Category Archives: Opinion

Degrees of Disbelief

14 Wednesday Feb 2024

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Some of the conspiracy theories doing the rounds at the moment are so outlandish that they defy logic, let alone belief (assuming you understand that you can create a plausible, logical conspiracy theory, but it’s still a conspiracy theory).

The nonsense surrounding Taylor Swift, her boyfriend, and the Kansas Chiefs is one such piece of nonsense that seems to have triggered a few of the more loonier tunes out there. Joe Biden lampooned the whole thing on his Twitter account, although I’m sure there are people out there who don’t see lampooning but do see “Deep State” and “Satanists”. The scary part there was that the whole thing was picked up and amplified by Jess Watters on Fox News, which to many lends the story credence. Of course, if you’re a halfway functioning human, you’ll know that pretty much all of Fox News’ output is deeply in the realms of fantasy.

It’s even scarier to see elected politicians, all of whom are in the thrall of one Donald Trump, expounding so many ridiculous theories. Who can forget the Jewish space lasers? Obama not born in the USA? Insurrection at the US Capitol the work of ANTIFA and FBI agents? These people are outright liars, exploiting the gullible for their own political gain, but their adoring followers see it all as the wicked truth.

There are still a lot of old favourites out there, too, like “Chem Trails” from aircraft poisoning and controlling the world’s population. That one falls into the category of totally ludicrous, but people still buy it. Then there’s the king of them all, the flat earth. That particular theory was torpedoed as soon as people were able to sail boats out of sight of land, but still they persist, with ever greater conviction these days. I wonder how many of them have ever been in an airliner and travelled even a moderate distance? Did they never wonder why they didn’t fly off the edge?

Anyway, I will cling to my rational thought and critical thinking, and laugh all the nonsense off. It’s not wise to engage with any of these theorists, of course, because the same lack of thinking they apply to believing their theories also goes into any evidence-free arguments they like to get into.

Now, where did I put that space laser?

Still in Southern Latitudes

23 Tuesday Jan 2024

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Following on from the previous post, we’ve just had a our first real blast of cold weather. That old Jetstream has dipped south and hauled in a load of cold air from the north, bringing us double-digit negative temperatures and a fair bit of snow. To counter that, I would urge you to remember that while we have a continental weather system here, we’re still on the same latitude as Rome, and unlike some places in Canada, it really doesn’t get very cold here at all.

Anyway, the river has only partly frozen over and the snow, in a few waves, has only amounted to five or six inches in total, so it hasn’t really been too bad. In past winters we’ve been seriously sub-zero for weeks by this time, but this past week has been the first properly cold period of the winter so far. Funnily enough, as a thaw sets in, today has been the first mass school bus cancellation of the winter, but then thawing roads are significantly more treacherous than fully snowed up roads, so it’s understandable.

When I first arrived here, lying snow was such a novelty for me. Fifteen years in, though, and it has just become a chore, particularly as the trend over that period has been for milder weather in general, just with a few snowy blasts to keep us all on our toes. We haven’t had a decent freeze-up for a few years now, where we’d see people tearing along the frozen river on their snowmobiles, but we do get these intermittent blasts of icy weather, which is just enough to remind people that snow is a pain in the bum, but not enough for us to get used to it.

With climate change very much in the news these days, it’s tempting to imagine that we’re set for permanently milder winters. That may be true, but climate change takes much longer to have a real effect so I guess we’re simply in a milder cycle right now, and that at any time we could have a horrible winter with months of snow and ice. I do like the snow, and the cold weather in general, but the quick alternating between really cold and really mild does get on your nerves a bit.

Anyway, we have six or seven weeks yet when the weather can get really stupid, and it isn’t until the March Break that we can count on there not being horrible winter storms. For now I will appreciate the thaw, once the ice has gone, and wait for the next wave.

Southern Latitudes

14 Sunday Jan 2024

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As we experience the first cold weather of the winter here in south west Ontario, I’m reminded of just how far south we are within the North American continent, and even with a national expectation of Canadian weather, we actually get pretty mild winters.

I’m not sure that the graphic is of much help, but here goes. We’re in Chatham, Ontario, marked with the yellow X in the bottom right-hand corner. We lie between the 42nd and 43rd Parallel, marginally further north than Chicago, but not much. The bulk of the US and Canadian border follows the 49th Parallel, which is way above Lake Superior. That means that about one third of the land mass of the United States is further north than we are.

When people hear Canada, they automatically think that the whole country is north of the US, and is therefore colder (and less hospitable) than the US, which of course simply isn’t true.

Not only are we not very far north, but we’re also at the north western end of the Mississippi River, and warm weather is often funnelled up from the Gulf of Mexico, which gives us a surprising warm climate, at least when the wind is blowing in that direction. We often get stuck south of the Jet Stream, too, which is why places like Montreal and Quebec City can be buried in snow in the winter as those cities tend to be north of the Jet Stream most of the time, and we’re languishing in the rain.

While the climate is quite different in the Mediterranean, it’s interesting to note that we are also on much the same latitude as Rome (Slightly north of Rome really). We don’t get their summers, or winters, but we do get similar amounts of daylight, meaning slightly shorter days in summer, but slightly longer in winter.

So next time you hear me say that I live in Canada, remember that we’re not all living on the Tundra.

Getting Back

10 Wednesday Jan 2024

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I treated myself to a copy of Peter Jackson’s film about The Beatles, Get Back, and I have to say that it was well worth the money.

Jackson had taken all the film footage and audio tapes from The Beatles experiment in filming the production of a new album, and rehashed it all to make a new film. It wasn’t the most successful of artistic endeavours when it was conceived in 1969, but there was an album and a film made back then, famously called Let It Be, and of course it spawned what turned out to be The Beatles last live performance together.

So what did Jackson do to make this film better than the original? Well, he used a whole lot more of the film footage, his film is very long, and he was somewhat more sympathetic in his treatment of the obvious cracks that were appearing within The Beatles group. He also used the opportunity to highlight The Beatles at their creative best, albeit that it was during quite a brief period, and their ability to churn out a seriously good live performance with seemingly little effort.

The original concept of putting the boys in an empty film studio to practice their songs for a new album was flawed from the outset, largely because I don’t think the group was consulted. The acoustics were terrible, there was no PA system for them to hear what they sounded like, and there was no means to record anything. When they abandoned the film studio for the recording studio in their Apple Corps HQ in London, where they had everything they really needed, the creativity really took off.

Jackson also ably described the reasons George Harrison walked out, and what the others did to get him back again. For lots of reasons, the balance of the group had been changing, and McCartney was assuming a dominant role. When he and Lennon were forced to look at why Harrison had left, they realised that the group had lost its equilibrium and they needed to restore it, if only to get the project finished. In coaxing Harrison back, and promising to address the issues of equal input, the group found its best again and produced some absolutely amazing work, and in a very short time. To watch the process when it was functioning well was really quite astounding, and there was a real glimpse into why The Beatles were so successful.

The culmination of the project, and not what was originally planned, was that famous last performance on the roof of their building in London’s Saville Row. It was a good performance by anyone’s standards, but to see how they arrived at it, with two of them not committing to do it until the morning of the performance, was awe inspiring. As The Beatles they did all get to the roof, and they did some great numbers in the cold of a January afternoon, proving just why they had been so great. The people in the street who heard the music thought it was great, or most of them did, and the Police looked embarrassed at having to call a halt to the performance after some complaints about the noise. All in all, though, it was a great way for The Beatles to sign off.

The film also pointed to the direction that the four individual Beatles were heading when The Beatles were no more. I for one came away thinking that the group’s breakup was almost inevitable, and that it wasn’t a bad thing. Of course we have lost two of the group now, and the other two really should think of retiring. Whatever may have happened, though, if you’re a fan of The Beatles, or even just a lover of pop music, I’d highly recommend this film, but make sure you’re sitting comfortably first.

New Year Blahs

28 Thursday Dec 2023

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I have never been one to celebrate the New Year. I certainly give the due amount of thought to the past year, and for the year to come, but having a party hasn’t really been my thing. I mean, one minute it’s 1159, the next it’s 0000, and it’s no big deal.

I have been to New Years’ parties, but then the feeling of anti-climax has been doubly strong when people whoop and holler at the appointed hour, and then it’s all over. As I said, it’s not for me.

Moving across the Atlantic, I’ve found that the sense of anti-climax is actually worse here. Quite often bars and pubs don’t open at all on New Year’s Eve, preferring to let their staff have the time with their families. I do get that, but I’m used to pubs staying open for the whole evening, and into the wee small hours. Indeed, so popular are pubs on New Years Eve in the UK that they often have to issue tickets so that the regulars get a look in.

Times Square 2010 – an advertiser’s dream

Then there’s the awful “celebration” in New York’s Times Square that has long been lost to the people who want to make money from the occasion. I understand the ball drop, but the lead up to it with pop singers of the day miming to their latest release an a cold outdoor stage, interspersed with inane chatter from a couple of TV “Hosts” and a plethora of “stars”, it’s all just so painful. Perhaps the most awful aspect is that once that ball has dropped, everyone goes home! Twenty past the hour and Times Square is deserted. Contrast that with Trafalgar Square in London, where the party really only gets started at midnight, and goes on for hours, with Transport for London providing free buses and Underground services for when you do decide to head home.

Trafalgar Square – a distinct lack of advertising

It’s all academic of course, at least for me. It is the start of a new year and with that comes a degree of optimism (like it couldn’t be any worse than last year?), and the days are getting longer, but I can think of better things to celebrate. Or not, because I’m a miserable bugger.

Midwinter

26 Tuesday Dec 2023

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Living in the Northern Hemisphere, as I have done all my life, I’ve become used to celebrating the midwinter in December. Of course, those annoying Christians hijacked my lovely Pagan rituals and made it all about them, but I fought back a little this year.

With a three-year-old in the house, we’re never going to escape Christmas completely, but we have been working on moving the emphasis away from a rotund fellow in a red suit who is linked to the virgin birth, and looked at the Solstice, the real midwinter. Just writing that down, I realise that there will be lots of people telling me that winter starts on December 21st, but that’s a modern construct and I think more tied into how shops stock themselves with seasonal items rather than anything to do with the rotation of the Earth and the Sun. The Solstice is when things begin and end, and I’m happy to celebrate it.

In less enlightened times, people went to bed when it got dark, and rose again with the sun. The Solstice for them was a key point in the year. They celebrated by trying to light things up, to chase away the darkness, and that’s what we did. White lights on a green tree, natural decorations made of pine cones and evergreen tree cuttings. We made lanterns and walked the dark streets, banishing the darkness and looking forward to longer and more productive days. It felt good, too.

Of course Christmas, with its ideal of family and gift giving, is not to be forgotten. Christians venerate the day, and non-Christians hang onto the good bits of the story, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But it was good to go back to earlier times, to more natural thoughts, at this time of year.

The one thing we lacked in the celebration of this Northern Hemisphere midwinter was some cold weather. It’s been very, very mild. Maybe next year.

Twitter is now my X

20 Wednesday Dec 2023

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I’ve never been much of a fan of Twitter, but seeing that so many influential people (as opposed to the pond scum known as “Internet Influencers”) like to put their thoughts out there on a daily basis, I thought I’d have a go.

I am left-leaning politically, maybe physically as well, I don’t know, so I have “Followed” some people who I think I might find tolerable. Among them Jo Biden and Kamala Harris in the US, and Justin Trudeau, Jagmeet Singh and Christia Freeland in Canada. All are centrists with a lean to the left, at least compared to the populists who occupy the news media these days.

People I don’t follow include Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor-Green in the US, and Pierre Poilievre and Marissa Lantsman in Canada, because they are all of that populist rightwing political genre mentioned above. It’s not that I don’t want to see stuff from them occasionally, but I don’t want my daily feed full of their nonsense.

Over the past three months I have had no posts at all come up on my feed from the politically friendly accounts I chose to follow. Not one. I go and look for their feeds and they’re churning tweets out daily. Hmmmm.

Over those same three months I have had daily tweets from all the people I don’t follow, all of whom have descended to the grotesque depths that Trump and Poilievre have been reaching into. I get updates from spineless fools like Ted Cruz, the Trump children, Mike Johnson, Dan Bongino and a host of other scurrilous US Trump apologists. From Canada I get Poilievre, Lantsman and even the vile trash that is the Toronto Sun. None of these accounts are people I follow.

I have resorted to blocking the worst of them because it’s the only way I can stop the flood. Are they replaced with tweets from people I actually follow? No, of course not, because now I get posts from other right-wing populists, all of whom I wouldn’t follow on Twitter in a month of Sundays.

If you’re ever in doubt that Elon Musk has seriously skewed the Twitter algorithms in favour of his favoured political stance, try it yourself, but be prepared for some awful, awful content.

I still dip into Twitter occasionally, search out people I follow (following is meaningless unless Elon approves, of course), and daily block more right-wing loons. Ah well, there are still the tweets from Canada’s foremost Trucking account to see, and I could watch bad driving videos all day.

Attack of the Killer Vans

14 Thursday Dec 2023

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I started up my daily walk routine again, and in an effort to avoid walking alongside busy roads, and to avoid crossing those busy roads too often, I tend to pound the residential streets close by. It’s boring, for sure, but I don’t need to get into the car at all, and I have an audiobook playing through my ear buds to keep my mind occupied.

The streets I use are quiet. I can walk hundreds of metres and not see a moving vehicle, except that is, when I want to cross one of those quiet streets.

Some days it seems like they lie in wait, and pounce when I position myself to leave the sidewalk. Like a London bus, you don’t see a moving vehicle for ages, then they appear, usually in packs. Today was one of those days, except that it was delivery trucks following me around. It was UPS and FedEx, and while I imagined fleets of those vans roaming the streets, because I walk in a fairly small area, it’s likely that it was the same UPS and the same FedEx van each time.

They have a job to do, and I don’t, so I’m not complaining about their presence, just that they only appear when I have to cross a road.

I just hope that none of these vehicles is called Christine…

Telephones

09 Saturday Dec 2023

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I stand alone in the world of the telephone. Or so it appears.

I find the idea of people calling me at their convenience a total imposition. I routinely ignore calls, regardless of who is calling, simply because it’s not convenient for me to answer. My sense of annoyance is multiplied ten-fold when it’s a telemarketer.

Don’t get me started on people who stay on a cell phone call when they’re having their groceries scanned by the clerk.

The huge hole in my argument, of course, is that I have a (sort of) landline, and a cell phone.

I don’t often make calls myself, though, and will usually communicate by text. Texts are the ultimate in convenience communication as they may be read, or not, by the recipient, but I never expect a reply, at least not until it’s a good time for them to reply, and that may be never.

I was trying to discover the source of my telephone antipathy, and traced it back to (perhaps) someone I once worked for. He would break off any conversation, without a word, to answer a ringing phone. I could not count the number of key conversations relating to work that were instantly lost because his phone took priority over everything. Then there was another boss, getting mad at me for not answering my cell phone to him when I’m instructing a new driver, on the road, while they’re new to a very large chunk of metal travelling at speed. I know who I would rather pay attention to in that situation.

I am, as you will have guessed, a cantankerous old fart, who is getting more contrary by the day. If you have any issue with that, drop me a text to let me know.

P.S. This diatribe isn’t to be taken too seriously.

In Continuing Praise of The Beatles

06 Wednesday Dec 2023

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In just a few days It’ll be forty-three years since John Lennon was murdered. Yes, I can remember exactly where I was when I heard the awful news.

I was born early enough to remember the early Beatles singles hitting the charts, but too young to be out buying records or going to concerts. I was only eleven when they broke up, and yet they form an indelible mark on my life, and I listen to their music regularly. Indeed, with the advent of YouTube I have been able to enjoy recordings of them playing live, and in adulthood have really come to appreciate the energy those young men put into their work. But then I’m an old fart, so you’d expect it perhaps.

I am amazed, though, how my step children, and my three-year-old grandson, are similarly smitten with the music that was created decades before their birth. The three-year-old can name each of the Beatles when he sees them on TV.

Oddly, I don’t think you can’t blame me or their mother for the youngsters’ enjoyment because they picked up their interests from their peers, not us. What is it that makes teenagers today not only take the time to listen to The Beatles, but actually buy their music, and listen to it repeatedly? I’m darned if I know, other than for the fact that The Beatles were the right people at the right time.

As for us old farts, well I listened to the entire Sergeant Pepper album while I was tidying up, just a few days ago. It’s timeless, and I knew all the words to all the songs, and yet I found myself reexamining the lyrics to Within You Without You and marvelling and how good they are. See, they still move me.

We visited Liverpool a couple of weeks ago and were just very slightly wrong-footed at the continued commercialisation of the Beatles story. That didn’t stop us taking Beatle photographs and buying Beatle gewgaws, though, us and many others. It’s an oft used cliché, but what a time to be alive.

On Friday I will give the great John Lennon some extra respect, listen to some of his work and continue to be amazed at just how good he and his friends were to have endured like this.