Life As Performance Art 51

Interactions with strangers who behave badly can be very tricky at times. Sometimes it is better, and more prudent, just to say nothing and walk on. That fine balance between coward and rational self-preservation. But not always. It is because so many people are cowards that idiots think they can get away with anything, as though no one is watching, or as though the universe is their own private, personal walled garden, and that they are the only beings that exist. Yesterday for example, while walking on a leafy residential sidewalk, I saw this incredibly stupid woman (I am simply judging her by her behaviour at the moment), playing catch with her boxer dog, off-leash of course, and free to run and bark and bother other people to his little heart's (and even tinier brain's) content. Fortunately there was no one else walking there at the moment, especially no one afraid of or traumatized by dogs. I was going to avoid that side of the street at first, out of self preservation, then decided that I would risk it, since she had no business monopolizing it like that for her precious four-legged child, and if there were any problems with privileged doggie (oh, he looked so smart in his expensive little red rain jacket), then I would let both him and his brain-challenged human have it. The lady with the dog had the good sense to get off the sidewalk and go to the other side when she saw me coming, then I yelled to her (Ma'am, what you are doing with your dog right now is very irresponsible and also very stupid). She ignored me, naturally, but I think the point got driven home. Nothing else happened. Then, on three occasions later on, I had to tell at idiot drivers, all women (ironic, given that they are usually better drivers than men), two were all set to plough me down at right hand turns when the pedestrian walk signal came on, one was attempting a left hand turn while staring at her lovely little smartphone. Then there was the idiot African guy in dreads at the neighbourhood Shopper's Drug Mart. I was inviting him to come over to the cashier where I was finishing my purchase as I didn't want him to have to wait unnecessarily in line. His expression of gratitude? When he saw that I was purchasing the weekend Globe and Mail, like a taunting child (I really understand now, why my big brother used to beat the shit out of me!), started lecturing me that it was fake news and propaganda. I was not going to indulge the child with an argument, but when it became clear that he wasn't going to shut up about it, I calmly said, "Look, I promise to keep my religion to myself if you promise to do the same for me." The cashier seemed to like my comeback. He just stared kind of stupidly, and I walked away. You cannot reason with people under those circumstances, there is always something else motivating their behaviour: this man could have been having a bad day, though I suspect he was mentally unbalanced; I also wonder if he was venting hatred at me because of my race; or he might have felt some legitimate concerns about the source of news that is printed in a corporate publication like the Globe and Mail, though I suspect he has probably never read a newspaper in his life. Fake news is really a useless catchall that includes reportage of dubious provenance combined with things that you don't want to hear or choose not to believe. The Globe, which I buy every weekend, is not perfect. I have noted that they have their slant and biases, and it all seems to bend in an arc towards upper middle class Canadian interests. But not all of it. There is an interesting and nourishing plethora of news, opinions and ideas in that paper, but as with every news source, it is always going to be, sometimes anyway, buyer beware. Reading the news, no matter how legitimate the source, does not let the reader off the hook for fact-checking and doing their own thinking. Reading the news is not an exercise in what or how to think. It is simply raw material and it is our responsibility as to how we are going to process and digest the information, and how we are going to let it form and direct our thinking and the course of our lives. in conclusion, I have the Globe and Mail to thank for an article they printed in February, 1994, about the Monteverde region of Costa Rica. Two months later, I sold a few of my paintings and with that money went to visit that place for the first time. This motivated me to learn and become fluent in Spanish, travel in Latin America and to make Monteverde along with some lovely friends I have made there, my second home, and I do it all in fluent Spanish.