LEAVE YOUR CAR AT HOME!

Hey Folks,
    Hope this new year finds you all well and happy.
    Its New Year’s Day. I’m hold up in Kaslo, having just come inside from shoveling snow. There’s not a lot of snow, but enough to shovel. The day is warm, for winter, sitting right at freezing.
    Herein is my annual grunt. I’ve broken it down into three sections: People, Place and Things.

People:
    In the spring I visited Victoria, where I beat everyone to the Swine Flu and was sick for 10 days. However, I met the first real interesting person of the year while I was there. Her name was Yumi!
    One morning I was making coffee at the HI when a tall, black haired Japanese woman burst my bubble, complimented the aroma of my java and demanded a cup! I’d been in the hostel some days and had managed to teach everyone not to bug me in the morning. But it didn’t matter to Yumi, she just walked right up to me and made it so I could not refuse.
    Within a couple hours we were out walking. That day we wandered the entire Victoria waterfront from downtown, around James Bay, out the breakwater at Ogden Point, through Beacon Hill, along to the Ross Bay Cemetery all along the water’s edge. It was a lovely spring day with the first crocuses of the season poking up their purple and white heads. All the while we walked, Yumi sang. If she wasn’t singing, she was making percussion noises, or odd little sound effects with her lips and tongue. From start to finish, Yumi was like a one woman sound effects machine.
    I’ve known a lot of musicians in my time, but I’d never met anyone as musical as Yumi. While climbing the hill at Moss Rock, every time one of us would step on a twig, Yumi would respond to the sound of the twig breaking with a similar sound. If I said a word, like “mushy”, when we crossed over some damp moss, she would echo the word with a sound. Often when I spoke, she would take my words and turn them to song. If she wasn’t making musical sounds, she was laughing. It was a contagious laugh. All day long we laughed and sang and made musical sounds. By the end of the day I was totally infatuated. I wanted to see her again.
    Ah, but when you’re on the road, it seldom works out that way. We exchanged e-mails, stayed in touch for a while, but somehow never managed to meet up again. Today she is back in Japan (heard from her just a couple weeks ago). Yes, its sad, but Yumi made the 14 days I spent on the coast last early spring worth every minute, even if 10 of those days were spent in the grip of swine!
    The next most interesting folks I met up with were in the Ft. MacLeod-Monarch area of Alberta, and they provided some great comedy. Met up with my pal Leanne who I’d first met a few years earlier while camped out near Taber. This time I met her family while watching her beau, rather unsuccessfully, trying to herd a few small cows into a place those cows did not want to go. After the mini rodeo we took off to their place near Monarch, where we spent the time telling stories and laughing our collective asses off! I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard, so much, or so long in one night since I was into the joy juice. Best bunch of cow pokers I ever did meet up with on that dusty old prairie.
    A week or so later I wound up in Saskatoon, where I befriended the crew that runs a municipal campground. They were unusual for campground hosts, all middle aged, all clean cut, and most of them ex-drunks like me. For three days we sat around talking, and I helped the manager figure out a better schedule for his employees. They’d all been complaining that they didn’t get enough time off to go camping for themselves. I showed him how to work the shift so everyone did three 12 hours shifts a week, and had four consecutive days off, every week. They were thrilled. “You mean we get a long weekend every week?” squealed one woman. “We love you boss! And you too, strange little hippy man on a bike!” Actually, the crew was so impressed, and so was the boss, they let me stay a couple nights free. Apparently they’d been wrestling with the issue for two years. But to be fair, it wasn’t really my idea. I stole it from, of all places, the RCMP!
    My next most favourite people (funny thing, I wasn’t meeting any cyclists, or if I did they were zooming away to quick to know) I met up with at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. They were the Simmons Clan of Manitoba. Those of you who live in Canada and have kids probably know the patriarch of the Clan. He’s well known children's entertainer, Al Simmons. But my favourite member of the clan was six year old Ashley. Here is my account of our meeting:
    Next morning I woke up, unzipped my tent door, and looked out. There before me, sitting at the picnic table, was a little girl about six years old, all alone. When she saw me, head poking from my tiny pup tent, she let go a giant laugh. When she laughed, I growled, like a bear. When I growled like a bear, she looked me in the eye, and growled right back. So I growled again, and so did she. I knew from the start, I was going to get a kick out of this kid.
    "My name's Ashley," she said. "What's yours?"
    "I'm Will," I replied. "And I'm a bear in the morning."
    "I know!" she replied, giving me a big smile.
    For the next hour or so, Ashley helped me fetch water, make coffee and porridge, clean up my camp and taught me some of the French she's been learning. We hung out, watched people, and she cuddled up next to me as I sat writing, doing a little knitting while I scrawled my pages. By about 9 am, we were the best of friends.
    After all the fuss and muss of working the gates, hanging out with a gregarious six year old, with a wild sense of humour, and some uncommon street smarts (she ran right to me when a drunk stumbled through the camp, then told him to take off when he tried to start a smokey fire in our fire pit) was just what the head shrink ordered. There is nothing in the world like a smart kid, living totally in the now, that can make a stressed adult remember what life is really all about. Her bright mind, big smile, and totally easy going and comfortable nature just made my day. It didn't matter what happened when I got back to the line. Ashley reminded me what festivals are really all about, fun!
    The rest of the clan were a delight as well. The three Simmons boys, Karl, Brad and Will, and Karl’s partner Amanda were, in many ways, the life of the party in the campground. An engineer of sorts, Karl, with his brothers’ help, built a 30 ft. “top hat” in the middle of the campground. It featured a viewing deck people could climb up in and overlook the campground. At night the top hat became a focal point for drummers and partiers, chaperoned by Karl and Will in bunny suits. Its funny to see very tall men in bunny suits. Something right out of Alice in Wonderland.
    After darting across the prairies on the train, where I almost got into it with a couple tough guys who were scaring the women in the dome car, and spending a week back in BC, I went to the Edmonton Folk Festival, where I met up with my next favourite person of the year. Her name was Aleksandra, and she was, literally, a laugh a minute! A regular joke machine was this gal. Couldn’t get a word in edgewise, no one could. From the moment she showed up, to the moment she disappeared, she was non stop joke telling. “Why does everyone like Mr. Mushroom? Cause he’s a Fun Guy!” Actually, it was a little hard to take at times, and in my new job as crew trainer, I had to reign her in here and there. And while her joke telling did mask a deeper struggle, Aleksandra was also smart as whip and will one day likely be running the Edmonton Folk Festival, if she doesn’t first wind up being one of the many comedians from this country who make it big in the USA!
    The next most interesting person I met was Boxer Barry from Ireland. Barry had been a boxer in the Irish amateur program until he got badly hurt in a match. It had taken him years to recover. He’d had to learn how to talk and walk again. When he did, he boarded a plane and came to North American, landing, of all places, in Alaska. While in Fairbanks he noticed some folks passing through on bicycles and decided, right there and then, to see the continent via bicycle! He bought one, loaded a pack onto it, and set out.
    When we met up, late one night on the Prince Rupert Ferry Dock, he’d just completed the ride down the Cassiar Highway from Whitehorse. For two days Barry and I would hang out, accompanied by two crazy Swiss women, in a SUV, who were on the run from their husband and father back in Switzerland! I last saw him at a campground in Port Hardy on Vancouver Island. For a guy who’d been through what he’d been through, Barry really was just a gentle guy, who with his Irish accent and charm, was able to make friends fast, and had a unique way of getting people to give him booze. That’s sort of why I had to leave him behind. By time I left our camp in Hardy he was well enough stocked to run a frat house party, and he hadn’t put out a dime! Far as a I know, he’s in San Francisco now, having ridden down the west coast.
    After leaving Barry I wandered onto Malcolm Island and visited the village of Sointula. There I met an interesting person named Troy who was a friend of my old friend Kate. Didn’t really get to know Troy. He isn’t the sort you get to know. However, he was a remarkable guy. His work on Malcolm is whale tracking. He sits for days, week and months, out off Bere Point, watching and listening for whales. While I was there several pods, including hundreds of whales, passed through. The remarkable thing about Troy is, he is able to identify individual, and pods of, whales by their sounds! He is part of a large number of people up and down the coast who track the whales, and is well respected for his abilities. I’d never met anyone who knew so much about whales, and I definitely had never met anyone who could tell one from the other just by sound.
    My trip to Hornby Island in the fall also brought about some darn good people time. I stayed with my pals Tom, Jill and Jodi on their garlic farm near Little Tribune Bay. I’m not sure what it was, maybe getting my hands in good earth, or just being on a farm again, but I felt totally in sync while I was there, not just with the land, but with the family. It was like going home somehow, even though I was set up under a tarp in the wet island forest. In some ways they too seem like the family I’ve never known. Truth be told, we didn’t really mix that much, and had most of our contact when I wandered over every evening to hitch onto their wireless connection. However, the times we spent picking apples, digging, shoveling manure, loading hay, was more akin to party time for me. I simply felt like I was where I belonged. If fact, in retrospect, in many ways I wish I’d just stayed there. If it was possible to live comfortably under a tarp in the middle of the island winter, I probably would. I can only hope the opportunity to visit again comes up. Naw, I’d move there at the drop of a hat, under the right circumstances!
    Funny thing, when I was 18, I was offered a cabin on that island. The fellow who owned it was actually going to give it to me. He knew there was a little chance a poet like me would ever make enough money to buy his own house, so he was trying to do the benevolent thing. Unfortunately, after a couple weeks in the wind and rain, not knowing anyone, and being penniless, I was at my wits end and departed. Taking the cabin keys back to him in Victoria, I told him: “Sorry Grant, but I’d likely kill myself or die of boredom in that place. I never saw so much rain and wind in my whole life!” Today, I’d revel in that little cabin, prosper, and finally write my masterpiece while the rain teems and the wind blows. Sad part of it is, Grant lost the place in a divorce settlement. Maybe next time around!
    Which brings me to places.

Places:
    While Hornby is a place I wouldn’t mind moving to, there were several other places I visited this year. I’ve already told you about my time in the Ft. Macleod-Monarch area, with the cowboys and girls, but I did not mention their homestead, which is down along the Old Man River. Its what you call a coulee, a patch of fertile green land down along the river valley, with the muddy old river rolling through. It’s a quiet place, tucked away from the world, and far enough from any town that, at night, the stars seem to multiply.
    On my way east I managed to visit several places in Saskatchewan, where most of my days were spent fighting wind. It was a bad year for wind. Everywhere I went it was in my face, which is why I got so friendly with VIA rail this year. More about VIA later.
    I also visited Bird Hill Park in Manitoba again, where they hold the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Every time I go there I am more impressed. I can’t begin to describe it. From the starry nights, to the low lying fog in the evenings, to the wind, to the miles and miles of green rolling land and forests, it really is worth a visit, and its an excellent place to cycle too! Even better, this year for some reason, there were very few bugs. Heck, half the time I didn’t even need to protect myself from mossies. The locals told me its because of a new dragonfly program they have there. Its been going on for a couple years now, and seems to be having a dramatic affect on the mossie population. Its getting so one can visit Manitoba without getting eaten alive, and it doesn’t have to be dead of winter anymore.
    After the folk fest I managed to spend a week in Winnipeg, really getting to know the city. Next to Montreal, Winnipeg is probably the most interesting city in Canada. Yes, it has an edge, but it also has the bilingual culture and street scene to rival its sister city in Quebec. But more, its the people of Winnipeg, and the site it is set on, I found most attractive. The people are generally friendly and open. The city is also not bad for cycling, once you get to know  your way around, and reasonably set up for pedestrians. Then there’s the river front. Two rivers, the Red and the Assiniboine, dissect the city, creating a winding stretch of green splitting it in three distinct parts.  There is also a sizable ‘exchange’ district not quite as old, but equally interesting as the ‘old town’ of Montreal. The girls aren’t as pretty, but they have their way and were good to me.
    This year I also visited several towns along the upper Fraser River in BC. One town, called Penny, was interesting. It had once been a lively town full of brothels and saloons. Now it is just a few homesteads and a post office, deemed to be the smallest post office in Canada. I also stopped a night in Prince George, which has to be one of the stinkiest towns anywhere. The stink is caused by a saw mill. What I found interesting about the place was its mix of old shanty like buildings and ultra modern, space age style, infrastructure.
    Also spent nearly two weeks in Edmonton, once again exploring the river valley trails. Edmonton is fast become a festival city, and if you can get away from traffic and onto a bike, you’ll be surprised what a green and beautiful city it can be.
    Actually, I probably covered more ground on the train than I did on the bike this year. I haven’t done so much rail travel since the early ‘70s. In some ways it was great fun, in others, not so good. Rail service has disintegrated in this country over the past 40 years, and leaves much to be desired. Still, it makes bus travel seem torturous and expensive for what you get. My best advice to anyone planning to travel by rail in Canada is: bring a huge bag of good food (the train food is downright yukky and expensive), and book well in advance.

   
Things:
        I’m distracted as I write, preoccupied with the goings on in Canadian democracy. We’ve become complacent here in the Great White North and are in danger of losing our democracy, unless the people soon stand up and take the bull by the horns.
    We have a Prime Minister who daily begins to look more and more like the Chancellor of Germany did in the early 1930s. He was elected with just over 30% of the vote, chronically complains our parliament isn’t working, while he does everything in his power to usurp it, and he continually looks for ways to suspend it. For those of you who think I’m a little over the top in comparing Stephen Harper to Adolf Hitler, I challenge you to read up on both men. There are many similarities, both situational and personal.
    Both men came to power leading coalitions of right wing fanatics and bigots. Both men led minority governments in rather troublesome economic times. Both men entered parliaments with multiple parties and weak opposition leaders. Both men were despotic in their approach, heavily controlling their cabinets and concentrating all power, communications, and decision making into their own offices. Both men repeatedly claimed their parliaments were non functional while doing everything they could to undermine those same parliaments.
    Neither men were taken seriously at first, and were often referred to as weak, or stupid, or idiots, or quirky. Neither of them ever seemed overly concerned how others viewed them and, on the surface, both appeared to be somewhat sociopathic. Both men employed public relations techniques best described as “divisive” and both exploited regional differences among the populous. When criticized, both men revert to denial, blame games, smears. Both also employed the use of their supporters in fanatic ways to call their opposition names and, to wherever possible, deflect attention to their predecessors’ failings. What’s more, both men repeatedly prorogued, recessed and dismissed their legislative bodies whenever the challenge against them became formidable.
    What is different? Well, the one thing Canada has going for it that Germany didn’t, is the population. Germany’s population in 1933 was largely uneducated and ill informed. Canada, on the other hand, has a fairly well educated populous. One can only hope that education will soon manifest. We also have technology today that allows us to know what is happening in other parts of the country. Germany, in the early 30s, did not have such facilities. One region had no idea what was going on in the others. For all intent and purpose, Germany was compromised of insulated regions, and while Canada shares the regional composition, it does not share the insular perspectives the German regions did.
    Unfortunately, there is one big minus in today’s Canada. We are complacent. We do not have institutional memory of what it means to live in a dictatorship. Our land, at least in our memory, has never been torn up by war. We do not know what it means to live without freedom. Therefore, we have no concept what its like to live without it. Sadly, if we don’t soon start paying attention, I’m afraid we’re going to find out!
    I urge every Canadian to take a little time in the new year to learn how lucky we are to have all we have, and to participate in our democracy. Find out how our parliamentary system is supposed to work, what the platforms of our parties are, and how to get involved. Canadian democracy, use it or lose it!

To Sum Up:
    On the home front, nothing has changed, except perhaps my landlord seems to be much easier to get along with than he ever was before. Maybe its me who has changed. I do seem less pickadoo about things. Then again, I notice he works a lot harder to be nice to me, and has even taken to thanking me when I do things like clean the kitchen or shovel the snow from the drive. I guess that’s the other thing that’s changed. Usually by this time of year he’s in Cuba. This year health and other concerns have delayed his annual trip. Its actually beginning to look like he may not go at all. Although I’ve dreaded such a situation, so far so good. The only real downside is I’ve not been able to really set up my office, so I’m not getting the work done I’d like to get done. Us writers really need a lot of space to work, and so far this winter I haven’t got the space I need to really spread my crap out and get into it. Hopefully early in the new year he will go off and I will be able to open up and dive in.

    Spent Christmas with my friend Diane, we had an anti-Christmas, sitting around for hours snacking on non-Christmas food and listening to old rock’n’roll. In some ways, its like I’ve found a spiritual sister. We shared similar upbringings and have a lot of common ground. Its nice to have someone around I can visit and hang out with, without a lot of baggage or pressure. Going to visit her really is like dropping in on my sister, not that I really know how that is. My two blood sisters are strange, and just dropping in on them has never been an option, at least not without having to abide a bunch of silly rules and other stupidity.
    So, life goes on. Don’t know what is planned for the upcoming year. I do hope to work the festivals again, and maybe do some miles on the bike. I gotta tell ya tho’, this bike riding business seems to be getting scarier every year. Part of the reason I did so much rail travel this past summer was the recurring visions of out of control travel trailers. Canada really does need to do something about its cycling infrastructure. We give lip service to the environment but do very little to enable people to get out of their cars and employ other modes of transport. It makes me want to move to Europe, where at least people can cycle safely, and not worry about big trucks, and yahoos carelessly racing by! We need, as a people, to put our money where our mouths are and demand our governments stop focussing on car culture and start focussing on healthy environmentally friendly modes of transport. Write you MPs and MLAs!
    Overall, I’m doing ok. Really should quit smoking but somehow, I really like it. I’m also afraid. If I were to quit smoking, my last bad habit would be gone and, in all likelihood, I’d ascend to Nirvana and get run over by a semi truck in my ecstasy!
    Anyway, I’ve probably gone on much longer than any of you have the patience to read. I hope you are all well and happy in your lives. If I can offer any suggestion or advice its this, get out an live! Do what makes you happy, do what you feel is the right thing to do for you! And if you’re losing perspective or wondering what its all about, befriend a kid! They know what’s really important and, if you let them, will lift you from any doldrums or depression you may be experiencing.
    Well, that’s it. Hope you all have good year. Stay in touch.
Will

Hey Kids,
    Well, we’ve done it again, survived another year on this crazy blue planet. Its been a wild one for me, hope its been good for you.
    Right now I’m in Calgary, where I have gone to celebrate the holidays with some old friends. Truth be known, I haven’t seen much of my old friends, but have made friends with their family. Its been interesting, first time I’ve done Christmas (like Christmas is done, with trees, presents and feasts) in many years, since 1993 in fact.
    I’ve enjoyed it, although its been a total distraction. Just before I left to Kootenays to come over here I was getting tons of writing done. Since I’ve been here I’ve pretty much failed to get anything done, where my writing is concerned.
    I am pleased to announce that I have updated my webpages. Click: “http://community.netidea.com/willbilly”, to have a look at them.  My blog has also been updated. It can be found at: http://willbilly.blogspot.com.
    If’n you have problems with the links I’ve provided here, just google the words “Will” “Billy” and “poet”, you’ll find my pages quick enough!
    Highlight of this year’s cycling effort was the two folk festivals I attended. Winnipeg was my favourite. They have a majestic site, great systems, and a stellar line up. I think it may well be the best music festival I ever attended. Of course, it does not measure up to the old Courtenay Renaissance Fair, but then I’m partial. Edmonton was also good, but the line up was fairly mediocre, and it did not have some of the anemities Winnipeg possessed, like a festival campground.
    The year started out the way it has most of the past several years. I was home alone in Kaslo minding the house and writing up a storm. In early spring I took off, and didn’t return until late September. Since then I’ve pretty much been in limbo.
    Somehow I got it in my head that I wanted to move away from Kaslo, find a place of my own, settle down, unpack my boxes which have remained packed, for the mostpart, since 2001. I searched high and low, up and down the Slocan Valley and all around the West Kootenays, but wasn’t able to come up with a suitable place that was affordable and secure. In the end I was basically left with no option but to return to the housesit in Kaslo, which is where things got real limbo-ish.
    My host, and sometime roomate, as some of you know, spends his winters in Cuba. A couple years ago he married a Cuban woman. This year, she came to Canada. According to my roommate, they’d planned to leave in November and stay gone until April. In the end, she left in November, but not to Cuba, and not with her new husband. She took off to Ontario, got a job and an apartment, and left my poor foolish roommate all by his lonesome.
    It has taken my roommate some time to accept he was duped, and to snap himself out of it. Now that he has, he has decided to go back to Cuba and be nice to all the folks his fly-by-night wife had warned him to stay away from!
    Foolish, you bet, but the end result is I get the house back for a few months, starting in early January. So I will soon be back in Kaslo to while away the winter months in the deep snow, under clouded skies. I’m actually looking forward to it, I have much writing and work to do, and that is one place I know I can get it done.
    Put on about 6,000 K, in all, this summer. Have whipped myself into awesome shape. For all intent and purpose I’m a jock now. Not only can I crack nuts with my thighs, which for some is a very amusing party trick, but the fitness has made me much more resistant to colds and flu bugs. While folks around me are dropping like flies, I’m getting a few sneezles, blowing my nose, and being done with it.
    I saw a pretty good sign of how well I’m doing physically, last fall, when I got jumped by a crackhead at the bus stop in Nelson. The fellow, who was mad because I’d asked him to move away from me with his cell phone, came at me with a few of his posse backing him up. He started swinging with his fists, and I pulled him in close to me by the collar, and let him tucker himself out with giant round house blows, which were glancing off my head. While he was engaged in this foolhardy attempt to knock me out, I was laughing at him, saying, “Man, you’re hitting the hard part!”
    After some minutes I grew tired of his crap and grabbed him by the throat, squeezing my thumb and forfingers deep in behind his adams apple. He was about to go to sleep, and I felt him weaken, when two of his posse jumped in and tried to start whaling on me. I managed to push them both aside, and the first guy as well, when a woman jumped between us and started begging these three numbsculls to hit her. They backed off, I guess because now the odds were a little better. There were three of them and two of us, and the little turds were afraid they were going to lose, so they dispersed.
    I stood there afterwards for a few minutes, checking myself for injury. There were none! Realizing that I was not at all worn out or fatigued from the expereince, was a bit of a surprise. In fact, I was ready to go another round! I’d let a guy hit me about 10 times, I’d moved him around a bit, then almost put him to sleep, and here I was not feeling any sort of tiredness! All I could think was; Man, you sure have some endurance you didn’t have before.
    In the end the cops came, knew right away who the guys were who’d assaulted me, and told me they been had making something of a habit of such activity. They were a gang of sorts, but after the incident with me, the cops managed to finally break them up a bit. For me, the incident just helped me to understand what a wonderful thing all this long distance cycling has done for me.
    Another aspect of all this is in my own ability to deal with people, places and things. I think, because I’m in such good physical condition, I’m in better mental and emotional condition. Many things that used to bother me don’t anymore, although people using cell phones right next to my ears do hear more than they really want to hear, and not all of it is coming through the phone, and I’m generally a much happier human being.
    What is all this cell phone craze anyway? What did we ever do without those interminable things? How did we ever stay in touch and get a day’s work done? I personally think a day will come when our descendants, or whatever other lifeform occupies this planet when we are gone, will look back at us and wonder what the blazes was wrong. What insanity had befallen us to race around in little metal cans that emitted enough poisons to melt the polar ice caps, talking into little machines that in turn rotted our brains to mush!
    Here I will repeat one of my favourite mantras. “Save the world: Get out of the car and leave your phone at home!”
    By the way: Did you know the only independent studies ever done on the cellphone chip showed extremely high incidence of brain cancer in the labratory animals used in the study. The chip was okayed sometime later when Masters and Johnson, a subsiduary of the company that owned the patent for the chip, did a study showing the chip had little effect on the lab animals! Ah, but I digress.
    Back to my fitness diatribe, yesterday I was out walking along Shaganappi Bluffs, overlooking downtown Calgary and the eastern horizon. As I walked it occured to me that I’ve now ridden across the prairies three times! I had to pinch myself at that point and check to make sure its me, and that I have not in fact occupied some hard body. Nope, its me, I realized. Then I thought; Man, you must have something going on if you can do that, and I don’t mean just total madness! It takes a strong body, but it also requires a stable head and heart to go riding thousands of K on a bicycle? The whole exercise may be madness, but its a madness that leaves a person feeling good, looking good, thinking good and good to go!
    If any of you out there are feeling broken down, out of shape, out of sorts, out of mind, out of whack, unstable, unsure, unable, then I got one thing to say to you, one piece of advice. Get on a bicycle and ride! It may take a while, but I assure you, after a time, you’ll be feeling fit, fervent, full, firm, fixed up, fun and fantastic. Riding a bicycle may not save the world, but it could well save you!
    As usual, we’ve had our usual Christmastime tragedy. Some years its mother nature, others its just humankind’s insanity. The events in Pakistan this past week shook me up pretty good. It wasn’t because I thought of Ms. Bhutto as some sort of freedom fighter or anything. In fact, I think she was just another American stooge in many respects, but there is no questioning her courage. Methinks she knew what was coming and went anyway. Why, only she knew, but on some level I’m quite certain she realized that, as my host here says: She will be more trouble dead than she ever could have been alive.
    Whodonit? I don’t believe it was Al Queda, or the US. I think if it was Al Queda they’d have openly said so, and the Americans are hardly about to go out and shoot their own mole. From my experience covering crime back when I was a reporter, the first question I had to ask was: “Who profits?” From what I can tell her opponents profit politically, especially the one Sharif who was quick to show up and grandstand in the aftermath. The other potential profiteer was Musharaff, obviously, but I have to wonder if he is so stupid as to risk the potential backlash against his government. No, from my perspective, it was someone in the ranks of her opponents. It makes sense in a place where a bullet often replaces a ballot pencil. Last person standing wins. Its all so very sad.
    Hate to go all political on you all but what would one of my annual rants be without some politics?
    I will first turn my analytic browns on the Americans, mostly because they are so big and fat these days that they make an easy target. Its going to be an interesting year down there. I think we’re in for some surprises. For one, it seems to me that the Democratic Party does not get that the people voted for them in the mid-terms with a clear message to get the hell out of Iraq. Their waffling on that issue, and reluctance to halt funding to that war, or to move toward impeaching both the VP and the Bush, for their lies and other crimes, is going to hurt them big time. They are not catching the people’s imagination, nor are they making the strong stands they were elected to make. For all intent and purpose, they are sitting on the fence hoping for an “anybody but Bush” movement. If they keep it up they are going to find themselves in a situation where it will be “anybody but any of the clowns who are already there.” This would be a good time for a strong independent candidate. Heck, I think a guy like Ross Perrot could actually win. Look for Al Gore to make a move from the convention floor. His stand on the environment makes him credible, and that, the environment, even moreso than Iraq, is going to play big in politics this year.
    Here in Canada its not so much different. People here were embarrassed to be Canadians after the Harper performance in Bali. Even in Alberta where pretty much everyone has an SUV of one description or another, the environment is the major issue, and people just are not buying the ‘wait and see’ approach being taken by our current government. However, like in the US, the opposition is not presenting the people with a clear alternative. In fact, the main opposition party has been propping up the minority Conservative government for some months now, to the point where people are rightfully asking if there really is a difference between them at all. This could all bode well for the third party and for the fledgling so-called ‘fringe’ parties and independents.
    Barring another “terrorist” attack that whips us all into a fear frenzy, and makes us tow the military industrial complexe’s line, I see big changes coming, and they could be for the better. Imagine for a moment a national government in which a handful of independents, who have no ties to anyone but the people who voted for them, holding the balance of power. What a concept, a government that is forced to legislate based on what is good for their constituents. What a novel idea. I think they call it ‘democracy’!
    It could happen, or at least I hope it could.
    Politics is the science by which people govern themselves, thus my undying interest in it. Here in Canada we have a society that is made up of people who fled other countries because democracy did not exist there, and they were not free to have a hand in how they were governed. In my own family people were exiled from undemocratic countries, like England, where they were stripped of their land and possessions and sent packing. Some fought and died for the freedoms we all claim to want and to cherish. Many perished for the right to vote. In their honour I will never abandon my interst in politics, or my belief that democracy will one day work. To me, voting is at the core of it. People died so I could have the vote. For me to turn my back on the voting process, just because it is flawed or has in someway been co-opted by the rich and the corporations, is to capitualate and dishonour the hard work and sacrifice of many generations. I just won’t do it. I will vote, even if the only choice I have is to write in the name of someone I think would do a good job. In my opinion it should be illegal not to vote. If you don’t vote then you should have your income tax cheque witheld, and you should have to go live a year in a country where people are not allowed to vote. I challenge anyone to go live in a place where the people have absolutely no say in their governance, then come back here and tell me voting is a waste of time. You won’t do it!
    Anyway, like the rest of you I have absolutely no idea what comes next, except maybe death and taxes. I am encouraged and disheartened in the same moment sometimes. The other day I was listening to a 13 year old girl from Victoria giving a speech before the United Nations. Her speech was not widely publicized, but it was one that every person in the world should hear. She talked about the world from a 13-year-old’s perspective and her conclusion was that the people who are running this world seem to be insane. Here we are on the brink of environmental collapse, but we’re selling and driving bigger and bigger cars. We have the technology and ability to feed the entire world, instead we’re dropping bombs and hourding everything. We have the science to end disease, instead we’re using it to keep men sexually active into their old age. I think the girl was right. We are insane. But you know, the first step in overcoming disease is acknowledging the disease. She was asking the UN to listen. If we listen, we will hear. If we hear, perhaps we will acknowledge. If we acknowledge, the healing will begin. I personally am filled with hope when I witness young people like this girl. There is hope, all we need to do is get on the bandwagon!
    If we want change, then lets go make changes. If we want a better world, then lets improve the world around us. I’ll do my best this coming year to say nice things to people, to encourage people, to praise them. I’m going to do my best to find one thing I good about everyone I meet, whether I like them or not. Each day I’ll try to come up with one idea I’ve not had before. I’m going to make it my business each day to find one thing I like about the world and the people in it. I’m also going to ride my bike at least one K further than I rode it last year. That’s not going to save the world, but its going to make me feel good, and when I feel good, I’ve noticed, the people around me feel better too.
    So, once again I’ve filled many more pages than I’d planned. I hope you all have a good year ahead, and I hope you all do one thing to make the world a better place. I hope you all smile more and consume less. And I hope we all become active participants in making this life a little happier for everyone.