Time to say goodbye

Thanks to everyone for your encouragement and support over the last few years since I started this little exercise in 2010.  The blog represented a "way out" for me to express opinions and form some new friendships and those have been very important.  The time has come to wrap up this project. Farewell. Be well!

Is it curtains for the "Old Duff"?

There’s a temptation to suspect the worst when the police lay charges against someone.  Our mentality in Canada, as much as we deny it, is that the person is guilty until proven innocent.  Otherwise, why would newspapers and television stations plaster the names and often addresses of ACCUSED sex offenders across the media?

So, we come to the case of 68-year old Michael Dennis Duffy, the suspended Canadian Senator from Prince Edward Island who today was charged with 31 separate criminal charges by Canada’s national police force, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, after a 16-month investigation.

It is fair to assume that 90-95% of Canadians who heard about the charges automatically decided that Senator Duffy is guilty.  Ottawa reporter John Ivison said this in his National Post column, “Depending on what emerges from the [Mike Duffy] trial, it may well be the tipping point for many Canadians, already uncomfortable with the Conservatives’ modus operandi but who have, to this point, held their noses and supported Stephen Harper.”

The national media, without any love for Duffy, put the pedal to the metal when it came to prosecuting him in the court of public opinion.  One can only assume it was because they did not want anyone to be able to accuse them of favoritism in terms of their reporting of the Duffy or Wallin stories. Or, perhaps, they wanted him to be found guilty since more than a few are jealous of the Senate appointments he and Ms. Wallin managed to get from Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

I have no particular affection for Duffy.  I only met him once and considered him to be pompous and as superficial as a Mexican river - a mile wide and an inch deep.  I would have thought that Stephen Harper with all of his reported analytical skills and political savvy would have been smarter than to appoint Duffy to the Senate but perhaps it was part of Harper’s agenda all along to hasten the demise of the Senate … or am I giving him too much credit for logistics and strategy that he may not possess?

Bottom line is that unless someone gets to Duffy and guarantees he and his wife a comfortable life after all of this is over and convinces him to take a dive, he’s too much of a show boater to let the opportunity pass to try to take down Harper and his PMO minions.  It could still turn into the best political theatre this country has seen in a century since Dalton Camp and crew did their thing to Dief.

Needless to say, stay tuned.

Hope you enjoy your weekend.

How stupid do they think we are?

One cannot help but feel a certain sense of pathetic indifference to the Rob Ford saga in Toronto. 

The latest is Ford’s brother Doug is quoted in the Toronto Star as saying Rob Ford was not drunk when caught on security cameras at Toronto City Hall on Easter Monday; rather, he had been working out and pulled some muscles in his legs.  Apparently Rob Ford bench presses 1200 pounds with his legs.

When will this family stop enabling Rob Ford and admit he has a serious problem that needs to be addressed? I understand his brother’s love for him, but one gets the feeling that Doug Ford is blinded to his kid brother’s illness and keeps trying to explain it away.

It appears, from a distance, that a powerful sense of entitlement is the main characteristic of the Ford siblings and as we learn more and more about them, it becomes clear that they see one set of rules for everyone else and another set for themselves. Their wealth enables them to access things which lead them further into murky waters.

Many knowledgeable people agree that the so called “rehab” period has been more like a Club Med visit for Rob Ford when he apparently comes and goes at his pleasure. What he needs is rehab away from the luxuries that money can provide and a Spartan trip down the road to recovery.

Sadly, he probably will end up as John Candy and Chris Farley did and they were far more talented.

(Posted comment in Toronto Star 07/06/2014)

Moncton breathes a sigh of relief

People in Moncton, New Brunswick are celebrating this morning, with the news late into the night that the RCMP had arrested the man they suspect of shooting and killing three RCMP officers and wounding two more. 

The small city was on lockdown for a couple of days as hundreds of heavily armed police from across the Maritimes converged on Moncton to assist in the search for the killer. Small police departments in other parts of New Brunswick sent a single officer while entire emergency response teams from other jurisdictions made the trip to Moncton, or “the hub city” as it’s known across New Brunswick.

Few people other than first responders can understand the emotions those police officers faced every day.  For the RCMP, they were dealing with the grief of losing three of their colleagues and friends while searching for the police killer and putting their own lives on the line as he was known to be armed with high powered rifles and other weapons.  Any one of them, at any time, could have been the killer’s next victim.

Everyone can tell you a story about a bad cop or they can point to a video on the internet that shows someone being abused by the police, but the fact of the matter is that it’s a case of one bad apple in the barrel.   I had the extreme good fortune to work as a first responder for a number of years and came to know and respect the police with whom I worked.  They were most often the men and women who would run into a burning building to rescue a child, dive into the river to save a drowning person or end up at a family’s door in the middle of the night to tell them a loved one had died in a car accident.  The one universal truth about police officers is that the caring gene is built into their DNA.

When those three officers who were killed in Moncton responded to the call of an armed man on the street, they were going to help protect the community, to make it safe for children to play on the street, for seniors to take their daily walks and for families to live in safety.  Instead of that, they ended up being killed by a cold blooded killer waiting in ambush for them to arrive.  One will never know what prompted the killer to act in the way he did, but one cannot help but feel that perhaps he deserves the same justice that he used to take the lives of those three officers.  Too much money has been spent on him already.

The police who arrested him last night will head back to their regular jobs today – handing out traffic tickets, trying to settle domestic disputes, investigating assaults, and trying to make the community a safer place for all of us.  The least we can do when we see a police officer today is say thank you.

The prodigal writer returns

Last few weeks have been a bit challenging.  Had an accident and ended up in hospital for about a month.  Still rolling around in a wheelchair but healing is happening – slowly but surely.

Glad I missed some mighty snowstorms over the last few weeks – watched them on TV news instead of live & in person.  Hospital rooms are not known for their scenic views.  Unless you consider windows on the other side of the complex as being scenic!

It’s good to see spring coming – if slowly in these parts.  At the moment, there is a danger of flooding along the river valley but all we can do is keep our fingers crossed that the ice jams will break free first.

Just wanted to say hi and wish everyone a Happy Easter. 

Here’s a powerful meditation used by the Christian Church for a couple of millennia.  Speaks to me of where this old world is this weekend.  Hope you enjoy.

Ubi Caritas

Where charity and love prevail,

there God is ever found;
Brought here together by Christ’s love,
by love are we thus bound.

With grateful joy and holy fear
His charity we learn;
Let us with heart and mind and soul
now love him in return.

Forgive we now each other’s faults
as we our faults confess;
And let us love each other well
in Christian holiness.

Let strife among us be unknown,
let all contention cease;
Be his the glory that we seek,
be ours his holy peace.

Let us recall that in our midst
dwells God’s begotten Son;
As members of his body joined,
we are in Christ made one.

No race or creed can love exclude,
if honored be God’s name;
Our family embraces all
whose Father is the same.

What is really happening in Venezuela

Dear friends,

This is worth watching.  Please share it with YOUR friends.  Thank you.

Afghanistan - the view from the BBC

Afghanistan is such an amazing place – beauty and rugged beyond belief, home of some of the world’s oldest cultures - an ancient focal point of the Silk Road and human migration.  Now it is home of unfathomable corruption and the base for the world’s biggest opium fields. 

It has demonstrated time and time again that it will not be conquered – whether by Alexander the Great, Arab Muslims, Genghis Khan, the Soviet Union or the American-led NATO forces, including the enormous price paid by the Canadian soldiers with their lives.

Now the latest conquering forces are getting ready to leave and one has to wonder what has changed.  The BBC currently has an interesting series of articles discussing modern Afghanistan and how much we have to learn about.  Here are those articles.  Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

The mammoth military task of leaving Afghanistan  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-25848662

What kind of Afghanistan will foreign forces leave?  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-25410582

US planning full Afghan pullout, Obama tells Karzai  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-26346115

Viewpoint: Taliban gaining upper hand in Afghanistan and Pakistan?  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-26064230

Will the Taliban take over in Afghanistan?  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-25879217

Afghan suicide bomb 'kills nine' in Uruzgan province  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26343572

'Deepening' medical crisis in Afghanistan  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26335410

Enough Snow Already

Just another day in the backyard ... glad I didn't have to shovel it!  :-)

A personal decision

Why shouldn’t I be allowed to choose when and where I want to die?

I just finished reading an article in the Montreal Gazette about the Quebec government’s forthcoming “act respecting end-of-life care”.  If Bill 52 is adopted, it would allow doctors to end a terminally ill patient’s life by lethal injection, provided the patient specifically asks for it.

Eighty percent of Quebecers support some form of euthanasia or medically assisted dying.  Roughly 2 million Quebecers currently state in their wills that they don’t want to be kept alive by extraordinary measures if there’s no hope they’ll recover.

The dilemma is between those who want to dictate morals and those who want to make their own choice.  The proponents of “natural death” will argue until their last breath that no one has the right to choose to end their life earlier than whatever the life-clock determines. For them, any intervention in that process is murder.

For me, I want to make the call when I feel the time is appropriate without interference from those pushing their own morality.  My family is long dead, so it’s not as if there’s going to be a family conference to discuss when to pull the plug.  I want to set out the parameters for that long before the time arrives.  I want to be sure the medical people have a clear “DNR” – do not resuscitate, on the documentation.  Anything other than that is unacceptable.

As a society we have become so wrapped up in projecting our own values that we sometimes overlook the needs of others.  We warehouse our elders, spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on life support and insist that the final laborious breath be a natural one – often to assuage our own guilt and because we can’t let go.  We’re scared of death and denying it postpones it for just a little longer.

World Vision launches 'Good Chocolate Guide' to help Canadians shop ethically this Valentine's Day

By Canada News Wire

MISSISSAUGA — Today World Vision launched its Good Chocolate Guide to help Canadians shop for Valentine's treats they can trust not to contain any dark secrets. Whether they're on-line or in line, shoppers can use the mobile-friendly guide to find chocolate products that are ethically certified to be child-labour free.

"Tackling child labour is not only up to companies who earn profits from chocolate, but also consumers who get pleasure from it. World Vision's Good Chocolate Guide will help Canadians indulge in their favourite treats while still being ethical and protecting children," said Cheryl Hotchkiss, manager of World Vision's No Child for Sale awareness campaign.

According to the aid agency, child slavery and trafficking is an ongoing problem in the cocoa industry, particularly in West Africa, where an  estimated 1.8 million children work in cocoa farming in West Africa. They are just a small segment of the estimated 85 million children the International Labour Organization says are doing dirty, dangerous and degrading work all around the world.

The risks for children who work on cacao plantations include:

• Injuries from machetes used to clear land and cut down cacao pods;
• Exposure to chemicals, including pesticides;
• Exhaustion from working long hours in intense heat;
• Abuse from employers;
• Poor nutrition and limited access to health care;
• Jeopardized education

"Camino's product portfolio includes over 75 products, primarily chocolate based, all of which are Fair Trade and Organic," said Jeff Mains, chief executive officer of Camino, a Canadian company featured in the Good Chocolate Guide.

"Our direct relationships with our producer partners, along with the Fairtrade certification and logo, is the consumer's assurance that every ingredient from Bean to Camino Bar has been ethically sourced."

Are *some* high school graduates ILLITERATE?

So say the experts ... and apparently it's getting worse instead of better.  Scary!!

 

Telegraph Journal editorial cartoon 12/02/2014

A little pedestal kicking is needed now and then

In many ways, I have liberated myself from the social media conversation.  I realize it’s a bit ironic to be announcing that on a blog, but such is the technological way of the world.  :-)

I WAS a child/slave/devotee of Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, My Space and God knows what else, but a year or more ago, gradually began withdrawing from the various outlets.  It first happened with Facebook when I realized that friends of mine who are obsessive picture-takers were posting my face all over Facebook and “tagging” the pictures.  I’m a pretty private guy and am not interested in having my face/life spread across the known cyber universe.  I got all the publicity I needed years ago in a different life and now enjoy/love/treasure privacy and anonymity.

Then, somewhere along the way, friends convinced me I should be on Twitter so I signed up.  Appears I inadvertently followed a bunch of people (pseudo-intelligentsia) who have very firm opinions and are convinced their opinions are the only ones that matter because I discovered some of them will jump on you like a pack of rabid dogs for disagreeing with them and further they belittle those who disagree with them. I've known enough jerks like that in real life.  I don't need to associate with them on cyberspace.  Memo to self: cancel the Twitter account.  Done.

Next came Linked In.  I put enough detail on there to update friends who stumbled across my profile and were looking for an update.  I also bought the paid version of it so I could see who was checking out my profile.  Creepy!  There were people rooting through my cyber sock drawer who I wouldn’t want in the yard, let alone the sock drawer.  Jettison Linked In.

So, now I’m left with Blogger and it’s a good fit.  I check it just about every day and read postings from cyber pals who keep me entertained, provide food for thought and sometimes kick me off my pedestal (who can’t use a little being kicked off their pedestal, eh?).  It’s also a learning opportunity.  You can see the blogs I follow by looking at the list to the right, entitled "Blogs of Interest".

I’m as engaged as I want to me, and none of my blog buddies ever push for more or less content.  We’re happy demented souls who take what we get and are generally grateful for the stimulation - either soda bread or buttermilk.

So what prompted this? Adam Gopnik’s column on BBC Online.  You may enjoy it.  Happy surfing!

Tears of Zeus for the hungry children

I find it really scandalous that $50billion is being spent on the winter Olympics.  There are so many people dying from hunger in this world - every day, almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes--one child every five seconds.  How can rational thinking people support the political bullshit that permits the spending of $50billion for a two-week sports event?

Some statistics: The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that nearly 870 million people of the 7.1 billion people in the world, or one in eight, were suffering from chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012. Almost all the hungry people, 852 million, live in developing countries, representing 15 percent of the population of developing counties. There are 16 million people undernourished in developed countries (FAO  2012). (http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm)

Juliet Johnson, a professor of political science at McGill University in Montreal says the Games “have very much become Vladimir Putin’s personal project, and as such he has staked his international reputation on delivering an impressive, safe Olympic games that showcase Russian athletes and Russian culture.”

What makes me wonder is how has the notion of the Olympics become so bastardized and how has the notion of competition for the sake of competition become so perverted that it has to be more spectacular every year?  More importantly, don’t the athletes (presumably bright) mostly-young women and men realize they’re buying into this political morass hook, line & sinker and by their participation are endorsing the back story here?  Or, are they so caught up in the possibility of personal riches if they win gold that they’ve already cemented their deal with the devil?

Sport has become a new deity in this world and the Olympics have become the modern day altar of Olympus.  I can only imagine that Zeus must be shedding genuine tears.

The jury is still out

Mixed reaction today to the news headline in The Telegraph newspaper saying the Vatican defrocked 400 priests over the last couple of years for molesting children.  On the one side, there were cheers from those who felt the Vatican wasn’t doing nearly enough to deal with the sexual abuse of children crisis within the Roman Catholic Church while others said it was merely the top of the iceberg and that much more needs to be done.

The news came via documents released at a hearing in Geneva being held by the United Nations' Committee on the Rights of the Child.  Two senior officials from the Vatican, the governing body of the 1-billion-member Roman Catholic Church were testifying in detail for the first time before the UHCHR.  They were asked some tough questions but according to the reports out of Geneva, they were reasonably forthright in their responses – something that’s new for the secrecy-obsessed Holy See.

More than a few people are hoping that this represents a major change in Vatican policy under the new pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentinian prelate who was elected to lead the Roman Catholic church almost a year ago.  Pope Francis, as he calls himself, has pledged massive change in many areas, including dealing with the Church’s sordid history of priests and bishops physically and sexually abusing children of all ages.  This apparent openness may be the beginning of that change.

Certainly the secrecy and abuse of power related to the sexual abuse crisis is why so many Roman Catholics left the Church and the practice of their faith.  It has been said that nearly every diocese in Canada was affected in some way by the crisis.  For many people, the stunning revelations surrounding the Christian Brothers’ Mount Cashel orphanage in St. John’s was the straw that broke the camel’s back.  Across Canada and into the USA, hundreds of millions of dollars were paid in an attempt to put some financial salve on wounds that money will never heal.  Many said the victims were exploited twice – first by the clergy perpetuating the abuse and second by the lawyers who made millions of dollars in fees from the lawsuits.

Vatican expert reporter John Allen said, “[T]he sex abuse crisis is where two powerful narratives about Catholicism collide. One is that the church is a secretive institution devoted above all to protecting its own interests, so that claims of turning over a new leaf are viewed through a lens of suspicion; the other is that Francis is a reforming pope genuinely committed to the poor and the vulnerable, and people seem hungry to believe that he'll do the right thing.”

What no one doubts is that these hearings in Geneva present the Vatican with an opportunity to show that change is happening.  In the past, the tradition was to close the big doors at St. Peter’s Basilica and retreat away from public view and criticism. The mantra was always that the Church knows/knew best.  If anything, today’s testimony showed that while some of that attitude still prevails among the swishing soutanes in the Vatican, there would appear to be a recognition that increasingly the Vatican is being called to task.  And none too soon.  The jury is still out.
vp

Looking after the vulnerable in the cold

No question but this has been the winter (so far) of the nasty snow dump!  I’ve read stories about it from my fellow bloggers GFB and WWW .  We’re all agreed that we’ve seen worse winters but for some reason, this one seems to be making all of us go a little squirrely – not that it’s a long trip for me!!!

It has a lot to do with the snow and icy roads taking away from my sense of independence – I want to be able to go where I want, when I want, the weather be damned.  Unfortunately, nearly a foot of snow in 24-hours and roads & streets like skating rinks take away from that independence.  The neighbour’s kids were actually skating in their driveway over the weekend.  I know, because I watched them from behind the quadruple thermal pane window with the heat turned up in the living room!

Of course we can make jokes about the enforced captivity created by the storm, but it’s truly scary when the power is off for a week or, in some cases, nearly two weeks.  For some people, it reaches crisis state when there is no heat or running water and the temperature is dipping into the minus twenties.  For the elderly and medically fragile, it can be life-threatening.  Thank God for the volunteers who spent so much time during the recent power blackouts going around to those who they knew were vulnerable, checking on them, bringing water, firewood or coal to those who heat their homes with those resources or helping them to move to warm emergency shelters.  It helps us to learn the meaning of fragile and caring.

We also need to give thanks for the power crews who work in the most hellish weather to try to get electricity restored.  I’ve seen pictures of those men and women climbing utility poles in the midst of near-blizzard conditions, working in what can only be described as very dangerous circumstances.  I talked with one two-man crew when they stopped for a coffee as they were trying to reconnect the electricity and they hadn’t slept for nearly 24-hours as they tried to get the supply hooked up.  I paid for their coffee.

A recent quote from Pope Francis in his 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium seems appropriate in these circumstances.  He said, "How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?.”  I’m not completely convinced that he’s as progressive as he seems, but you can’t beat the veracity of that statement.

Hope you’re able to keep warm.

Too bad we don’t have a time machine

There’s an article by Andrew Coyne in the National Post about the situation in Toronto concerning the Mayor.  I like Coyne’s writing and this sentence sums it all up for me: “It is the same condescending populism, the same aggressively dumb, harshly divisive message that has become the playbook for the right generally in this country, in all its contempt for learning, its disdain for facts, its disrespect of convention and debasing of standards.”

Regardless of Rob Ford’s addictions, immaturity, entitlement and all the other things at which he appears to excel, Coyne nails it – first and foremost, it is the ENABLING provided by the coterie hanging onto Ford’s unkempt shirttails.  That Ford became the poster-boy for the right in Toronto is neatly summed up by Coyne – the “debasing of standards”.  It’s a tailgate party run amok.

The Ford story is too well known to deserve repetition here but a question emerges from this mess that every provincial and municipal government in Canada should be considering.  The question is simple – what happens if a similar situation develops in St. John’s, Halifax, Fredericton, Saskatoon or Dawson?  Is there the necessary legislative framework in place that can FORCE an elected official to step aside while an investigation is conducted?  Does a municipal council have the authority to effect such action?

The potential for a similar situation to develop exists in each of our communities and likely will continue to develop as the economy squeezes us all.  It appears we are prepared to accept that debasing of standards from our politicians as long as they appear to be doing something.  That’s how Rob Ford got elected. 

It’s like Biff Tannen from Back To The Future becoming Mayor.  You don’t have to be bright to get elected – just loud and with a bunch of enabling buddies who think you’re great.

Too bad we don’t have a time machine.

He’s not my patient

Every time I turn around, it seems I’m reading stories about problems in our health care system – ranging from mistakes made in the interpretation of diagnostic test results to lack of proper hygiene for some very complicated medical gear through to sheer incompetence on the part of the people who are supposed to be the health care professionals.  One has to wonder in the wake of yet another news conference and more apologies – is anyone minding the store?

Case in point: a retired nursing professor in New Brunswick told the story of how she spent several months caring for her husband in a medium-sized hospital as he lay dying.  She spent every day with him in the hospital.  In only one incident of the many she wrote about, she went to the nursing station to ask the person on duty if they could help her turn her husband in bed.  The response?  “He’s not my patient”.

To me, that’s the root of the problem.  So many people who work in the health care system today see it as being a 9-5 job and please don’t ask them to do more than the contract stipulates.  I understand the problem of cut-backs and stress; it’s not unique to the health care system.  Everyone is being asked to do more with less. Think about people who work in private industry for whom the notion of overtime is a fantasy world.  It’s not going to get any better; as a matter of fact, every indicator is that it’s going to get worse.

But that doesn’t excuse anyone from saying “he’s not my patient” when the simple request is to help turn a patient in bed.

The attitude unfortunately is endemic throughout the system. 

Think about nursing education.  Once upon a time, Registered Nurses had to take a two year program that focused entirely on patient care in hospital and most often was based in the hospitals.  Then, the four-year Bachelor of Nursing programs were introduced into universities because it was felt the nurses weren’t getting enough “professional” training.  Now, the norm is moving back in the direction of a two calendar year course in university.  Veteran RNs will tell you that many of the students in the BN programs are there because they want to be nurse-managers and not bedside care givers.  What does that tell you about attitude?  It also speaks of skill level.

Think about cleanliness in hospitals.  You can walk into just about any hospital in this country and see the lack of attention paid to cleanliness.  Most hospitals (dare I say ALL?) wouldn’t come even close to passing a white glove test, but the people who do the job will tell you “it’s good enough”.  Unfortunately, that attitude seems to prevail from the custodian whose job it is to clean up a room after a patient leaves through to the sterilization of some very sophisticated equipment.  Think of how many times we hear about MRSA or other superbugs – often transmitted because the people working in health care don’t wash their hands properly.  Think of a urinal or bed pan being left on the tray-table where the patient’s meal will be placed.  Think of dirty (and I do mean DIRTY) bathrooms for patient use.

Think about the physicians.  So many of them see themselves as being unquestioned authorities and yet there’s as much incompetence there as in any other profession.  There are medical school graduates who score only the 51% required to pass some tests and that’s all.  So much of medicine is an educated guess.  Do you recall the psychiatrist at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary in St. John’s whose first move when a new prisoner was admitted was to suspend all of his medication?  It created chaos as prisoners who had long histories with specific medications were taken off them.  This was a psychiatrist, by the way, who was teaching at the medical school.  I seem to recall his reasoning was that he knew best.

The same thing happens in hospital where changes in medication are often predicated on the reasoning, “I wonder what will happen if we do this”.  When so many people today are on very complex pharmaceutical cocktails, messing around with one can create a domino effect in terms of reactions.  Most doctors are not pharmacologists.  Again, it’s a question of attitude.

There are very many good and caring people working in today’s health care system – as a matter of fact, the majority of health care workers fit that description but there is enough evidence out there to suggest that they’re struggling.  I can only imagine that Vickie Kaminski must feel enormous fatigue every time she has to host another news conference to explain another serious error in protocol.  Mainly because people were not doing their job.  Just like the dirty floors, it needs to be fixed.

How the news media fertilizes depression

I sent a note to a friend of mine the other day and mentioned that I had had a “radio-free” day and felt less stressed because of it.

Sounds a bit strange, but it seems that whenever I turn on the radio (mostly CBC because I like talk radio rather than music-based formats) all I hear about is murder and mayhem in various parts of the world.   It may be chemical gas attacks in Syria, shopping mall massacres in Kenya, multiple killings in Washington, Senate spending scandals in Ottawa, corporate rip-offs or the pro-separatist government in Quebec denying basic rights.

Is it any wonder that the focus on negativity causes stress?

Those of a certain age will remember former U.S. Vice President Spiro Agnew, who served under President Richard Nixon.  Agnew was known for his scathing criticisms of political opponents, especially journalists, whom he described as "nattering nabobs of negativism".

In so many ways, he was right.

I listened to part of a national radio newscast this morning and turned off the radio.  I just don’t want to hear any more of that stuff.  There’s enough doom and gloom in this world already.  I don’t need to hear about any more nutcases with automatic weapons, killing innocent people and justifying it as some great religious conflict.

Have you noticed how often now you hear the disclaimer before a news story on TV or radio, “What follows is very graphic and may not be suitable for children”?  My question to those in media is why do you feel compelled to show it?  The best recent example was the bodies in Syria stacked up like so much firewood.  Who knows who was responsible, but you can believe that both sides were milking it for whatever political advantage they could get.  Media agencies fall over themselves to promote their story as being “exclusive”.  So much of it is staged for the cameras.  Sensationalism is the new standard.

Meanwhile, we drink this shit like so much grape Kool-Aid.  Think of the reality shows on TV.  The lowest common denominator is what prevails now.  I enjoy watching the Food Network now and then, but even their latest offering is called “Cut Throat Kitchen”.  I guarantee that’s one show I won’t be watching, along with so much other garbage.  It’s cheap to produce and attracts the rubber-neckers just like a highway accident.

As a wise man once said, "Resist the urge to be negative in thought and word. It can be like a cancer that destroys from within."

Have a nice day, eh.

Keep on truckin'

Some days when you wonder, why bother?

8 Practical motivations to blog when no one is reading it: http://tinyurl.com/njsvzs5

• Learning and growing
• Clarity
• Personal improvement
• Search engine benefits
• Upgrading your skillset
• Infinite search
• Your content engine
• Numbers versus impact

My blogging world has lost an important friend

This announcement appeared on the Nain Bay blog one month ago:  “It is with great sadness, that the family of Brian announces his passing on July 25, 2013.   Brian was diagnosed with cancer in May, and received radiation therapy in St. John's. He was then sent to the Labrador Grenfell Health facility in Happy Valley Goose Bay for care. This is where Brian spent his remaining days. He was surrounded by family and friends at the time of his passing.”

Brian’s blogging friends had noticed the drop off in his posts over the last few months but I’m not sure any of us realized how ill he was.

Here’s how he explained his online absence back in mid-April: “I am receiving inquiries why the dearth of postings of late.  It is mainly due to some health issues that have popped up making life painful and miserable for the most part, and I just don’t have the inclination to get onto the internet that much.”

Brian, a transplanted Australian, did more than anyone else to educate me about coastal Labrador and the challenges faced by people living there.  This is how he described himself, “Born in Brisbane Qld. Australia. Moved to suburb of Sydney N.S.W. at early age. Left Australia in 1978. Traveled in Canada and Europe for several years before choosing Nain Labrador as the place to settle. Happily married, love this place, people, land. Like most things there is good and bad in people as in life’s experiences.”

There’s no question but that family was the biggest part of Brian’s life.  He wrote lovingly of his wife Fran and of his grandchildren, Carter-bear and Mia.  You could always count on at least one or two new pictures each week of his little bear buddy in whom he took great pride.  His world and his love grew even more this year when little Mia arrived.  Here’s a picture of the two grandchildren with their father who is a pilot with Air Labrador.

 

One of the fun things about Brian’s blog was that at least once or twice a week, he would post pictures of meals he had prepared.  He took great pride in his cooking ability and in sharing recipes,  his interest in trying new ideas and experimenting with the food that is available in coastal Labrador.  I jokingly asked him one time if I could hire him to cook for me. His response?  As long as I moved to Nain, it might work out!  J

At one point a few years ago, I actually was contemplating such a move and wrote to Brian to seek his advice.  He told me about the challenges I would face, but also shared with me his great love for his adopted homeland.  He offered to give me the grand tour from the back of his four-wheeler.  Regrettably, that’s a tour I won’t be able to take.

I miss Brian’s presence in my blogosphere.  RIP my cyber-friend.