I cannot think of any time than now for the importance of kindness. Many of us re frightened and anxious and our future looms dark and uncertain. This can be difficult. Worse than difficult. When we are under stress, our patience can get short, and our tempers rather high. This is the time to really guard ourselves. While it is important that we take care of ourselves, if we are driven more by fear, and less motivated by our concern for the common good, then we really run the risk of taking on an everyone for themselves kind of mentality, and everyone else becomes regarded as a potential threat.
For me this occurred today on the bus. This woman was standing very near to where I was sitting (during the pandemic, bus passengers are expected to sit down, and she wasn't wearing a mask (I was), placing me at risk of whatever she was exhaling from her mouth. As I was getting ready to get off the bus, I asked her for two metres of space, please. She ignored me, and as I was getting off the bus I turned around and told her "pandemic, eh? She went on ignoring me.
People like that can be very hard to tolerate. I perhaps could have been nicer, but I sense that she really needed her butt kicked. Sometimes we are not being kind by merely being nice. But I still draw the line at intentional rudeness. I also have no idea what kind of pain she might be living with. Or, she could just be a particularly self-centred individual who really doesn't care a shit about others. Unfortunately people like that do exist, and there are quite a few. This could be partly thanks to the huge culture of selfishness, greed and narcissism we have been living in these past fifty years or so.
I think that most of us do want to be kind, but this can also take a lot of work, and many of us are either too lazy or simply too tired and drained to take on very much. We still have quite a fight ahead of us, including this monumental struggle for fighting through all the fog and sargasso that has been blinding and strangling us over these past five decades.
We also have to come to turns with our innate tendencies towards violence. Lately, a lot of thinking folk have been trying to persuade us that human beings are really naturally kind and good. I think they are partly right. We are also naturally violent, treacherous, selfish and vicious and destructive. We are complex beings. I'm not going to go into the nature versus nurture argument here. It is possibly both and, possibly neither, or maybe it's both and, and neither. I don't know, and I don't think anyone has figured it out yet.
Regardless of our most natural, most primal tendencies, we have to work more on harnessing the good and the kind in our natures. More than ever. Our species' survival is going to depend on this.
All for now, duckies.
Tuesday, 7 July 2020
Monday, 6 July 2020
What's Next? 36
I am waiting. We are all waiting. That is all we can do. Even though all future plans are suspended, we still make future plans. We need to do this,. We all need something to look forward to. Even if we don't know what the future is going to hold. I am still making future plans. In January, maybe February, I am returning to Colombia to see my friends there. Then, sometime in March, I expect, I shall go to Costa Rica to see my friends there. If we are still not allowed to travel by them, then I shall postpone my trip, but I am still returning to see them.
In the meantime, I see my friends in Colombia and Costa Rica often on Skype and Messenger. Juan I see almost every day. Alonso, twice a week or so. Esteban once a week. We speak lots of Spanish. The first two I also help with their English. We can maintain and develop our friendships even from a distance of three to four thousand miles. Thank you, Uncle Google! It is a bit surreal, because this is like having them over to visit in my apartment several times a week. I don't expect there will be a lot of novelty or surprise left when we do get around to seeing each other in person. I'm not worried at all.
Every day, there is something to look forward to. We cannot really plan or control the future, but we can perhaps attend to the next twenty-four hours. Every day, I look forward to seeing one of my friends on telechat. And seeing or texting with other friends. Every day, I look forward to working well on the phone with my clients. Every day I look forward to a different, maybe even a slightly different, walking route. Every day there is going to be something to surprise or even dazzle a little. Every day, I look forward to expressing kindness and friendship to others, be they strangers or people I already know. Every day, I look forward to some new insight about my life. Every day, I look forward to doing my art. Every day, I look forward to finding some way to creatively overcome the stifling monotony that we are all having to live with right now.
Every day is new. Each moment a gift. Do not forget this, Gentle Reader.
All for now, duckies!
In the meantime, I see my friends in Colombia and Costa Rica often on Skype and Messenger. Juan I see almost every day. Alonso, twice a week or so. Esteban once a week. We speak lots of Spanish. The first two I also help with their English. We can maintain and develop our friendships even from a distance of three to four thousand miles. Thank you, Uncle Google! It is a bit surreal, because this is like having them over to visit in my apartment several times a week. I don't expect there will be a lot of novelty or surprise left when we do get around to seeing each other in person. I'm not worried at all.
Every day, there is something to look forward to. We cannot really plan or control the future, but we can perhaps attend to the next twenty-four hours. Every day, I look forward to seeing one of my friends on telechat. And seeing or texting with other friends. Every day, I look forward to working well on the phone with my clients. Every day I look forward to a different, maybe even a slightly different, walking route. Every day there is going to be something to surprise or even dazzle a little. Every day, I look forward to expressing kindness and friendship to others, be they strangers or people I already know. Every day, I look forward to some new insight about my life. Every day, I look forward to doing my art. Every day, I look forward to finding some way to creatively overcome the stifling monotony that we are all having to live with right now.
Every day is new. Each moment a gift. Do not forget this, Gentle Reader.
All for now, duckies!
Sunday, 5 July 2020
What's Next? 35
Gentle Reader, I am currently negotiating rather a difficult friendship. I will display here my email to this individual, incriminating details will be omitted, of course. It all comes down to respect. Now, I would love to be friends with everyone, because I actually feel profoundly connected to others, even complete strangers. But I am also having to accept the bitter reality that not everyone is ready or prepared or even interested in having someone like me for a friend. This is understandable Not everyone is going to get on well, unfortunately.
Friendship, to work, has to be reciprocal, profoundly reciprocal. This means mutual transparency. This means mutual humility. This also calls for mutual accountability. That is how trust is built between people. It just takes one person defaulting on these responsibilities to tilt the balance. When the same person does this consistently, well,, you had might as well toss a hand grenade, because there goes anything resembling friendship.
This is really sad, given how much, in this particularly stressful, difficult and dangerous era we are living in, we really need one another, and especially to hang in together. For this reason, I think it is essential that at least one party stay open to reconciliation. It may never happen. Sometimes reconciliation does occur, over time. More often it doesn't.- But this doesn't let us off the hook for not trying.
Now, my email to my friend:
By the way, I think you deserve an explanation of what I mean by disrespectful. When you forgot our sessions at least three times, probably four, that left me feeling quite devalued by you. It also made me less than likely to trust your commitment for future sessions. You do not seem to have absorbed this, so here's your chance...okay? Now absorb this fact please, and inwardly digest it. Then, last Sunday, you did not give me a clear directive as to whether we would be on Skype that day or not. All I got from you was a vague and ambiguous, "we'll talk later". Nothing confirmed. So I didn't know you would be calling, and for that reason I wasn't prepared for your cold call. To be honest, when I saw that it was already ten, I did start to scramble to get ready for you just in case, but still wasn't ready for your call. Under those circumstances, a warning text from you would have been perfectly appropriate. Okay, ...a minute or two to absorb this...now digest it....Then, when I politely and gently asked you if you could text first, you rudely asserted that I had to be ready, even after you had stood me up at least three times. Even after I explained some of this to you in an email But either you didn't absorb it or you just chose to ignore it..Now, absorb...digest.
Friendship, to work, has to be reciprocal, profoundly reciprocal. This means mutual transparency. This means mutual humility. This also calls for mutual accountability. That is how trust is built between people. It just takes one person defaulting on these responsibilities to tilt the balance. When the same person does this consistently, well,, you had might as well toss a hand grenade, because there goes anything resembling friendship.
This is really sad, given how much, in this particularly stressful, difficult and dangerous era we are living in, we really need one another, and especially to hang in together. For this reason, I think it is essential that at least one party stay open to reconciliation. It may never happen. Sometimes reconciliation does occur, over time. More often it doesn't.- But this doesn't let us off the hook for not trying.
Now, my email to my friend:
By the way, I think you deserve an explanation of what I mean by disrespectful. When you forgot our sessions at least three times, probably four, that left me feeling quite devalued by you. It also made me less than likely to trust your commitment for future sessions. You do not seem to have absorbed this, so here's your chance...okay? Now absorb this fact please, and inwardly digest it. Then, last Sunday, you did not give me a clear directive as to whether we would be on Skype that day or not. All I got from you was a vague and ambiguous, "we'll talk later". Nothing confirmed. So I didn't know you would be calling, and for that reason I wasn't prepared for your cold call. To be honest, when I saw that it was already ten, I did start to scramble to get ready for you just in case, but still wasn't ready for your call. Under those circumstances, a warning text from you would have been perfectly appropriate. Okay, ...a minute or two to absorb this...now digest it....Then, when I politely and gently asked you if you could text first, you rudely asserted that I had to be ready, even after you had stood me up at least three times. Even after I explained some of this to you in an email But either you didn't absorb it or you just chose to ignore it..Now, absorb...digest.
So, if this isn't disrespectful, then pray tell what do you call this kind of behaviour.
I am still willing to stay in contact, but be prepared to be questioned about this next Sunday, because I am not letting this go until I get an apology from you. And if you do not apologize, then goodbye!
All for now
Aaron
Saturday, 4 July 2020
What's Next? 34
It is a beautiful day today. Soon the sun will set, and being early in the summer the sky will stay bright until ten or so, even though the sun sets a bit after nine. This is something to celebrate, this ongoing beauty that never leaves us, and we have only to lift our eyes from our many sorrows and distractions in order to see what is really always here, surrounding us, and filling us. Nothing else really should matter. Except that we somehow learn to channel this surrounding and infilling and implicit and explicit beauty and learn to express this same beauty in our daily lives, and in the way we treat and interact with one another. It is all here, and it is all now, this very moment. This sacred moment, this gift from God, this divine gift of the present moment. Yours and ours to claim, to cherish and to enjoy and to share. We have only to turn our eyes and our attention away from all that is sordid and unworthy and there in the midst of it will appear to us the Son of God, crucified, dead and risen again for us. showing in his radiance of new life and joy the wounds that he carries still in his body, the wounds of love, the wounds put there by us, those same wounds that will be for all of us the healing of the nations.
Friday, 3 July 2020
What's Next? 33
And it still keeps getting stupider and stupider. The latest in Vancouver? A bunch of angry First Nations people want to take down the statue of John Deighton, aka Gassy Jack. I'm okay with that, I guess. The stature is butt-ugly.. It stands on the corner of Carrall and Water Streets in Gastown, of which Gassy Jack is considered founder. The little I heard of him has left me puzzled as to why he would be honoured. As well as being ugly, I mean. He was likely a drunkard, lived only for his own self-promotion, and married a twelve year old indigenous girl from the Squamish nation. So, naturally, aboriginals have their knickers in a knot. I would too.
I am still neutral about the need to get rid of the statue, ugly as it is. I really don't know if tearing down statues and monuments of people we don't like is going to be the best or most constructive way of addressing historical wrongs and crimes. Perhaps draw up first a constructive and proactive plan for what you want to replace it with, then we'll know where to go from there.
I did not sign the petition for taking down the statue. And I wouldn't sign it. Neither would I sign a petition supporting its preservation. It is after all ugly and it honours a man who was anything but honourable.
What is equally concerning is, how did he get hold of a twelve year old aboriginal girl. What was he thinking? Or, What! Was he thinking? But I also draw the line at calling him a pedophile, and not because I don't have trouble with this pig marrying and shagging a twelve year old, though that is still pretty disgusting. As abhorrent as it is taking a child out of her family and culture and violating her like that, I am concerned that people are still viewing a nineteenth century incident through a twenty-first century postmodernist lens.
I do not know what the marriage and rite of passage norms were in the nineteenth century among First Nations people. I am aware of a couple of things. One is that by 1870, when Deighton married the girl, the aboriginal people were already largely disenfranchised and demoralized by the white settlers, and this puts quite a nasty light on everything. However, what, in the Squamish Nation in that era, would be considered the age of consent? Where were her parents? What role did they play in their daughter getting in the hands of that pathetic English alcoholic? How close and cohesive were family and tribal bonds by that time? No one has said anything about this so far.
What I find equally troubling is that we in our enlightenment and vastly superior education of course would never dream of seeing a twelve year old married off to anyone. A twelve year old, by all contemporary definitions, is a child, and will go on being considered a child until she turns eighteen. But this is now. And adolescence is very much a modern invention. Until the twentieth century, a girl became a woman as soon as she began menstruating, which could happen as early as ten or eleven years of age. A boy was considered a man once his voice deepened, and he might be as young as twelve or thirteen. And they were expected to take on adult obligations and responsibilities as befitted the customs and traditions of the era they were living in.
When I was fifteen, in 1971, I already identified and was treated as a young adult. I matured, emotionally, very quickly, most of my friends were older than me, and my peers at school respected me more as an elder brother than as a peer.
As an illustration of my concern of how we sexually label others, I will cite what happened to me when I was homeless and couchsurfing some twenty-two years ago. Even now in my sixties I am still considered attractive, and back in the day, being both good looking and vulnerable made me a sitting duck for curious and horny males, none of whom identified as being gay, all of whom either had girlfriends or female partners, or were in between arrangements. Six guys, more or less, and I was sexually harassed and in a couple instances assaulted by each of those individuals. And none of them were gay.
I just don't think it is advisable to label any historical figure based on the current lens and accompanying prejudices through which we are viewing life, especially when the pot is being stirred by all kinds of heightened emotion, anger and rage. There comes a point where we have to admit that we don't really know.
What can really add to the confusion is the way some girls physically mature as early as twelve or even eleven. I remember when I was fourteen, hanging out with a twelve year old with the body of a twenty year old woman. And she was already sexually active (not with me, if you happen to be wondering, Gentle Reader!). A year later I was befriended by another physically mature twelve year old (friends only), and a year after that, when I was sixteen and seated on a log at English Bay beach on an overcast cloudy day, this woman was trying to show off to me her very voluptuous thirteen year old daughter, resplendent in a skimpy canary yellow bikini. It was really rather creepy and I got away as quickly as possible.
Now all those girls, and me, would rightly be considered children. In a different era, we would be young adults, already being considered for marriage.
Was there anything gross and inappropriate about Gassy Jack's arrangements with the twelve year old Squamish girl? Yes, of course, it was totally gross. Do we have enough information for judging him as a pedophile? No. Should his statue be taken down? I really don't care, but I certainly wouldn't miss it..
All for now, ducks!
I am still neutral about the need to get rid of the statue, ugly as it is. I really don't know if tearing down statues and monuments of people we don't like is going to be the best or most constructive way of addressing historical wrongs and crimes. Perhaps draw up first a constructive and proactive plan for what you want to replace it with, then we'll know where to go from there.
I did not sign the petition for taking down the statue. And I wouldn't sign it. Neither would I sign a petition supporting its preservation. It is after all ugly and it honours a man who was anything but honourable.
What is equally concerning is, how did he get hold of a twelve year old aboriginal girl. What was he thinking? Or, What! Was he thinking? But I also draw the line at calling him a pedophile, and not because I don't have trouble with this pig marrying and shagging a twelve year old, though that is still pretty disgusting. As abhorrent as it is taking a child out of her family and culture and violating her like that, I am concerned that people are still viewing a nineteenth century incident through a twenty-first century postmodernist lens.
I do not know what the marriage and rite of passage norms were in the nineteenth century among First Nations people. I am aware of a couple of things. One is that by 1870, when Deighton married the girl, the aboriginal people were already largely disenfranchised and demoralized by the white settlers, and this puts quite a nasty light on everything. However, what, in the Squamish Nation in that era, would be considered the age of consent? Where were her parents? What role did they play in their daughter getting in the hands of that pathetic English alcoholic? How close and cohesive were family and tribal bonds by that time? No one has said anything about this so far.
What I find equally troubling is that we in our enlightenment and vastly superior education of course would never dream of seeing a twelve year old married off to anyone. A twelve year old, by all contemporary definitions, is a child, and will go on being considered a child until she turns eighteen. But this is now. And adolescence is very much a modern invention. Until the twentieth century, a girl became a woman as soon as she began menstruating, which could happen as early as ten or eleven years of age. A boy was considered a man once his voice deepened, and he might be as young as twelve or thirteen. And they were expected to take on adult obligations and responsibilities as befitted the customs and traditions of the era they were living in.
When I was fifteen, in 1971, I already identified and was treated as a young adult. I matured, emotionally, very quickly, most of my friends were older than me, and my peers at school respected me more as an elder brother than as a peer.
As an illustration of my concern of how we sexually label others, I will cite what happened to me when I was homeless and couchsurfing some twenty-two years ago. Even now in my sixties I am still considered attractive, and back in the day, being both good looking and vulnerable made me a sitting duck for curious and horny males, none of whom identified as being gay, all of whom either had girlfriends or female partners, or were in between arrangements. Six guys, more or less, and I was sexually harassed and in a couple instances assaulted by each of those individuals. And none of them were gay.
I just don't think it is advisable to label any historical figure based on the current lens and accompanying prejudices through which we are viewing life, especially when the pot is being stirred by all kinds of heightened emotion, anger and rage. There comes a point where we have to admit that we don't really know.
What can really add to the confusion is the way some girls physically mature as early as twelve or even eleven. I remember when I was fourteen, hanging out with a twelve year old with the body of a twenty year old woman. And she was already sexually active (not with me, if you happen to be wondering, Gentle Reader!). A year later I was befriended by another physically mature twelve year old (friends only), and a year after that, when I was sixteen and seated on a log at English Bay beach on an overcast cloudy day, this woman was trying to show off to me her very voluptuous thirteen year old daughter, resplendent in a skimpy canary yellow bikini. It was really rather creepy and I got away as quickly as possible.
Now all those girls, and me, would rightly be considered children. In a different era, we would be young adults, already being considered for marriage.
Was there anything gross and inappropriate about Gassy Jack's arrangements with the twelve year old Squamish girl? Yes, of course, it was totally gross. Do we have enough information for judging him as a pedophile? No. Should his statue be taken down? I really don't care, but I certainly wouldn't miss it..
All for now, ducks!
Thursday, 2 July 2020
What's Next? 32
It just all seems to get stupider and stupider. Everything, and everyone. It's pretty understandable. This pandemic has us all unhinged, as if we weren't already bad enough before. The black and white thinking that has overtaken much of activism I find particularly disturbing. Or it could be that I am merely getting older, and because of my advancing age, have become allergic to this egregious lack of nuance or perspective, which likely has always been with us.
Someone wrote on a wall in a park just the other day, in white chalk, "all lives matter". And a park employee backed it up. He has since been publicly shamed as a racist. But is he, really? The Black Lives Matter folks seem to think so. But they appear to be ready to consign anyone who deviates from any of their tenets of political fundamentalism as a racist, so what's the point of reasoning with any of these people. They are blinded by ideology. Now, rest assured, Gentle Reader, anyone who is with Black Lives Matter who reads this will probably have switched off by now. Upon reading that their sacred positioning is being questioned they're going to snort, or scream, "racist white supremacist", and discard or ignore anything that follows.
Well, for those of you with minds that are just a little more open, here is what follows.
First of all. I don't do slogans. They paint everything in black and white, obstructing all other colour and nuance, and that ends up being only destructive to the very aims of their otherwise laudable and admirable movement towards dismantling systemic racism. But, yes, Black Lives do matter. But I would be more inclined to insert, also, as in black lives also matter, or perhaps black lives ALSO matter. Especially with all the ugly crap that has been dumped on people of African descent from the slave ships, through Jim Crow, lynchings and more recently police and state violence against people of colour. This is all problematic, hugely problematic and of course I recognize all of this.
I also agree that the anger of racialized people is completely legitimate. Anger can, and should be, empowering. But on the other hand, when it morphs into rage, or even more dangerously, into wrath, that is when things get very tricky. That is when we become blinded and simply are going to act out destructively, or even simply close our minds and eyes to any other point of view that might question or challenge our modus operandi. This is very unfortunate, and it is also, sadly, very inevitable.
Black lives matter. So do queer lives. And disabled lives. And mentally ill lives, and indigenous lives and brown lives, Asian lives, poor lives, even if they happen to be also white lives. Yes, let's keep challenging and working against historic, structural and systemic racism. But let's do this with some skill and precision please, otherwise in our rage, some of the very people whose help we will be needing will simply hear and be deafened by our screaming and nothing else.
All for now, duckies.
Someone wrote on a wall in a park just the other day, in white chalk, "all lives matter". And a park employee backed it up. He has since been publicly shamed as a racist. But is he, really? The Black Lives Matter folks seem to think so. But they appear to be ready to consign anyone who deviates from any of their tenets of political fundamentalism as a racist, so what's the point of reasoning with any of these people. They are blinded by ideology. Now, rest assured, Gentle Reader, anyone who is with Black Lives Matter who reads this will probably have switched off by now. Upon reading that their sacred positioning is being questioned they're going to snort, or scream, "racist white supremacist", and discard or ignore anything that follows.
Well, for those of you with minds that are just a little more open, here is what follows.
First of all. I don't do slogans. They paint everything in black and white, obstructing all other colour and nuance, and that ends up being only destructive to the very aims of their otherwise laudable and admirable movement towards dismantling systemic racism. But, yes, Black Lives do matter. But I would be more inclined to insert, also, as in black lives also matter, or perhaps black lives ALSO matter. Especially with all the ugly crap that has been dumped on people of African descent from the slave ships, through Jim Crow, lynchings and more recently police and state violence against people of colour. This is all problematic, hugely problematic and of course I recognize all of this.
I also agree that the anger of racialized people is completely legitimate. Anger can, and should be, empowering. But on the other hand, when it morphs into rage, or even more dangerously, into wrath, that is when things get very tricky. That is when we become blinded and simply are going to act out destructively, or even simply close our minds and eyes to any other point of view that might question or challenge our modus operandi. This is very unfortunate, and it is also, sadly, very inevitable.
Black lives matter. So do queer lives. And disabled lives. And mentally ill lives, and indigenous lives and brown lives, Asian lives, poor lives, even if they happen to be also white lives. Yes, let's keep challenging and working against historic, structural and systemic racism. But let's do this with some skill and precision please, otherwise in our rage, some of the very people whose help we will be needing will simply hear and be deafened by our screaming and nothing else.
All for now, duckies.
Wednesday, 1 July 2020
What's Next? 31
Today, on Canada Day, instead of O Canada, this being Canada, my earworm de jour happens to be the Colombian national anthem. Here it is, Gentle Reader if you want to have a listen:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPSL78YDyZY. Now it goes without saying that Canada has a much higher standard of living in general, than Colombia and for many reasons this is a better place to live. But, as I just mentioned in an email to a friend, I have never in my life felt anything resembling "True Patriot Love" for this country I was born in., There is much that I admire and respect about Canada, There is also much that has me screaming, wringing my hands and wishing I had enough hair left on my head so I could pull it out. And, I imagine that if I were to live in Colombia, I would very quickly find at least a few things to complain about. I have already been to that beautiful and troubled country on three extended visits, and I also expect to return next year.
There is no such thing as a perfect country, just as there is no such thing as a perfect human being. I mentioned to my same friend in an email that we are equally strong and resilient and weak and fragile. That paradox is what makes us so indelibly human, and we had might as well embrace it because our imperfectness will not be going away anytime soon. Despite acute annoyance with my kind, now is the time to be patient. We are living with fear and heightened emotions and this is going to be our dominant theme and likely for a long time to come.
As much as I have come to love Colombia and Colombians, there is a culture of violence in that country such as is indelible throughout Latin America. This isn't to say that Kumbaya is about to supplant O Canada but this is a relatively peaceful country, even with all the tubthumping that happens about the military every Remembrance Day. Even if our dentists still have yet to acknowledge that teeth and gums are indeed part of the human body, we still have one of the best public healthcare systems in the world, and this has played a huge role in how well this country has dealt with the pandemic. Still, I hope I live to see the day when free dental care comes under the public umbrella.
I would also love to see Canada dismantle its military, like Costa Rica, and become a true pacifist state. Yes, it can be done, and it has been done. Costa Rica did it more than seventy years ago, they are a strategically located resource rich country, and ever since their military was disbanded in 1948 they have only been invaded by tourists. Lots and lots of tourists, and now that the pandemic has the country under lockdown, they are finally getting to have a rest from the foreign locust hordes. Yes, this can happen anywhere, and especially in dear little Canada.
I still see both Colombia and Costa Rica as looming very large in my future. I have no idea what any of this is going to mean. All for now, duckies!
There is no such thing as a perfect country, just as there is no such thing as a perfect human being. I mentioned to my same friend in an email that we are equally strong and resilient and weak and fragile. That paradox is what makes us so indelibly human, and we had might as well embrace it because our imperfectness will not be going away anytime soon. Despite acute annoyance with my kind, now is the time to be patient. We are living with fear and heightened emotions and this is going to be our dominant theme and likely for a long time to come.
As much as I have come to love Colombia and Colombians, there is a culture of violence in that country such as is indelible throughout Latin America. This isn't to say that Kumbaya is about to supplant O Canada but this is a relatively peaceful country, even with all the tubthumping that happens about the military every Remembrance Day. Even if our dentists still have yet to acknowledge that teeth and gums are indeed part of the human body, we still have one of the best public healthcare systems in the world, and this has played a huge role in how well this country has dealt with the pandemic. Still, I hope I live to see the day when free dental care comes under the public umbrella.
I would also love to see Canada dismantle its military, like Costa Rica, and become a true pacifist state. Yes, it can be done, and it has been done. Costa Rica did it more than seventy years ago, they are a strategically located resource rich country, and ever since their military was disbanded in 1948 they have only been invaded by tourists. Lots and lots of tourists, and now that the pandemic has the country under lockdown, they are finally getting to have a rest from the foreign locust hordes. Yes, this can happen anywhere, and especially in dear little Canada.
I still see both Colombia and Costa Rica as looming very large in my future. I have no idea what any of this is going to mean. All for now, duckies!
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