To thine own self be true

1. The cabinet overruling Hinshaw to remove the mask mandate. Politicians have no right interfering with work properly belonging to neutral health authorities responsible to the public.

2. LaGrange dictating that schools can’t declare their own mask mandates as needed, thereby putting political interest and interference over the safety of Alberta children.

I have zero faith in UCP in health or education matters. We need a return to health and education authorities and their autonomy.

Any sane person or common-sense person would not vote UCP next time. We live in Canada, not the screwball GOP-authoritarian states. Like the GOP, UCP wants to gut education and health. No diff. Like the GOP, UCP does not care about the people or believe they have any rights.

in Covid shots.”
–RD

(#5 coming up next week.)

About 1961 in grade 6, my friend Bob Hutchinson and I decided to take a chance and go trick-or-treating, although most of our classmates had stopped the practice, being ‘too old’. I went to one house on a ‘higher-up’ street where we believed the treats might be better or more generous. I was unexpectedly waylaid by a man in his 30s who insisted I perform a trick–the first time I’d ever been asked for one. He waited until I came up with a recitation of the first poem I ever memorized in school in grade 5. Stumblingly–I’d learned it the year before, but hadn’t said it since then–I surprisingly began to recite “Some One” by Walter de la Mare.

Some one came knocking
At my wee, small door;
Some one came knocking;
I’m sure-sure-sure;
I listened, I opened,
I looked to left and right, But nought there was a stirring
In the still dark night;
Only the busy beetle
Tap-tapping in the wall,
Only from the forest
The screech-owl’s call,
Only the cricket whistling
While the dewdrops fall
So I know not who came knocking,
At all, at all, at all.

Well, that confirmed that Halloweening was going to be a tough gig from that point on; it was my last outing. But I learned something that night about the importance and value of poetry. It could be a performance for an audience as small as one. Poetic words, like magic on the tongue, could move Uncle Henry-types (the hard adult man from Morley Callaghan’s “Luke Baldwin’s Vow”).

There was also a mystery about poetry (as in this poem’s subject matter) much like so much of life-experience and Halloween, too. And there was a music in the rhymes and rhythms that could potentially charm and move others as well as myself. This poem–these particular words–were also the most powerful words I had ever uttered to another human being up to that point in time.

Little did I know then, that this was the start of the poet that one day I would become. That mere lad, nervously reciting from memory on the cold fall front-steps, all for a transitory treat.

back to the early rounds of Brexit in the UK. Followed then by enough people in the U.S. hating the Clintons enough to vote in Trump, who totally demolished American confidence, security, institutions, and law and order.

Consequently, too many Americans have lost decency, common sense, loyalty to democracy and the constitution, and any sense of moral compass.

Meanwhile, the corrupt, lawless, morally bankrupt minority wants to impose and has been imposing its fascist, autocratic agendas on the majority, centered by the most corrupt, evil, traitorous president in U.S. history.

The fall of America and the complete corruption of the American dream have occurred rapidly in the past 6 years. Already 50% of the population are living in something resembling A Handmaid’s Tale. Screwball Central is primed to implode and I detect a strong impending whiff of a barbaric, uncivilized country leaning evermore toward another French Revolution of sorts.

In any case, should be a helluva fall and a very real long winter of discontent, political chaos, and lawlessness.

another day of non-stop sirens 24/7.

Edmonton Elks. Lost every game.

Management blew it all up last season. This season is even worse. Manager/coach needs serious scrutiny with over 100 players being unable to play at the CFGL level.

Maybe they should just shut it down given that Esks fans have stayed away. Who wants to freeze their buns off for a team that can’t compete let alone win a game?

and says that people should cure their own cancers naturally. Anti-science Danielle Smith. Who else to lead Alberta’s health care for the UCP? A very Trumpian gal taking after Marjorie Greene’s and Lauren Boebert’s ‘minds’.

“especially” as “expecially”, “February” as “Febuary”, and “et cetera” as excetera”.

I do find that they lose some credibility when they mispronounce these words, and that I seem to respect them less.

I guess language and grammar have been important to me (and to many others in the past). People are judged by their language.

Same goes with egregious spelling mistakes in moving banners at the bottom of tv newscasts. Does anybody use spell-check anymore in information communicated to the public? 

Whenever I see or hear one of these mistakes on-air, I recall Ray Bradbury’s excellent story “A Sound of Thunder” which ends with a time traveller coming back to his present only to see spelling errors everywhere because he careless disobeyed his guide’s instructions and stepped on one insect which, consequently, changed the future of the human world.

In your neighborhood, for instance.

is being shown in 6 parts on PBS currently, hosted and curated by Rick Steves, who does a fantastic job in bringing into your home European masterpieces that would otherwise not be available in an HD, curated way. The shows are crammed with beautiful art and truly representative examples of the best of European art going back to ‘pre-history’, pre-Greek times.

I have not previously seen about 2/3s of what he has uncovered and chosen to include. And the art and narration are informative, very entertaining, and a knockout, quite frankly, like this week’s show on medieval art and architecture. All those churches, mosques, and cathedrals with all those mosaics, sculptures, and stained-glass windows!

The previous major sweeps of Western art on video have been done by Michael Wood (Art of the Western World, 9 episodes), 1989, and Lord Kenneth Clark (Civilisation, 11 episodes), 1969 (available now in DVD). Wood’s PBS documentary begins with the Greeks and was not shot in HD, which is unfortunate, given how many great works are shown. Steves has clearly synthesized the best of Wood’s project.

Clark’s classic BBC doc gives much more than do either of the other two, providing historical context in detail, focuses on famous people and ideas, notably in philosophy. He also does a splendid job on main classical composers. If you want the kitchen-sink version of Western civilization, Clark’s doc is still the main one to check out.