THE TWO SOLITUDES

VISITORS

How very lovely that I had a visitor today from P. J. Hammer.
This came as a complete surprise. A nice one. The kind of
surprises I like. Makes this old soul feel good.

Hammer is a Photographer par excellence. He is also a generous
and kindly soul with his time. Thank you P.J.

For the moment, I digress.

So, what is up today? Keeping in mind that this is not Twitter,
and that I am not a Diarist, it is still worth noting that Canada
voted on May 2nd and changed the Federal landscape rather considerably.
The Conservatives swept into a majority Parliament which will at least
for the next four years we should have some stability and continuity
which was badly needed.

Even more extraordinary is that the New Democratic Party, the dark
horse in the race, came up the back of the track and did something no
one could have predicted a year ago, never mind six weeks ago, and
swept into power as Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition in what has been
dubbed the "Orange Crush" - a reference to the NDP's colour being
orange - mostly on the force of one man, namely Jack Layton, who was
probably more shocked than anybody.

What this election managed to was to obliterate completely what had
always been since Confederation the Liberal Party of Canada the "natural"
party of the peoples. That is amazing! The writing was on the wall for
the Party but the swiftness of its demise is breathtaking.

They came undone.

Even more astounding is the demolition in totality of what had
always been a quirky aberration of the Bloc Quebecois in Ottawa
whose sole raison d'etre was the dissolution of Canada into two
separate Countries: Canada and Quebec. Quebec blinked. It turned its
back on the Bloc en masse and sent them packing back to "Occupied
France" - Quebec.

Thus ends twenty years of non-sense on the Federal scene. It never
made sense to begin with, despite the Separatists false belief that
"Only the Bloc Quebecois could represent Quebeckers interest in the
Canadian Federation." If that wasn't hubris, I don't what the meaning
of the word is. Quebeckers voted for the Orange Crush en masse.

So now what we are left with are two Parties: Conservatives (to the
right) and a clear left, social democrat party, the New Democratic
Party. They couldn't be further apart. But at least it is clear.

Personally, I am quite satisfied with the results. It will be most
interesting to see how things play out in the coming years.
Polarized? Yes. I can live with it. We are, at present, stable and
the envy of many democratic Countries in the world and in pretty good
shape on most levels.

The people have spoken and expressed their democratic wishes.

So be it.

SELECTED RESULTS FROM THE DIGNITY

:: 49 per cent of Canadians say that if poor people really want to work, they can always find a job.

:: 43 per cent agree that "a good work ethic" is all you need to escape poverty"

:: 41 per cent say that if we gave poor people more assistance, the would "take advantage"

:: 28 per cent believe living in poverty "usually have lower moral values"

:: 25 per cent believe people are poor because they're lazy

:: 37 per cent agree that people living in poverty in Canada "still have it pretty good"

:: 24 per cent say they don't see many people in Canada who are "truly poor"

:: 18 per cent say poverty is a problem we can't do much about

(Angus Reid Public Opinion Poll, January, 2011)

Read on...

OH, CANADA!

The poor ye shall always have with ye!

~*~*~*~

Buried deep within our local newspaper, The Gazette
the following headline screamed out to me, Bias against poor
widespread, report finds

Charming...I dug in...page A12... "More than half of Canadians
believe lack of work ethic linked to poverty".

Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. I'm thinking: why isn't this article on
the front pages of the newspaper? reading on, stopped several
paragraphs in:

"More than half (54 percent) of Canadians believe a family of four
can survive on $30,000 a year or less - including 21 percent who
think $20,000 is enough - but Statistics Canada's poverty line
averages $34,289 for urban communities and $22,783 in rural areas."

It goes on, "Statistics Canada figures show that the average family
of four with two (2) working parents brings home $84,800 annualy and
the Salvation Army says, it is "extremely difficult" for a
family to live on less than $40,000 in an urban area."

Not to worry, it gets better: "at the same time, the report shows that
89% of Canadians agree that people in poverty deserve a helpig hand
and 81 percent say helping poor families sets up their children
for success. Almost all (96 percent) agree that everyone deserves
a sense of dignity though 65 percent believe being poor
robs people of their dignity.

Those figures have remained largely unchanged over the last decade,
about 1 in 11 people live in abject poverty.

Angus Reid Public Opinion conducted the poll in late January with
1,025 Canadians included. The results carry a margin of error of
3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

~*~*~*~

Clearly there is a profound disconnect between the "halves" and the
"have-nots" and attitudes towards poverty are so entrenched that
sometimes those of us who are so far removed from the struggles of
every day life that we find it impossible to understand that those
"every day things" we take for granted really do contribute to
a sense of self-respect, and sense of self-worth.

We live in a land of abundance without a clear moral commitment to
being our brothers' and sisters' keepers.

We aren't mean spirited , of course not, we are just more
comfortable in our ignorance and refusal to admit to ourselves that
the solutions are greater than the problems.

This attitude of "I'm alright, Jack, screw you, get a job
and that will solve everything" is all too familiar.

Lest you are comfortable feeling smug about it all by now, you
needn't bother, the Canadian reflection crosses the divide and
reflects American attitudes as much as it reflects our own.

Right. Got it.

WHERE'S THE CHICKEN?

This isn't about chickens at all.
It's about finding my own weblog.

Or maybe it's about --

WINTER!

Too much of it. It's fweezing cold here.
The ole' bod is caving in under it all.

"Snow mixing with sleet and rain" = "snice".
36F, feels like 17F! SE wind: 22mph.

If the cold doesn't get you, the snow will,
if the snow doesn't get you, the shoveling will.

Wish I were in Nice.

IT'S EASIER TO REPLACE POLITICIANS THAN HOUSE KEYS

Not much moves faster than the political landscape anywhere. No less so than right here in Canada. Prime Minister Harper paid his visit to the Governor General and got his prorogation to send all the parliamentarians on a long vacation while tempers hopefully cool down at least while Santa Claus is in town. What I'd like to know is, why in the world are we paying them for not being at work? It's not like everyone caught a really bad flu and decided it was safer for the country not to infect the spoil sports who would rather see their government at work in the House of Commons where they can usually be seen yelling and screaming epithets and insults back and forth across the isle.

Never mind. It is all very wearisome at the least and I just hear the word 'politics' and my head falls down onto my chest and my eyes suddenly snap shut and I am suddenly somnolent. Before I had time to take a really long, hot bath and maybe begin re-reading DeMille's Gold Coast I'd read in 1991, why two anticipated events happened: I lost my Member of Parliament who just happened to be the Leader of the Opposition, Stephane Dion, whose only sin I ever saw up close and personal is that he has an uncanny resemblance to the Dormouse at Alison in Wonderland's Tea Party. He's gone. The Right Honorable was a university professor before he became leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, now fasterthanyoucanreadthis he has been replaced by an even more patrician ivory tower professor whom the political cartoonists are going to have a field day with once he takes his proper seat in the House of Commons come January. Michael Ignatieff is the elitist of the Elite. Haven't a clue why people think that Stephen Harper looks somehow spooky and untrustworthy. To me Ignatieff is the spook behind the door. Those eyebrows just have to go, Sir. Both of them.

Ach...I'm tired. Wish I had not started this. Sort of. I'll take up the gauntlet
the next time I drop in. I'll get to those eyebrows and all the rest of it.

In the meantime I have to figure out what I'm going to do about all the various keys I lost somewhere between Saturday's trip to the grocery store and home. That's much more interesting a situation than any politician's self-inflicted fate. Politicians seem to be more easily replaced than a whole bunch of keys none of which have duplicates.

OH CANADA!

What an amazing turn of events. Here we are, arguably one of the very best countries in the world to live in. And what are we doing to it? Or, more to the point what is our Federal Government doing with it? Fighting with each other like small schoolyard bullies to see who is going to be Top Dog! It's pure madness.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, having called an illegal election which no one wanted just a little over a month ago at a cost to the taxpayers of millions of dollars at a critical time when the world is in economic crisis having been narrowly re-elected by a negligible 34% of the population to yet another minority government, has now created another artificial crisis with the ramifications being that Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition is gleefully going for his jugular and has set in motion a very bizarre situation in which the Liberals, headed by a hugely unpopular and outgoing Stephanne Dion, the New Democratic Party headed by Jack Layton, and - wait for it, here comes the clincher - the Separatist leader of the Bloc Nationale, that wily fox, Gilles Duceppe whose sole function in life is to see to the dismantling of Canada as we know it, have conspired to form a coalition to bring down Harper's government.

Machiavelli would be proud! If it weren't so pathetic it would be farcical. Now everybody is furious, not least we, the Canadian people. Governer General Mikael Jean who was on a European trip, to lend further intrigue, just happens to be married to a man who was in tight with the Quebec Separatists in another life. Makes for some interesting times. Jean has cut short her trip and is on her way back to Ottawa in time to be served with the request for dissolution of Parliament on Monday. It gets better since she is going to be stuck with Hobson's Choice. Nice going!

One way or the other, we could very well be headed into another Federal Election while the ink hasn't even dried on the last one we just had. Further, Quebec is in the middle of an election and we are headed to the Polls on December 8th.

What's the problem, you may well ask? Wish I had a simple answer. It's about the economy, stupid! Economy, economy, economy...have I said it enough? ECONOMY! Well, the problem is that those Simple Serpents in Ottawa couldn't hold their noses long enough to find a loop hole wider than a barn door to step through to blast Stephen Harper's planned budget right out of the drink. Come to think of it, what are they drinking in the House of Commons these days? It isn't water.

This is a constitutional problem since that coalition that is seeking to become a triumvate Opposition Party opens up the the prospect of Duceppe's Bloc Nationale sovereignist party laying the stinkingest sulfuric rotten egg ever laid on an unsuspecting Canadian population. How sweet, the tail is going to wag the dog!

Only in Canada? Pity.