Speak Truth, Stand Tall

With callous and sadistic pleasure
The tiny-handed king will savour
The chaos, the hating
The dog-whistle baiting
The cruelty rendered
And the weak who surrender—

Especially them.

Abandoning principle and self-respect
They’ll kiss ring, kiss ass, and genuflect
Straight-faced, they’ll walk back criticism
Shake heads, deny, and eat some shitism.
Pundits in media will denounce and proclaim
The tragedy, the horror, the pitiable shame
Of edicts, breached treaties, and raids in Chicago
While bosses tee off at Mar-a-Lago

Made-up truths and policies dumb
Everything a zero-sum.
What best to do, midst lies and schlock?
Resist, speak truth—or tug forelock?

Inspired by So, What Do We Do Then? Image: Ron Berg’s Innocent 2.0, which is inspired by artist Francis Bacon’s reinterpretation of Velázquez’s Innocent X.

I’m Speaking.

Dumb as a rock, Donald calls me. Horrible and incompetent. Totally failed and insignificant. (Projecting much?) Crazy—“though not as crazy as Nancy Pelosi.” (You just can’t help yourself, can you, Motormouth? Maybe you are too old for the job.)
     His minions aren’t holding back. I’m not grateful enough. I’m just collecting a check. I’m a diversity hire. And they don’t like my laugh. You know what all their dog whistling’s about. This, from church-going, “family values” folk singing hallelujahs for rapture.
     They are losing their shit. You think they’re bothered now? Just wait till they see my running mate.

Inspired by Cooling Off. Image of Kamala Harris (in 2020) by Chandan Khanna/AFP via Getty Images

The Parallel Eclipse

The sky grew dusky as the eclipse approached, though we would not experience total blackness. To the south, a seething dark mass indicated the path of totality. It blossomed into pitch and the light where we were dimmed ominously—at which everyone gasped as one.

     I wonder about that moment of shared uncertainty, our collective vulnerability to forces beyond rational perception. An eclipse of sanity is upon us, a global psychosis embodied by neo-cZars, by autocrats, quislings, anti-truth denialists, and bulbous ballcaps. All eclipses pass, and so will this—unless we close our eyes.  Unless we blink into their madness.

Inspired by Moony Monday, our other eclipse pieces, and the zeitgeist of our times. Photo by the author.

Our Drug of Choice

Wildfires have scorched thirteen million hectares in Canada. Thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes. Floods sweep away bridges, roads, children. Overseas, it’s fifty degrees Celsius in some Iranian cities. Super-charged typhoons inundate China. The sea off Florida is warmer than a hot tub. The UN Secretary General just announced that Earth has passed beyond warming into an era of global boiling.

     Lobster, anyone? 

     Oh, don’t think about that! Be happy! Beyoncé’s tour is incredible, and Taylor Swift is coming! And those summer blockbusters . . . catch them all before it’s too late!

     This summer, we've swapped hopium for Barbieturates.

Inspired by Little Sadists. Photo by Sofia Furió.

For a sense of scale, thirteen million hectares is the size of Greece—which has also suffered devastating wildfires this summer.

The State of the World

“Losses and damages are part of our future,” the IPCC chair declared, before asserting that “. . . effective and equitable climate action now can lead to a more sustainable, resilient and just world.” 

     Oh gentle dreamer! All is love and kindness at the principle level, but humanity can’t agree on bupkis when money’s involved. Still, naiveté is preferable to the BS of the deniers and the Koch brothers. Then there are the survivalists, planning to retreat to a Pacific island (really? An island?); or into a walled compound with private security (private contractors, with guns? And families outside?). That can’t end well.

Inspired by Sorry, not today. Image by Sepp Photography. See the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report here.

Black Swans

    “May you live in interesting times.”
     This is a curse, purported to be of Chinese origin, although that, like everything on the internet, is debatable. Let’s at least agree that these are interesting times. Within the last two years we have experienced, in biblical proportions, droughts, floods, fires and pestilence. Now there is a bloody war, started by a man intent on reconstituting a fallen, unlamented empire and threatening nuclear war to get his way.

An unexpected event with massive, catastrophic consequences is called a “black swan.” They used to be rare as hen’s teeth. Now they come in flocks.

This post hearkens back to the days of Close Encounters of the Bird Kind, when avian conflict (and avian flu) were all we had to worry about. The photo is by Dorothe Wouters.

Pandemic Togetherness

There are no clubs or cozy cafés, no pints on tap, no films downtown, so at exactly 7:30 we stand on the sidewalk, appropriately distanced of course, and launch into cacophonous tribute with our pots and pans as a between-calls ambulance cruises slowly past and replies with a siren WHOOP and lights, and we bang our cookware harder, hearts bursting, who doesn’t love a parade, grinning like idiots and telling the kids, you’ll remember this—then we all peaceably disperse, thankful for our responders and our fellow citizens and the relative sanity of our politicians, and knowing we are #StrongerTogether.

Photo by Ron Thompson, April 2020

July

July was unprecedented in its harmony. The drudgery of school over with, the melancholia of late August yet to begin. July was thirty-one glorious days, five languid weekends of prime summer stretched out in front of me and culminating in my twelfth birthday. What sort of adventure awaited during those shoeless days ahead? I’d need an accomplice. I secured a playing card with a clothespin to the fender of my Supercycle. Bolstered by the slap slap slap of the Queen of Hearts hitting my spokes like a Wheel-of-Fortune, I pedaled off in double time along the creek to Kathy’s house.

July

July was unprecedented in its harmony, the summer I turned 17. I returned from a six-day bike tour with Andrew Brouse to Point Pelee and back to find among a week’s worth of mail the first great report card I’d ever received. I landed my first summer job, mornings only, in an air-conditioned school. I had a fun computer project I was determined to finish by summer’s end. And although I didn’t yet know it, during our family vacation, I would somehow convince my mother to let me stay an extra week to finish my leadership training, on my own.

The narrow-chested author on Point Pelee, the southernmost
point of the Canadian mainland, 1978.

July

July was unprecedented in its harmony. The party-people next door were away; the ones with the free-range kids who tromp through our flowerbeds were in Algonquin (darling tykes no doubt pissing off campers by peeking through tent gaps and being “precocious”). The wife was away at her mother’s, it was quiet for once; I didn’t have to negotiate what I ate, or watch the crap she likes on TV – fruity dance competitions and talent contests. All the politicians were on holiday, all those terrorist bastards were in their hidey-holes or dead. Frankly, I was bored and looking forward to September.