Word Prisms

Lately, there's been a lot of talk about freedom, freedom to not wear a mask, freedom to socialize in large groups without social distancing, freedom to believe or not believe in the existence of a COVID 19 virus. But, what is freedom? After all, there are freedoms to and freedoms from. There's the freedom to wear a mask or not but there's also freedom from the danger of the spread of a deadly virus. For better or worse, the focus of freedoms in the West have focused on the freedoms to. Freedoms to speak freely, freedoms to move about freely, freedoms to practice a particular religion. But, what about the freedoms from?  These have particularly come into focus with the COVID 19 pandemic. In the spring, here in Canada, we focused with some success on the freedom from the spread of the covid virus. All but essential services were closed as well as in-person schooling. The government of Canada worked to provide those who could not work from home with freedom from poverty, hung

As an almost lifelong Albertan who is somewhat left of centre, one would think I would be accustomed to contrary points of view. Yet, recent events have left me perplexed. The election of Donald Trump and then, after his COVID ignorance, the closeness of the 2020 election. And now, the no-masker movement. What gives?  Lately, I've been listening to Fareed Zakaria's book, "Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World." Basically, his thesis is that the pandemic has highlighted many problems with the American system of government. In Chapter 3, "People Should Listen to the Experts - and Experts Should Listen to the People," Fareed talks about the power held by experts and lack thereof left to the plebeian masses.  Fareed calls experts the new ruling class. He quotes Michael Lind in his book, "The New Class War." On one side, we have the experts. On the other, the general public. Fareed says that "Advice by experts is part of the domination of the new r

Certain events recently have made me “take stock.” Taking stock being “to think carefully about a situation or event and form an opinion about it, so that you can decide what to do.” The COVID 19 pandemic made me take stock like many other people on the planet. Those who refused to take stock have caused harm to both themselves and others. Part of taking stock is wearing a mask, social distancing, washing your hands and avoiding crowds and by extension, not travelling abroad as has been recommended by the Canadian government. With these warnings in mind, my wife and I took stock but we still decided to visit our daughter and her husband in Greece. Not impressive, right?   You may wonder, why Greece? You see, my daughter and her husband live in the U.K. If we were to visit them there, we would have to quarantine for 2 weeks which was about the length of time we planned to be away. A visit in their apartment for a few days would have been nice but two weeks? Maybe not. Greece is also rea

We have two dogs, a West Highland Terrier and a Cairn Terrier. They look the same and act somewhat the same. That is, they’re terriers and they’ll bark at anything, a dog, a person, a deer, a bear (that can be helpful), and a black garbage bag waiting for pickup which can be of particular concern because it can’t be identified, like a creak in the night. They’ll chase anything and, upon threat of death, will not return. Squirrels and rabbits are favourites, other dogs, even large scary dogs. They especially like to put the run on a dog. It’s like the killer instinct has taken over their beings and I’m left yelling like a banshee while simultaneously apologizing to the other dog owner. They’ve chased deer which really isn’t a good idea because a buck will toss a dog with its antlers. Pippa and Baby Finian They’re the same but also different. Pippa, the Cairn Terrier likes to cuddle and lie on the backs of the couch and chairs. Finian, the Westie, doesn’t cuddle and only sits beside you

Guys stand on the steps of the Michigan State Legislature touting AR 15s with clips and bowie knives hanging off their belts yammering on about a COVID conspiracy and one world government but I didn't expect to meet someone like them, especially in a small B.C. town at a barbershop. But, that’s exactly what happened to me when I went for my first post-COVID-isolation haircut.    I had just helped my wife start the laundry next door and entered the barber shop about five minutes after the local bait salesman. Waiting my turn, I was privy to a most bizarre conversation. Fearing that I would be invited for an opinion, I instead concentrated my efforts on using my phone to record the proceedings. As a consequence of my fumbling to find an application for recording, my offering of the conversation begins some time after it started.   Our two characters in this play are the barber wearing a full-face shield for protection and a large, sixtyish white man with a long beard and a very short

Leaving a community where I’ve spent almost half my life was extremely difficult. Leaving a house where we’d really enjoyed living for the last 14 years is also difficult. As I sat for one final time on the couch in the basement and, to be honest, had a little cry, my wife told me that we would always have the memories. However, like music and smells, memory is attached to places and by leaving places, we lose a bit of memory. Our eldest’s paintings of tropical fish in the downstairs basement, the stockings hung by the fireplace on Christmas eve in the upstairs family room. Opening those stockings on Christmas morning. Our ridiculously huge Christmas trees harvested along access roads, our backyard where we’d planted trees around the perimeter to provide a screen from the neighbours and a connection to the forest beyond. The woodpeckers that would come every year to feed their young at our feeder. The bounty of apples provided by the tree in the front yard we’d planted the first

CBC radio news recently featured a story about demonstrators congregating at the state legislature in Lansing, Michigan to protest stay-at-home orders issued by Governor, Gretchen Whitmer . A comment made by one of the protesters confused me for a couple of reasons. First that he would say it. Second that CBC broadcast it. Mike's on the far right.  Mike Detmer, a Republican congressional candidate and one of the participants at the protest stated that the government needed a common-sense approach to handle the COVID-19 pandemic. He elaborated by saying that the citizens can’t just sit back and allow their freedoms to be stripped away. “Once you do that, you don't get them back.” What did he mean by common sense? Was his approach common and did it make sense? According to the Merriam Dictionary, common sense can be defined as “sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts.” Could the simple perception of Mr. Deitmer’s and other p

Yesterday, my wife was lying on the bed looking at her phone and I asked her what she was doing to which she replied, You don’t always have to know what I’m doing. Fair enough. I don’t and what’s more to the point, I don’t really care. When I’m bored, I like to bug her and she knows I like to bug her and so, in her own polite way she’s telling me to fuck off. I can imagine this is happening to a lot of people these days. That’s why it would have been better if the COVID 19 crisis had come along when we had kids. At least they would have been a distraction. Now, we’ve just got each other. Not that my wife doesn’t have stuff to tell me when she’s looking at her phone. She follows Twitter and Facebook and Instagram a lot closer than I do so she reads about stuff like Tyler Shandro freaking out at his doctor neighbour long before I’d see it in the news. Then, she learned that Shandro was using AHS to get the personal cell phone numbers of doctors. Then, he phoned them with his