiment we can all try at home. Take a big jug of clear water and add a dab of red ink. Shake. See how it goes a little pink? Now add a large dollop of red ink. Shake. Now it’s going red, n’est-ce pas? Now tell me: do we seriously believe that if we keep adding red ink that this jug will not lose its original colour altogether?

   When a Vancouver catastrophe hits all of us (i.e. the big quake), who do you think is going to be helping whom?

   Having been the victim of much social abuse over the years for my own uniqueness, it would not be fair nor true to call me a racist. Tolerance is defined as a. Leeway for variation from a standard. b. The permissible deviation from a specified value of a structural dimension, often expressed as a percent.

   As for me, the borders of my “leeway” are in sight. And my willingness to deviate from a specified value is verging exhaustion.

   You asked, Mr McMartin: “Are we stronger as a society?” Now you have one Canadian’s answer.

For President Barack Obama:

"I got my  Big Bird. His name was Osama Bin Laden."