Microscopic Life

Public persons are living under microscopes. Media which is all-powerful, isn't satisfied with what one says or does, it goes far too far. We who view and listen are confused naturally, by all of the speculation and conjecture that surrounds those who serve us. Do we believe what we read or see or hear as reliable plain truth? Or do we try, in some way, to sift through the morass and extract what is the actual truth, whatever that means. We, the public, are wafted about in the tsunami, one wave on top of the next, of one side against the other,  and are left to make decisions about which one is truth. Most disturbing and frightening it is, to know that what we see is not always what we get. We of the general public, the consumers, the voters who trust, the average people, are simply trying to eke out every day working, living good lives and having faith in the institutions that are supposed to care and protect us in our country, find it frustrating. We have only the media as our source in learning how our land is governed, who is to be trusted and what our part is, in it all. We want truth and openness but where is it? The media is the one force that should help. It is just as wide and long and high as the opinions it seeks toward truth. Pundits, professors and those who are close to the issues that matter, all have sides and opinions. Of course they may be knowledgeable, but are they reliable? They must serve their own takes on issues and they are not in agreement with each other, naturally. They have lives just the same as ours. They breathe, live and work.  We, like innocents, try to absorb all of the sides and then attempt to interpret them for our own needs. We want security in the people who we elect, we consume from, we trust to serve us, we live next to. The media tries to bring to us, only information and do it objectively. But is that possible? Media chooses those they interview. Media extracts from the interviews, what they consider relevant to the issues, but they add to it, or take from it, segments that are "salable". If they are public institutions as media and not the commercial variety, they have to maintain regardless of their mandate, what is deemed "popular" and appealing, therefore. We, the audiences, are known for our love of sensation. Media is well aware of this feature of their listeners, readers and viewers, and they give us what we want. It must never be forgotten that media has methods to cut short or off, or re-vamp, their primary sources, so that we are not necessarily able to take in raw news. News is spun like a web, to both inform for response, and capture emotions. Those who study Popularism know what we like and don't like, what bores us and what feeds our egos. If successful, it ends up as money-in-the-bank for them. They are not ghouls but something like it. They feed on us as much as we feed on them. We have to form conclusions very carefully, and believe me, it is not easy. Is it?

Children's Rites

Children's rites are not adult. Their "rites" are rights. To play. To socialize. To have a place in a family. Children also have responsibilities. They have opportunities to learn about what it is to be family. They are learning by watching what their parents and others around them do. Before school begins, most of that kind of patterning and modeling happens at home. It's why it is tragic when a child doesn't have this right. Each family sets up its own values and practices and these are found in the home. Some family structures are deliberate and others are kind of random. All work. Happiness and love are what children need most for success. The rest is socializing and this happens with other families and places such as schools. Sometimes clashes between what one family's standards are and others that are not the same, but that provides families opportunity to learn what their own family is and that it is unique, while at the same time, respectful of  the rights of other families to create their own. A family is a home and what that means can be how it is made. The variety is enormous but all are family. Children often make up their own rites, hopefully that fit with their family make-up. I recall the joy in having complete freedom to play without a lot of parental involvement. We lived with children of all kinds in our neighbourhood. No one told us about colour or religions or languages. We were just kids and no differences were bothered about. It was all fun. We had large yards or properties, places where together, we could build "forts" and "playhouses", where we could climb trees and paddle in streams and fish with safety pins for minnows and nibble at "sour leaf"and swing on branches. We spent only very little time, usually the evenings for awhile, listening to canned entertainment. We had time with parents and siblings at the dining table. The most wonderful adult parent moments were when we all played table games together or went on picnics or to the zoo or library or museum, but the closest, memorable times were story times or listening to tales of our parents'childhoods. The weeks we stayed with grandparents were precious. That's when we learned about a time a long time before we were born. Grandparents took time for us, too. Their work may have been business or farm obligations, but they loved us in a very special way. We could see in their eyes, that they once had children like us, our moms and dads, and that they could see them in us. It made us feel proud and confident  to realize our lineage beyond academic family tree genealogy studies or reams of photos. We simply felt it in their care of us, and their hugs and the way they looked at us as though we were the most important people on earth. And we were. That was our children's rite, to love and be loved, and know we were family. 

Real? Estate

There is little "real" about real estate. First, I have to say that my realtors are the very best, therefore, my comment isn't about them but about the real estate business in general. Second, yes, buying and selling in the business has little to do with realities. It is a kind of game that you enter and play. The enterprise is not meant to harm but to help, and it does if you play it correctly. Your wits as a seller, have to be present at all times because selling is work. The stager, usually an expensive person professionally, comes along at the generosity of your realtor, and advises you on what to do with your loved, awful place to make it look presentable, and possibly snag a buyer due to its upgraded appearance. The game is afoot. Whatever the current magazine hype has convinced everyone that is fashionable, usually according to their mysterious sources, is what your tacky old place, no matter how new it is and how much you love it and think it is fantastic, must achieve. That translates into getting rid of almost everything that is movable so that the idiotic, I jest, buyer you want to lure, can visualize him or herself or themselves, in it. Now where this idea comes from I don't know. When I look at a picture of someone else's home, it isn't very difficult for me, mentally, to throw out their stuff and put mine in. Are buyers that stupid? I do agree, however, that those little do-dads that should go somewhere anyway, need to be hidden and this is the time to do it.  I call these the flotsam and jetsam of life. Your life is private and no one else wants to look at it. Apparently. They've got enough of their own junk. Next comes, the photographer with magic cameras on a stick. These cameras take images of a place, yours, you didn't know existed. It's a bit like looking at yourself after a selfie. Who is that? They can make a small place like mine, appear large and most miraculously, in focus. Almost. A photographer unlike a stager, can shove what they don't want, out of the lens' way and click your home into something wonderful. When you see the photos, you want to buy it all over again. After the pictures are taken, Open House begins and there are more usually, than one of these. You cannot be present. If it is winter and you have to sit out in your car for two hours, take a thermos, food and a blanket. While you are out there freezing, other people you've never heard of, tromp through your beloved edifice and can make insulting remarks to their heart's content or praise it. You won't know what they say and that's why you're sitting in your car listening to soothing music. The next step is reading. And there's lots of it, and it's mostly legalese and always in fine print. Don't miss a single phrase, word or punctuation mark. It all counts. And don't sign without a lot of thought, no matter how much you've fallen in love with the place you last drooled over. Think, think, think. When you sign that dotted line on-line or otherwise, you can't get out of it without crossing someone's palm with paper, the kind with the queen on it. Your realtor if you have one as thoughtful as mine, will give you all the warnings you need, and advise you to your benefit. The last thing is, if you do find a realtor like mine, appreciate him or her. They are better than your best friend if you don't have a lawyer stowed in your pocket. And if the sale doesn't go through,  these dear folks, the realtors for all their trouble and expense,  don't make a red or any other colour, cent. They move on sweetly, and try to guide someone else through the morass of buy and sell. That is my view of the "real" of  of real estate.

Game of Politics

Who needs hockey or football when the government we elected is the top game? The sports are done in an organized fashion according to rules they've set for themselves. The other game, the partisan political one, sets up its own rules but seldom follows them. They don't have to. The media is right there cheering them on. When crises or corruption or disaster strikes, it sells. Watch the gamesmanship in print or rather, text, videos and ops as to what is going on in the capitals.  The games have, basically, two main teams. There are others trying to get into the arena but they have to be content to skitter around the sidelines. Some of the skitterers used to be the top players, but times are achanging. Change is never far from the polls as we have witnessed at both ends of North America. No one knows what the voter scratches down on the little piece of paper it stuffs into the ballot box. Since politics isn't really a game per se, but supposedly a serious institution set up by the country's fathers it should work smoothly. Unfortunately, no conciliatory natured mothers were visible in those days other than the ones peeking out the kitchen door as they prepared tea for the confederators. Never mind, they'd have a word with Father when they got home. All the hype connected with today's ridiculously sparring kinds of partisan politics must have the ancient Greek democratics, spinning in their graves. Do they have them? Graves, I mean? Back on topic: just what would happen if we abolished party politics and worked up a completely new ideal sort of system.  Every so many people, in an area across the country would have an ombudsman chosen who would be present constantly and accessible, not down in the capital city in the east, but centrally, truly centrally. What if every voter when they are officially deemed an adult, were provided with an electronic device that allowed them to, not only have immediate access to issues presented in the governing of the country, but would also allow them to indicate a "yes" or a "no" on their device as their vote or in the case of polling, their opinion. This would mean true democracy or "government of the people, by the people, for the people". Those who worked for our government would be apolitical strictly, and responsible only, for the gathering of, and disseminating information in publishing the results of country-wide polling. They would receive concerns that area ombudspersons indicated as reported in their areas, and store them in files until a need became obvious. Those issues would become polling topics. The extraction of tax money would be open to all eyes and polls taken, as to their distribution. There would be complete equity in all ways as polls workers. No one individual would be collecting a salary that was whopping while others who really did the work got less. All salaries would be equal. There would be no world travel silliness for trade and such, because everything would be done on-line including negotiations and other matters to do with world relations. With all the video and voice possibilities available, conferences would be accomplished in individuals'  home towns and not in foreign high risk, costly venues. There would be no heroism involved and no need for media to be cramming their spins down the throats of the populace who could readily see with their devices, what is going on in the running of their land. If there were those who didn't want to participate, they would receive a fine or lose benefits. There would be no more election hoopla or tours because there would be no rivalries. Everyone would have a voice that is heard and no costly hierarchies would have to be suffered. But then, what do I know. I don't have a political science degree.

Feeling The Cold

For some odd reason lately, the media is making comment when temperatures are announced, that state the temperature and immediately after, tell us how the cold "feels". A quote might be: "It is three degrees below zero outside, but the 'wind chill' makes if feel like twenty below." Each time I hear this kind of nonsense, I wonder what it actually means in terms of truth. For example, I was playing cards the other day with a number of women, some with coats and jackets on, cards in hand and in the background heaters blazing. They were convinced that the hostess's room was too cold for them. Apart from their rudeness in leaving their outerwear on while in someone else's home, albeit they could have worn long underwear instead, I was aware that it felt perfectly normal to me. It is a fact that everyone has unique temperature tolerances. It reminded me that when I hear such conjectural observances on my radio or television that a certain temperature is given but "feels like" something else, the pronouncement is based on pure speculation. It has no meaning or factual basis whatsoever. It made me wonder if the public media stations, have human individuals go outdoors in the cold and then report back how cold they felt in the wind with exact readings to report. Then again, if so, how did they determine the temperature it made them feel? Or is there a robot set at a certain tolerance level, erected outside media centres in the wind, with  thermometers dangling here and there that send messages back into the control room, such as "I am as cold as ..."? When you really begin to think about it, the whole scenario of reporting how cold feels, is unscientific as well as rather hilarious. I have been in a northern capital where actual temperatures are twenty degrees below freezing and in wind. I can tell you, I was far too occupied keeping a survival body temperature at a bus stop in Edmonton, to worry about what the cold "felt like". I was as cold as I have ever been, and if someone had  told me how it felt thermometer-wise,  it wouldn't have meant a thing.

The Bare Facts

Reading an article published in the USA regarding some women who dispensed with their bathing suit tops and were consequently arrested and charged I became interested. The outcome was that yes, they were offending according to the law, but yes, it wasn't fair when males are permitted to disrobe in the same way. I couldn't help but respond to the article since it is a moot point they were making. The author cited a situation in Canada that was similar.  The case was heard and the women were or woman was, not charged since the court decided that it is a matter of gender freedom and fairness to go topless. What the outcome is, will be observed I suppose sometime in the future, what with our human penchant for change, but to what degree and purpose, remains in question. Thinking about the whole bareness issue is rather mind boggling because we are people with moralizations that are very complex and are with strict boundaries as far as gender is concerned. Furthermore, no one wants to address the matter, because it appears to dig up  moral passions that other things such as deeper crimes like murder and mayhem, are far more impacting on society as seen by the media. Or so some believe until an issue like topless, crops up. It is then you find the religious groups in an uproar and those with personal prejudices and others who just want to jump in on the matter to add their feelings about it. Once owning an RV park with a beach, I found it my duty to inform a German woman who  sunbathed topless, that in our town, they had laws about such, and that another summer resident, had threatened to call the police. I told the woman that I was here to give her a warning about what could happen. She was a visitor on holiday from Europe and was thoroughly surprised at this.  Where she came from, it was common practice on beaches. She agreed , however, to comply with local laws. There was no further trouble on the beach. But when I think about this issue, it brings up all sorts of reasons to mind about why and why not and why do we think the way we do, about the issue of nudity on beaches varies so much from one place to another. The earlier USA article in question, regarding the incident, was because a woman informed the police that the sight of another woman's breasts was highly offensive to her young children. That opinion rather amazed me, since they may have been breast fed as babies, and had frequent access to their mother's natural feeding abilities. Also, I have heard the opinion, that if nudity on the beaches were common, there would abound such crimes as rape and stalking and attacks on females. Other women abhorred the idea of topless beach activity because their men would find it distracting and disturbing, and not in the right ways. I found it all intriguing, and at the same time hilarious. It amazed me how much emotional energy could be expended by such a natural and not too infrequently visual, that we see commonly in movie theaters, home television sets and other media. While full exposure isn't common, it isn't too hard to locate if that's what apparently is the sinful action raising such concern. We don't seem to mind using our imaginations about the very same thing. We watch music videos, movies and such as the Academy Awards with all the gowns that show as much of the body as is possible without full exposure, albeit in the most expensive designer gowns and bodies in the world, all primed and primped up for our pleasure on the screen. Millions if not billions goggle it up. We all know exactly what is barely millimeters under that chiffon and lace, don't we?

The Trouble With Time

My trouble with time has nothing to do with the elder kind but more with the physical matter of it. I seem to have adopted a number of old clocks and they have their moods, just as people do. The one I call Grandfather, because he is the eldest, is the clock that demands the most attention. It isn't because he is two hundred years old, it's mainly because he has his quirks. If I make a move, first of all, he costs a lot because only certain movers will do it and second of all, he just makes up his mind to stop and then I must call someone in to set him right again. He's seven feet tall which makes him somewhat imposing to begin with, and he's a bit cranky in his case with a few scratches and scrapes and missing top brass globe and two brass filials. But then, at his age, you have to make concessions. I am sure the trip over the Atlantic Ocean was one of his least favorite things to be forced to do. The relatives were becoming scarce in the Mother Land and when it became clear that we here in the "colonies" needed to be his last residence, he was crated up and sent off to Canada's west coast. After spending  a deal of time on boats and trains and trucks to get here, he objected, I suppose, and in a snit, would not start up. The man of the house, whose genetic background included Grandfather, took him all apart, thus rendering the dining room table unusable for over two months. Grandfather standing in the room silently the whole time, allowed himself to be tenderly put  back together. Seeing our lives day by day, whether it was his progeny's gentle touch or simply the sea air that restored him, he began to tick once again. His ticks, depending on where in the case, his pendulum is situated, make them faster or slower. He is set for one tick to one second. That was almost fifty years ago and although the man who fixed him is no longer here, not a day has gone by without Grandfather's comforting voice under our roof. He needs winding weekly to bring the heavy lead (a Leadbeater clock) weights back up the long case on their gut strings to the top, before beginning their tick-by-tick journey back down. The gut is as old as the clock, and will not be replaced until Grandfather insists. During the fifty years in our company he's had his times-off when we went away for longer than usual vacations or we moved to other homes. He's heard our celebrations and up and down times, and the usual grievings and joys and worries that families have. Many times when there was no convenient spot available, he seemed to offer us a generous space inside his case. Over the years, we've hung carpentry tools inside, bored holes in his back to hold him up in case of earthquake, stored potato chip bags in him and toilet paper rolls and cereal boxes. He has accepted them all. He is very old now. His moon at the top of his face isn't always in the phase it's supposed to be, nor does his marking of the days find themselves always matching the calendar every month, but we help him along. I don't polish him as vigorously as I once did, because little bits of his ornate veneers began to loosen and become lost. His clanging bell has been dulled because it used to scare babies and old ladies and condo dwellers, but it's still charming even though its bell is dulled with a swatch of cotton. If you look at the mechanical workings, you'd think they were just a comical assortment of  ugly rough iron bits, not the shiny bright pretty etched things of your modern "grandfather clocks". Grandfather is not a clock that people ooh and aah over.  Grandfather is a practical sort, conceived in mahogany veneers in Mr. Leadbeater's shop in Cheshire, a long time ago. I hope Grandfather continues long after I have gone. I would like my followers to know his soothing, deep tick, second by second for hour after hour, day by day and year by year, all of their lives.

Is Expert, Expertise?

Do experts really tell it like it is? Most of them are educated beyond the average person while certainly supremely knowledgeable in their fields. What makes me wonder, is how that kind of expertise, matters, when the experts are asked their opinions about things that affect the general public. Are they actually applicable to the average?  If they are queried by media, on their subject area, of course they do have reams of proof given their experience, but does it apply as far as usefulness in public social situations? When an issue comes up, the radio or television interviewers who, let's not forget are chosen for their public popularity in truth, want expert knowledge, run down to the nearest university or call them up for authority on their topics for airing. What they want to know is readily available on their computers, but they also know that everyone listens more closely when so-and-so from the whatever-university speaks it. The professors who are the best for gleanings of this sort, are good speakers because what are professors other than teachers and teachers have to be good speakers to be good teachers. If you've been to university or schooling, you already know that the best teachers are the ones who speak best. You listen and learn. But are they the best source when questions such as what-are-we-going-to-do-about-it come up? I am a fan of polling and drawing out public thought and opinion on certain concerns. I want to hear what the actual thinking is "out there". I don't want to listen to rantings and ravings or saccharine praisings from individuals, but I would love to sift through what my fellow Man opines as digested and presented by people who do that. We always have two sides in the great mixture of societal thinking, apart from the dozing fifty percent Apathetics who do nothing or care to, and think nothing, as they hide behind their bales of hay or "hey, I can't do anything about it, so why should I vote" people. The experts, let's not forget, are usually very financially stable and comfortable folk who are employed in institutions and agencies. They live in the nice neighbourhoods and go about with others of that ilk. They are not your average on-the-street people. The benefit of polling, and there should be a lot more of it, is, that if done correctly, tends to reflect what a societal cross -section thinks it wants, and while the results may seem mundane, it is the norm. The "norm" isn't always politically correct, whatever that means, since "politically correct" could be an artificial pronouncement made by whatever force happens to be in power and it may not be ethical or even correct by general moral behaviours in some societies. Have to be careful about that one these days. Even the experts from universities where most of our current information comes from, could be overly zealous about their pronouncements since their very jobs depend upon what the institutions who hire them, have as their mandates. It gets kind of confusing for we ordinary people who are left with judging, based on our own experiences in life, as to whom to listen to, with any kind of trust.

We Are Spoiled People

How must the "other half" of the world think of us? To some, we must seem spoiled darlings with our entertainments and travel and media freedoms and good educations and social care and nice neighbourhoods and cars and jobs and professions. We grouch about a little rain or snow, that our cars are dirty, our house needs paint, that our kids don't have the latest backpack or that the boss yells at us sometimes. We complain about the government taxes while we have paved roads and warm houses and education and a bit of money in the bank. We say our back aches and we'll just go out and buy a new mattress on the weekend if we aren't going up to the cabin.We cluck our tongues about the lawn or the mosquitoes or the dog that barks all night. We get angry when the teacher gives our kid a  well-deserved D or we're told she's a bully and is. When our car breaks down or we need an ambulance or our knee hurts, we call up the doctor's office and insist on an MRI or x-ray and go ballistic when we have to wait in line knowing we will get it. We don't know what it is like to have our son or brother or husband snatched in the middle of night never to be heard of again, and it's the police who do it. We don't know what is rank hunger or having to run with absolutely nothing to safe shelter that isn't really safe. We have no idea what it's like to escape with a sack and only one's life, to another foreign country where the ways are not the same nor the language, knowing that where you run to for help, you aren't wanted there either. But you go anyway out of desperation. You see that they have far more than they need and maybe they will be merciful. We seldom know the fear of being shot or hacked or raped or beaten or tortured in our own place where we have lived for generations. We, here, say how badly we feel about all this, but we don't feel. We can't. What we can do, the least we can do, is think about it once in awhile and make an attempt to consider how it would feel. We can attempt to understand, rather than sneer about other human beings that need everything we have and take for granted, but who just haven't had the luck of being born here or enjoying the amenities of democratic places to live in as we do. We assume schools and paved roads and medical care and food that is readily available, a roof over our heads, clean tap water to drink and a long background of peace that gives us all we are and all we have. It's easy to make pronouncements about "those" people and number how many we "want", but who are we? What are we, here in this comfortable state that we live in? We chide what we have and say it is not enough and snipe when we have to pay the taxes and fees that provide all that we take for granted as our right. What if those rights disappeared? Could we survive what "the other half" does, abide their kind of misery and dashed hopes and destroyed dreams? Our continent hasn't had its communities blasted with air attacks or insurrections or major country political disasters, and I hope we never will. But perhaps sometimes, we must, or should, think how it must feel. We might look around at all of our comforts and then appreciate what we have and never  want to lose and then maybe share some of it. In thought, if nothing else.