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(If you are wondering how a Canadian voter registration card looks like, this is the one I got a few weeks ago )
So... here we go again, to the polls. May 2nd is the Big Day for us. I've mixed feelings, though.
The reason that we're going to the polls is that the Conservative government fell on ethics. First time it ever happened.
Minority governments usually fell on tax bills (such as the government's budget) but the Harper government was caught lying before the House of Commons (our Parliament), showing disrespect for Canadian institutions. First time ever that a Canadian Prime Minister was sanctioned that way.
One might say, -and quite accurately so- that politicians being politicians, they lie all the time, but the idea is to *not* to get caught at the Parliament.
No matter how Harper spins it, it is on those grounds that he was thrown out of power... and not on a power trip of all the Opposition leaders, nor even on the government budget, since the government fell before a vote could be taken about the budget.
To me, the general disrespect Harper had against Canadian institutions in general, -the Parliament being just what triggered the elections-, should have ruled out Harper and his entire party, regardless of their stand as a right-wing party on everything else. You have to play by the rules, by the people who elect you. A Prime Minister isn't above laws, including the law of the laws, the Constitution. This is so paramount, so basic, that if you default on that, everything else becomes pointless.
Yet, Harper is going to get re-elected, and the question is whether again as a minority government or a majority government. And a secondary one is which opposition party, Liberal or NDP (New Democratic Party) is going to be the Official opposition. That leaves me speechless. I'm not that proud of my Canadian citizenship.
And the threat, if Harper gets the majority, is there. Already trickling in the media is to make abortion illegal and to nuke gay marriage. Already as a minority government, they have tried that already.
And one wonders about what more civil liberties are going to go away, on these religious grounds.
For my American friends, I should mention that Stephen Harper is to the Conservative party that George Bush was to the Republican party.
On the far right, a religious nut, and having ties with the oil industry, as he is coming from an oil-rich province, Alberta, which to us is like Texas is to the US. And Bush comes from Texas.
Many tactics used by the Republicans are also used here. I'll cut short the list to make this blog entry small, but this is no small peanuts, including tampering with the electoral process.
Under Harper's tenure, we also defaulted on many international treaties, whether on refugees, on immigration, on environment, -to name a few-, which make me blush, in shame. Canada's reputation has been severely tarnished by Harper, just like Bush did in the US.
In Rove-like propaganda, they keep saying utterly stupid things again and again and again, so they go so mainstream to the point that any person who wants to burst their bubble appear as the bad guy. Attack ads used to be unheard of here in Canada. Also imported from the US by the Conservatives. Urrrgh..
Yet, we're going to re-elect Harper. Perhaps even giving to him his majority, meaning that he can pass any bill he wants, the Opposition parties no longer being effective in blocking them, which is scary.
Also scary is that the younger generations no longer go to the polls, apparently not being interested with politics.
That would be a lesser worry if lack of interest was indeed the case, but a "man of the street" informal poll done by several local TVs right after the televised political debate is hinting for something much worse.
They were asking young adults age 20 to 35... to simply name the political leaders of each party. A huge majority of these adults were *NOT* even able to name the leaders. MEGA OUCH.
If they don't know even know the political leaders, how they're going to vote? Of course they won't. Scary.
Nor that we have an "Obama" who would take the reign of this country. Which is why Harper got re-elected again and again with a minority government (meaning that while as a *single* party the Conservative has the majority of the seats, the opposition parties lumped together have the balance of power). So we re-elected Harper in a minority government waiting for that leader to come, but didn't in the past, nor it will on this elections.
So it feels that in the longer run, Harper is going to win, being given this time majority, therefore full power to do whatever he wants. Is this the equivalent of the Stockholm Syndrome brought to the political level? To keep having the evil in power for so many years, that evil appears not that bad after all? Mhhh...
Oh democracy...
I look toward Africa and toward the Middle East, the recent uprising of the population, kicking out their dictators...
Yet on this side of the Atlantic, we didn't have to fight for democracy. It was there. Taken for granted.
That's the danger of anything being taken for granted. Its value, you know...
Sure, I'm going to vote on May 2nd. I believe that's the least a citizen living in a country with a democracy should do.
Yet, not even 60% of eligible voters did that on our last elections, 3 years ago. Pundits predict a lower turnout on May 2nd.
I'm worried.
I remember my dismay during the 8 years of the Bush era.
I was wondering how the Americans, usually so upfront about their individual liberties made the error to elect and then to re-elect a guy who thought he was above all laws, -including the Constitution-. Also the same guy who fought so hard against civil liberties.
I have that nagging feeling that it's going to be our turn to do the same kind of mistake that the Americans did.
From where I live geographically, I "sit" on top of Vermont. So imagine Vermont on steroids... and this is Southern Québec's climate.
Seasons are nature's cycle, and like any cycle, things get moving, or so it seems.
Up to these northern climes, after 5-6 months of winter, you get the feeling that something got stuck.
Think of a washing machine stuck forever on the "spin cycle". Eeeeek!!!!
You feel a down from seeing that white fluffy stuff on the ground for so many months.
So when the winter cycle is going to end and spring going to start... finally?
So you look for signs of hope.
I had the answer last week.
When the lawn begins to show up, peeking through the snow, that's one unmistakable sign.
Also, when the sun is high enough in the sky and daylight long enough that for the first time this year... I could use the clothesline and have my laundry thoroughly dried by the end of the day, that's another sure sign that winter is about to be over!
(On board "The Canadian", about to enter the Rockies. June 2005)
The other day, I was sorting my photos. I want to show to my sisters some of my travels, and I stopped at this batch of photos, about my train travel from Montréal to... Vancouver.
I stopped... and pondered...
With a switch over at Toronto, it was 4 days of travel. Yup, four... days. By train.
Funny how the perspective colors everything.
WHAT? FOUR D-A-Y-S to get there? Are you out of your mind? I've heard that phrase before.
Yeah I know, the plane will get me there in 5 hours. I did that too.
But I figure that since it was my first time going to the (Canadian) west coast, and west of "Viagra falls" (Niagara Falls Ontario) I know little, I figure that I should travel my country by *land* first.
To see my country. As simple as that.
Also for the train experience. Sure, I took the train many times, but for trips that last a few hours. Not DAYS!
And that was a heck of a train experience.
Suddenly, you realize that the train is more than just your mean of transportation. It's an hotel, a restaurant, a cinema, etc.
A friendly employee will remind you that this train is about a MILE long, or 35 cars.
Then, it hits you that this train is actually a *city* on wheels. A city which is delimited by train cars, instead of city blocks.
There aren't streets and avenues, but just a bunch of train cars ahead or behind, relative to where you are standing.
It makes mapping this "city" an interesting exercise. You have to, because for 4 days, you have to know where everything is located, relative to where your room is located.
So that's a radical shift of paradigm with most short-haul train trips I made, which you sit still on your seat, until you arrive at destination.
Here, the idea is to get moving, literally. Walk and walk and walk from one car to the other. Get to the restaurant, ok back to my room, now the dome car, the snack bar car, the lounge car, etc.
Along the way, you meet people, many of them are there also for the train experience. Conversations get started easily.
And what a diverse country it is, from urban Toronto to the heavily wooded Northern Ontario, and then the "flatness" of the Prairies, to the magnificent Rockies, and the grande finale, the arrival in coastal Vancouver.
And that's the trip you can't get on board of a plane.
===
I still remember vividly my arrival in Vancouver. I was so hooked that I felt bad that the train trip was over.
In the train station, there was that big sign for Amtrak, which touted their train services from Vancouver all the way to California and the many stops in between, with city names that make an east coaster like me dreaming. Seattle, Portland Oregon, San Francisco, Los Angeles, to name a few.
Gee, why I don't keep traveling! That was my thought!
(On a subsequent travel to the west coast, I did part of that, riding Amtrak from Sacramento to Vancouver, with a train switch in Seattle). In case one wonders, it takes a day and a half, leaving a heatwave in California to enter into a *snowstorm* the next morning in Oregon, to back to reasonable summery weather at destination in Vancouver, British-Columbia).
===
I'm getting that urge to resume travels by train.
And what's fun about the train...
It goes without the humiliation, frustration and angst of airport security.
It's also the slow going way to travel, to observe, to enjoy, to ponder, to gaze, to dream...
The fun of traveling, as it *should* be.
Let's hope this year, I could repeat that. Fingers crossed!
I know that you all want to see picturesque wintry scenes. You all want to see Montréal in winter...
To feel the bitterly cold temperature, the wind freezing your face, the joy of walking on icy sidewalks, not to mention the joy of driving a car, that one time opportunity (!) to exert to the fullest extent your driving skills!
Yesterday was budget time in Québec. It is interesting, and somewhat depressing how people react.
Long before it got published, just about every pundit predicted there will be tax hikes, and they were right.
And the provincial government hopes to *cease* to be in the red by 2014 and most likely, they are going to succeed. If not by 2014, the next year will.
The federal is going to follow suite in about a week. They too are going to raise taxes and they too will break even in a few years, and even starting to make *surpluses*... once again and reimbursing our debt.
An yet, this is Canada. You know, that supposedly "socialist" country that is supposed to sink in red ink.
I take a peek at the other side of the border. The almighty "rich" US of A.
The government running deep in the red, people who are allergic to tax hikes, but want the government to maintain all services and infrastructures, have a big army that intervenes oversea, etc...
The credit card, has to be paid off, one of these days, and you're nowhere close to even begin to reimburse.
Mhhhh...
There's something that I don't get, but ok I'm just a Canadian.
(Entrance to Sunken Meadow beach, Cape Cod, where so many of my thoughts are lingering. In the forefront, my bicycle, at a time, pre 9/11, which was easy to cross the US border in a non-standard non-conforming way...)
This is of those topics that is tough to write in a blog, because a blog requires you to write using the first person.
Also, when you are NOT part of the majority... there is that feeling of being that weird chimpanzee in the zoo that everyone would stare.
We're people, you know. Not freaks...
By the way, it isn't a coming out, I have written a couple of times about bisexuality and how it is felt by yours truly, and along the way blasting a couple of myths and then going to the other end of the spectrum, how these days after all I have been through, it's more of asexuality (or " the none of the above " orientation, as I like to say). Time for myself and to do so, to be out of the loop to recuperate, including the dating loop for a while. I have been enjoying that time tremendously, and didn't miss the sex part.
Things change, the environment change, we change. The idea is to adjust, and to keep doing so.
Since I'm on a roll with "blogitude", this is part 4.
On the topic of sex, one thing that I haven't posted here so far are erotic essays. It doesn't mean I didn't write, it doesn't mean that I haven't thought of publishing them here or elsewhere, and with our censors and the ever changing rules, one never knows quite sure at the right moment of what is kosher or not...
But like sex, when the mood isn't there, just forget it. Heh.
It's just that on a personal blog here, even if one can claim that it's pure fiction, it's still *my* personal fantasies of the very intimate kind being broadcasted. Fiction isn't a facade to hide behind.
If you expect lots of sweaty bodies piling up, or one having to swim in gallons of sperm while lots of people are loudly hyperventilating, or the ins and outs of a slow going romance of a still taboo love as it unfolds, or something or even someone in between (!), I am not going to tell... yet.
Good taste of the not dirty pun style is rather my style.
It's been 5 years on the blogs, so I figure that I should venture outside of my comfort zone.
When I was blogging about the difficult times I've been through as a caregiver, and seeing at close range the death of my father due to his illness, I tried not to make this blog as gruesome to you, the readers. I kept out of public view the really hard stuff.
In a similar way, by posting some erotic essays, arousing a lot more than just one's curiosity, it's not my game either. One can be bi and prude, no?
But I like challenges, and using a translated language, an additional challenge.
Anyway, whenever it will feel right, and by time I hope without silly witch hunting nor negativity vibes that could go on here...
It seems to be that the bottom line (no dirty pun here): Love the people, as simple as that.
If you love people, you're going to show respect, to have care, and of course, hurting would be the last thing to come up.
If you have read this blog for a while, you know that I'm going through incredible times. It took the passing of my dad... to discover that I have half-sisters. 6 of them.
And sifting with a fine comb all the seemingly "junk" that once belong to my dad, I found official documents proving they were indeed my half-sisters, then a few letters from their mother... and now this week, some negatives (strangely no photos), which once scanned and converted digitally as photos...
They were photos of my half-sisters, when they were kids.
Whew!!!!!!!! Can you imagine my turmoil of feelings? And also for my sisters!
I understand that this place being a dating site isn't exactly... the place to blog about these things, and this is why I've been quite silent...
yet, worth a "blogitude" post. Things I'd love to blog...
The man that I thought I knew well, seems an appropriate title.
Isn't what kids think of their parents? Even more so, as they grew with them over the many years?
Mhhh...
I am thinking how tortured my dad must have been, during all those years. The terrible weight of a secret he held for long, for which... wasn't worth it. We're all reunited, we're all ecstatic, thrilled and basking in happiness.
And the secret went way up in the family too and you can imagine the bombshell on the other side of the Atlantic.
We, as his kids, by putting together our recollections, we have hints of why he did that, having a side of him for which there isn't much to take pride...
I think that what is pertinent here on a dating site, for which most members are cough... cough.. no longer the age of being a virgin ( ) in life...
The next time life becomes in duo..
Don't be ashamed of your past. Don't keep it secret.
There are *7* kids here who can say in unison...
Kids can be more open minded than you think. Their love for their parents are UNconditional.
(Photo taken last summer. Three horses on Dundas street near Yonge street, in downtown Toronto Ontario)
Words (and pictures) have their own weight. Yet, it is up to individuals to hear and to see some double-entendre and some of those on the naughty side...
... and from there, either to chuckle... or to get offended.
Like these horses. Some (all? ) of you will notice that the (not so) little "thing" dangling underneath one of them.
Oh, it's a male horse.
Oh, a picture of the rear of these horses.
Some people will see just that, a bunch of horses and some police officers on them.
Others might perceived some naughty thoughts from the photographer and finally some people who, from that perceived intents from the photographer... will get offended, enough to demand that picture to get censored.
It's one thing to get offended, based on their perception of some evil intents somewhere, people are allowed to think whatever they want, even if they are dead wrong...
But it's another when it gets to the point that we censor our speech, just in case we could offend some people.
Welcome to the world of politically correct.
In a way, it is a form of censorship.
A few years ago, I once blog about the "homo milk". Since I was a little kid, that's how homogenized milk or lait homogénisé was sold in Canada. Since it's a bilingual country, by shortening the name by its first 4 letters, it did work well in either language.
Of course, we all have a dirty mind, and you might think of "homo milk" as coming from lots of gay men who are being paid to milk their ahem... flagpole of their masculinity all the way to orgasmic squirts. Heh.
Then, either it would make you smile at the thought, or you might think it is gross, but whatever the case, as long as it is just you and you don't mind how they market milk, it's ok.
Well... it's been a few years that this milk is now known by just its weight in cream, aka 3.25%, like the other milk, like 2% and 1%. Too offensive by today standards, after so many decades that the only thing offensive was perhaps the amount of cream in that milk...
Earlier this week, I ran across another similar case.
I'm repairing an old wooden chair that used to belong to my father. I think it would do great in the kitchen.
And the best thing to glue pieces of wood... is to use some good ol' white glue. It seems you can glue just about everything with it.
Once again, since my childhood this is by that name that I know that kind of glue.
Since I don't use white glue that much, I figure that one of those little bottles sold in office stores would be just right. Elmer's, LePage, the old time honoured trusted names, and you visually know how their bottle of glue look like.
Since there's an office store next to my workplace, on my lunch time I went there and I started looking for some colle blanche (that's French for white glue).
And I was turning around and around and around, done all the aisles many times, no go.
I have to ask for the help of a sales rep, err... "associate". Urrrgh.
-Sir, I think that what you are looking for is a "school glue" .
-Huh? I beg your pardon?
-Let me show you where it is.
So we went right there. Yup, Mr. Elmer and Mr. LePage were there, all in their traditional bottles, except that the labeling has changed. "school glue" it says.
-And this is white glue? I said, in complete disbelief.
-Sure it is. Let me show you.
And yup, that was that old familiar milk-ish white glue.
-Can you explain why they don't market white glue as... well, white glue?
-Well, because it is white.
-Of course it is white! If that glue was black, they could call that a black glue, don't you think ???
And the guy looked at me, wondering from what planet I come from.
-You don't understand. It is white. WHITE. W-H-I-T-E. The COLOR. You understand?
-White, like a racist slur ???
He nods and before he went away, he gave me that bottle of politically correct sanitized neutral gender and race school glue.
I was speechless. I'm not sure whether he was pulling my leg, but I've a sense that it is so crazy that he is probably right.
Come to think of it, I'll go to the convenient store and demand for some homo milk and I'll accept no substitute.
(Photo taken in Provincetown, Cape Cod, summer 2007.)
Talk about the truth in advertising.
(As a photographer, I'm always on the lookout for amusing, strange or weird signs).
Shop therapy...
You may think that it is a woman thing. Albeit differently, guys are just as affected by this virus. We need our dose of therapy.
It's just that the stuff we buy are different. The results are pretty much the same.
Happiness found in the things we buy, for instant gratification.
Yet without merchants, we'd be in big trouble. Like it or not, they are the backbone of our western world civilization.
I feel more comfortable in visiting small local merchants than big national supermarkets, or those big everything in warehouse-size store, à la Wal-M*rt...
When I'm staying on the Cape, I usually choose a motel/hotel close to a general store. Yup, they still exist.
I could lecture that these little stores are locally owned, often a family operation, that the money goes really into the local economy, blablablah...
But more importantly...
Size *does* matter.
And I'm not a partisan of "think big" !!!
It is more fun to shop at a General Store.
For instance, you're done with the essentials in minutes. Try that at a Wal-M...
Oh, the chat is fun too. Just as essential. With the patrons and the store owner, while waiting at the cash register. Try that at a Wal-M...
And what you really need to know... is right there. All the things that you won't find published in the (no longer) "local" papers.
So I am thinking that the extra I'm paying for shopping at a local store... is pretty much a bargain, for what I'm getting.
(A famous bridge in San Francisco, on a rare fog-free day.)
Funny, how during my caregiving years, I traveled so much.
Not necessarily by far, but I traveled often.
Though to get started... and then I got the hang of it. The luggage packed in record time, the cats being cared of, and hop, there I go. It was getting easy to leave.
And now...
After an hiatus, it's now itching. I'm now debt free, but I still have to save every nickel and dimes for a couple of more months, so I can contribute to the max on my retirement funds, and collect the tax deductions on it.
So... if this was up to me, right now, I'd be... elsewhere. No idea where, but just elsewhere!
(The weather forecast calls for a night low of -29Celsius. That's about -15F. I don't think that I need to elaborate further. )
I was showing photos of my trips to the west coast... and I couldn't help but re-living, like a DVD playing the good moments there.
Whether on British-Columbia's Enchanted Islands, whether Vancouver, or further south, like California... and the highest point, metaphorically and physically (at 10,000ft) , spending several days in a semi-retreat for me at Yosemite Park...
Yup, work gets in the way with the stuff that matters,
And money is always a consideration you rather want not...
I think my luggage needs to travel... and I'll travel with my luggage. Heh.
To link to this blog from blog posts/comments, use [blog The_Eskimo], from anywhere else use http://fastcupid.com/blog/The_Eskimo,
and to read it remotely use the feed.
