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."

There is no such thing as enlightenment.

We are given in Light.

We belong to Light.

We are Light.

And then we may, by our will, participate with the Light of Creation.

We are children of Light.

Perhaps to…