Americans?

Everyone who is a citizen of North, South or Central America is an American. The word American applies to all peoples living on these continents. There is one particular country that persists in designating the word "American" to itself and thus identifies itself as "American" thinking it alone is such. It is, of course, not. It refers to the word American and perhaps could be offended if reminded that everyone who lives on the Americas is an American while it is the United States of American actually. I don't know what other name it could be called. United States? USers? United Statesite? That would be up to it to decide. In fact, the so-called Americans are, in fact, Americans but not the only ones. They are but one of the American peoples who live on the two large continents, North and South with Central America between. This term used by the citizens of The United States of America meaning North America, bothers me because it is a misnomer in some ways.Only habit causes us to use just part of the true name and nothing more. Why this habit continues and is used by other world citizens is simply not correct or at the very least, is only partly correct. And perhaps it is time we stopped and updated and corrected the misconception of who "Americans" really are. When you travel in other parts of the world, the US people are identified, and identify themselves, as "Americans" and when I say "yes, they are but we Canadians are also Americans", I get some funny looks. And the surprised looks are understandable. When the "lookers" finally get it, they make no comment or change to their incorrect use of the word "American" in reference to those who belong to a country called The United States of America. The United States is only part of the Americas and not the major part, unlike its personal opinion of its size, both in area and of population. There should be no frowning or yakking about it because the situation happens to be the truth, and, in my opinion and perhaps that of others, it needs to be changed for clarification purposes if nothing else. So okay, what do you think the United States of America will name itself? If it says "American" that is correct but since they are but one of the Americas, it begs some kind of specific designation.  On the other hand what happens when you call Canadians, Canadian Americans or you call Mexicans or Brazilians, their country name with American tagged on at the end. It seems that ever since the Aborigines welcomed, or not, others who came to their shores to make it what we have today, this matter was overlooked. How many people of other countries yearned to come to "America" where "the streets were paved with gold" to find freedom in a new way of life not dominated by a royalty class system. Many of them forgot about the designation "American" that was misunderstood somehow and they landed at Ellis Island and not Canada or Panama or Peru. Who are Americans? In truth? I think it's time we got that straight and identified which "Americans" we are talking about.

Funny Money

Funny money is like Monopoly paper. It is when the value of the "money" is not based of useful value. It's hiked up by individuals who don't know or care anything about economics and what happens to everyone when artificial "value" is attached to what we call currency. Money is way too easy coming and going, these days. It is not something you hold in your hand and count and see go out of your pocket. It is a blue, maybe gold, flash of a plastic popped into a little machine that either takes it out of a bank account or slaps you into the red.  This day, as I speak my condo is valued up and up and I haven't done a thing to make it more "valuable". Somebody sold one here for more than they were asking, and it caught on like a disease. Everyone in the building suddenly wants to sell and they can ask almost anything. Fake value has become reality. I live in an old building and the price since I came here about a year ago has almost doubled and by, who knows, the end of the day, it may have gone there. It is ridiculous when an almost forty year old place that needs  a hundred thousand dollars to renovate, if you are lucky enough to find someone who will do it at that rate, is being valued purely on a fairy tale. They excuse it as Market Value. Market means whatever you can get for it. The people who bought in here years ago are making big bucks without having much to offer over what they paid for it twenty or more years ago. But. And there is always a big one, I am told. Those who move out of this beautifully located building that offers large units and self- management and cautious maintenance, will have to find other accommodations and to do so, they are unlikely to find the same space, peaceful self-management or location where they purchase with their bag of money. They will, if going into one of the towers abounding nearby if they can afford it even with their bundle of cash in hand. They will find lots of showy stuff such as concrete, marble and glass but they will also find assembly line construction, security up the arm, pages of bylaws and rules, hard-nosed management and lack of neighbourly company. And don't believe the classy flashy little brochure that promises the opposite. It is not worth the ink. I speak from experience. Sure there are gyms and pools and recreation facilities, even bowling alleys seldom used, but you won't find anything warmer there socially, than the marble in your bathroom. And the prices are unreal. Truly unreal. It seems that prices are put up at will. In this building I live in, you can't tell me that a unit grows in value two hundred thousand dollars overnight. An elder I know, is planning to go into a "home" for the elderly. You are looking at five thousand a month and that does not include dish soap if you are lucky enough to have a sink to put it in. If you need medical care routinely, up goes the bill. You still have to buy your groceries and personal items and maybe get the grandkids a gift at Christmas or whatever holiday for your kind. Most nice places in the city, range at six thousand a month. Or more. Now add that up. How come you can live in your home and pay for it way less than that and still keep your investment. Who can afford over sixty thou a year when elderly? Oh yes, the person who sold their home for up to and more than a million. A million is but the average home. So that's how it works. What happens, I ask, to the elderly who cannot do this? Where do they go and how?  And why are housing prices moving up and up and up as well as other costs? Let's hear some reasons. Butter used to be three bucks a brick a few weeks ago and today it is five. And chickens must be wealthier, too, because three dollars a dozen eggs are history. Why? Is it better butter? Are the hens wearing diamond earrings? Nope. Someone simply decided to charge more. And did. Who's to ask? That pound of butter used to be called the study of economics. Funny about money.

Immortals

No one is immortal. Why do we strive to become immortal? The answer is obvious and has a lot to do with death. Death is not something we need to dwell on because it is going to happen no matter how good or brilliant or creative or beautiful or rich or famous or talented or, or, or. It is going to happen and does. There is no need, therefore, to think about it all the time. When you are old, and I am, you avoid thinking about it mostly because it's just around the corner and one day something is going to happen and you will know that your time is up. Being old is actually a very interesting experience. The body you have lived with your whole time on earth is changing and while the changes were rather gradual once, they are now not so. You can wake up one morning as an elderly aunt of mine did, and find that you can't get out of bed. What happened, you ask? Age happened. Aging is a natural process and it is denied by most of us until the denials don't remove the symptoms. You can try to slow it down by doing a whole lot of things both cosmetic and medical and physical and psychological, but come it does, and often times it is a big surprise. For most, however, it is a slow progressive state. It takes great patience to grow old and if you fight it with anger or frustration, and these emotions do arise, it only turns you into a cranky old geezer. Like having a tooth ache, it doesn't go away easily. There is pain involved and it's not something you want to speak of unless you are with another one of your ilk and there is some comfort in talking it over a bit. Listening in to elders talk about their complaints isn't something to attempt. I find it best to avoid the subject altogether and even the latest jokes about aging don't work for me. Aging is no joke. Pain in joints happens and there is all sorts of advice to make it stop. The advice that gets me is that of younger gym and yoga types who don't know what aging feels like, but who think that if you just do blankety blank, you won't feel the pain. Oh really? What do they know? The best exercise is so gentle that it's almost not there, but after a nice pleasant easy stretch it does feel finer. Not perfect, but finer. I have a friend who trots out briskly every day after a bedside routine and highly recommends it to everyone else as being the right thing to do. Just look at her and you will see, she brags. She does look good. But I am not her. Then there is the guy of great age who believes in yoga classes that are what keeps him so young and handsome. Probably gazing about the roomful of moving youthful bodies helps.These two are the lucky ones and those who have no idea what most of the rest of us fools  are experiencing. And you cannot convince them so. They, the lucky ones, have the answer. Luck is involved in a big way in aging. Some of my smartest friends ended up with Alzheimers. Others, once healthy and into sport, were stricken suddenly by various cancers and yet others had strokes that rendered them with no memory or speech or movement. Deafness and bad eyesight make wrinkles look tame! All the botox and injected cow fat and creams and lotions and plastic surgery to fend off aging don't work long. These all are supposed to convince us that age doesn't happen to "me" in our MeMeMe society. Aging, I think, is fascinating and even with a certain amount of pain and change, I am still alive and well enough and am loving every second of it. I don't want people cooing at me or baby talking to me in that tone they use on elders. I am what I always was. I am not half dead, I am just as alive as before in my life, and breathing and loving and hoping and wishing.  I get and do the cyber thing, the electronics, have a reasonable memory, hearing and sight which adds up to the fact that I am okay. So far. Life couldn't be better in my lane.

Breath of Fresh Air

 Has the world gone crazy? The latest foolishness is vie-ing one Province against the other for virus count cases. BC has lost its place as the winner apparently in once having the least number. Oh dear! What kind of reporter digs up topics like this? While  reporters are said to report, supposedly, it begs the question, do they also colour and embroider on their chosen subjects. Of course they do. They are writers. Journalism is competitive perhaps more so than most jobs. It's more than an art being a journalistic writer. It's a commitment to the art as well as to presenting subjects that tantalize the public. Selling ink is always the end goal. And that's okay, but into the mix "good taste" is essential. Or so we are told. Sadly, some reporters don't have it, therefore, the poor editor has to make the final decision. Not an easy job. The world at large, needs a breath of fresh air. We need to rise above seeing and reading and hearing the bad news. There's something about us that loves bad news. We kind of crave it, but I hope mainly because we are empathetic creatures who care about each other. Crows, as an example will gather and loudly proclaim their concern when one of them dies. You know what I mean if you've ever witnessed a crow funeral. The black wings appear as if from nowhere and collect in dark clouds to find resting places in which to caw their witness to a mortal ending of one of their fellows. We are slightly akin to this behaviour. These days we are immersed in counting how many deaths, cases and cures there are of the pandemic nightmare we are living world wide. Other recent disasters such as the huge explosion that affected so many people or latterly, mass murders or accidents seem to add further gloom to what is already claiming thousands of lives by the tiny, stubborn virus. We are stuck inside our homes, and if we do go out, have to be muzzled behind masks that are cumbersome and uncomfortable. We fear for our families and their safety from an unseen and unpredictable creature called Covid19. Children are no longer perfectly safe from its clutches and the elderly are in possible as anyone, in danger if venturing into public places. No one knows how, other than staying inside and out of contact,  to  remain perfectly safe from the virus. There is no cure and so far, no vaccine and some people for strange reasons are planning to refuse to be vaccinated even if there is a sure one invented. This flies in the face of all logic to me. Countries are bickering amongst each other over tariffs and borders and immigration and refugees. Oh my, oh my. Don't we ever need a breath of fresh air! And since we are told not to go out into the actual "fresh" air unprotected by bits of cloth on our faces, even that has its limitations. Fresh air? Where can we find it and in what form? It is there, and there is hope. We have minds and choices in how it all works for us. We can rise above in our own minds to think of positives, to read and watch and speak and do what is positive. And millions of the thinking populations are doing just that. They are discovering new  activities that use the oft maligned internet to keep in touch with loved ones. They are smiling and being kind and responsible and taking what they have, however large or small, and projecting their goodness onto and into it. Once deemed petty, the high fashion industry is making stylish masks, commercial outlets are bending to the task of doing business even at a loss, art is reaching out in ways never believed to happen before, education is stretching its own learning to accommodate those hungry for it, militant nations are using personnel to help in fighting an enemy they were never trained for previously, politicians are providing leadership and guidance and ordinary people are kinder and more concerned about spacing and gathering. That's our "fresh air" and it works. We just have to keep on breathing it in. 

Silly Subjects

How many of us struggled in vain to do well in a high school subject we abhorred but "had" to take? I know there is a heavy movement for kids to adore Mathematics and I completely agree that it can be enjoyable if taught well. And it is a subject that can be fun. Up to a point. Algebra is problem solving and achieving a solution can be a satisfying experience. For many. Not all. I was an educator for many years in a high school as a librarian and teacher of English. I listened to a large number of students who draped themselves across the library desk and poured out their laments to me on having to learn certain subjects, mostly Math, specifically Trigonometry,  that they disliked intensely and were doing poorly at. Some had to attend summer schools or tutors to get them through. I empathized entirely since Trigonometry, that I "had" to take and did poorly on, was the one subject that almost prevented me from getting into a university. I loathed it because, to me, and it wasn't the marvellous teacher's fault, it made no sense in my future life plans at all. Oh yes, it was a discipline but one that I would rather have done in an Iron Maiden than sitting in a class agonizing over something that was a mystery to me. The reason I found it so impossible was that my direction lay in Literature and the English Language, in Art and Social History. Every single Trigonometry class I was forced to attend was an embarrassment and  torturous experience. It was like the time, my parents insisted I take swimming lessons in the ocean. The water was so cold and I so tense, that I sank to the bottom and learned nothing but shivering 101. After only one single session in a heated pool,  I was hooked and even learning the useless Australian Crawl, while it made no sense at all unless I wanted to race in a regatta, I found it tolerable. For a great many students Trigonometry is "cold ocean water". It occurred to me that a good many high school subjects, since the new approach is to taylor the subject to the student and its abilities, could be further  divided into more useful, pleasurable aspects that a student could develop a passion for. Had someone come along to me, that high school student I was, and proposed learning a field of Math that made more sense, I would have flown there from Trig class.  I would find  Home Budgeting, the Art of Finance including mortgages and accounting such as the difference between a debit and a credit, would have been a class I would almost run to because it would help me in life. I found Chemistry fun and Biology delightful. Chemistry uses algebra extensively and perhaps that route would have been more palatable. But sitting in a class with a large tome of logarithms, poring over reams of numbers that would never be useful to me, seemed a ridiculous burden. History should be of importance to one's everyday life by showing the connection to our past and how it pertains to the present. It would have been refreshing and fascinating to learn about my West Coast life but memorizing dates about Roman wars and British royal lineage was a waste of my time. After the history classes at school, I still didn't know anything about the West Coast and it's exciting past, about the aborigines and their history and importance. I had to learn these after high school. Hopefully, things have changed and students are able to impart their personal educational needs to the system and what is meaningful to them. More importantly, what makes them passionate about learning during their few short years in high school. "It's a discipline is not the right answer."