Jim Poling Sr.'s Blog, page 14

Mother Nature is no longer simply disappointed in us; she...

Mother Nature is no longer simply disappointed in us; she is blazing angry.

Her anger is evident throughout the world this month. Killer mudslides in Japan. Parts of Germany devastated by unprecedented flooding. Ditto India. 

People in China were photographed up to their necks in a flooded subway. Tornadoes ripped through the U.S. and parts of Ontario.

And, of course, many of us have been inhaling smoke from massive wildfires out west. Smoke that has stretched from British Columbia to Halifax, with some research suggesting that breathing it can reduce immunity and increase the chances of contracting Covid-19.

Those of you who still believe that global warming and destructive climate change are fake news can stop reading here and go back to your social media gossip and computer games.

Politicians and their governments are getting worried and talking longer and louder about stopping climate change. But it is too late. It is already here.

Nature takes its time and it will take decades or maybe centuries to reverse damage already started. Those millions of tons of Arctic ice that have melted are not coming back soon. All that can be done now is to stop the damage from worsening.

Stopping it from getting worse is too important and too big a job to leave to the politicians, most of whom nowadays are talkers, not thinkers and doers. We individuals have to think through how we can change our lives in practical ways to alleviate climate change. 

That will require us to give up some things we are not willing, or simply unable, to give up. Fighting the advance of climate change is a daunting task that demands sacrifices from us all. It’s questionable whether enough of us are willing to make those sacrifices. 

I think about this as I look out at the patch of lawn at my lake place. It was designed and planted mainly as a covering for the septic field. It looks pretty when trimmed but I have been questioning why I should maintain and groom it. 

This year I decided not to cut it; simply let it grow naturally. One reason was to let it build itself up for the annual summer influx of very active granddogs.

As it grew taller and more unkempt, I began to see its natural beauty. The green clover produced small, white blossoms that attracted bumblebees, a declining species once considered one of our world’s most important pollinators.

Patches of chickweed, an antioxidant-rich plant used as herbal medicine, sprouted beautifully delicate tiny white flowers. A couple of clumps of wild daisies with white heads and golden faces also appeared, adding an aura of innocence to my out-of-control landscape.

Passersby looked at my jungle-like yard with dismay and concern about my mental health. 

Lawns are seen as an important indicator of socio-economic character. A well-groomed lawn tells others that you are a good fit for the neighbourhood. Someone with the time, money and good sense to support an eye-pleasing attraction. An ungroomed yard says you are not.

But seeing manicured lawns as natural and important pieces of our environment is a myth. They are not natural. Their only purpose is to be decorative.

Lawns were invented by the wealthy English and French aristocracy for their self-conceit. Settlers brought the idea of manicured spaces to America, where lawns became an obsessive sign of prosperity.

Canadians also have the lawn obsession. The country has seven million plus detached homes, most with manicured lawns, plus tens of thousands of row housing and apartment buildings with patches of lawn.

Maintaining lawns consumes huge amounts of gas, oil, electricity or compounds needed to make batteries. Lawn maintenance also wastes millions of gallons of water that could be used for other things.

After three months I succumbed to the smirks and whispers of the passersby and cut my jungle lawn. The majority likes manicured lawns and many other nice things that must be given up to stop damaging climate change. 

I’m sorry now that I succumbed to the majority. Beating back global warming is going to mean sacrificing things that we like. We have to start accepting that because Mother Nature is demanding it.

An interesting anniversary passed virtually unnoticed las...

An interesting anniversary passed virtually unnoticed last Sunday: the 204th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death.

Austen, in the two centuries after her passing, became world famous for her novels interpreting and critiquing life among the British upper middle-class landowners of the late 1700s. 

Her writings used literary realism in which the author tries to describe everyday life like it is and not how they imagine it as most fiction writers do. She is the acknowledged mistress of characterization, using her characters’ actions – not just their words – to show readers their true and complete characters.

Jane Austen is not here to describe our tragicomic lives in North America in the first part of the 21st century. It’s not hard to imagine, however, the word pictures she would draw of Canadians and Americans.

Her Canadians might be shell-shocked characters wandering zombie-like in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the climate change mutilating our wonderfully diverse northern regions.

I can imagine Austen’s biting irony when one of her Canadian zombies is stopped on the street and asked where she is going.

“I’m out looking for our leaders,” she says bewilderedly. “Have you seen where they’ve gone?”

Austen’s characters in today’s United States would be angry and unfocussed. 

The U.S. is a country in civil war. It is not the civil war of the 1800s when men in blue uniforms and grey uniforms fired muskets at each other. It is a civil war in which people with unbending blue views and hard rock red views are tearing the country apart.

America’s social problems grow and are not getting fixed because there is no truly functional government. Blind partisanship is so severe that it has shackled the federal government and many state governments.

Jane Austen surely would repeat one line from her novel Pride and Prejudice when writing about America - “keep your breath to cool your porridge.”

That famous line has been taken to mean Mind Your Own Business! Good advice because therein lies America’s greatest fault, and the fault of many of us.

That fault was glaringly evident earlier this month when President Joe Biden spoke from both sides of his mouth. One day he said the U.S, supports Cuban citizens’ “clarion call for freedom and relief” from its Communist government.

He was saying he favours the overthrow of a peoples’ government, yet just days before said U.S. troops are being withdrawn from Afghanistan because the Afghan people have the right “to decide their future and how they want to run their country.”

So, Afghans should be left alone to decide if they should be governed by Taliban, but Cubans wishing to overthrow their Communist government should be supported.

The U.S. has a habit of interfering in other countries’ business, resulting in tens of thousands of lost American lives in Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Afghanistan and other places. 

Most often when we push our noses into someone else’s business we do not help them.  We deprive them of the chance to learn by trial and error and from making their own mistakes. We take from them an opportunity to have pride in managing their lives.

One of the worst things about not minding our own business is what it does to ourselves. When you are knee deep into someone else’s business, you are neglecting your own.

Edward Weston, the famous American modernist photographer, once said:

“A lifetime can well be spent correcting and improving one’s own faults without bothering about others.”

The United States – in fact all countries and individuals – have enough faults to correct without getting involved trying to correct others.

Jane Austen’s work has a huge North American following today. One reason is that it remains relevant.

The class divides of the 1700s continue to exist today, although they might not be exactly the same. Divisions between the haves and the have-nots grow wider today, as do resulting different social norms.

Both her society and ours are heavily opinionated. Her characters form strong opinions based on parlour gossip. We form opinions based on social media gossip.

Minding our own business, and forming opinions based on proven facts, would go a long way to making our society a better one than Jane Austen’s.

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You have to wonder whether the Neanderthals of 50,000 yea...

You have to wonder whether the Neanderthals of 50,000 years ago lived better lives than we genius Homo Sapiens of the super tech 21st century.

The Neanderthals lived in caves and had only wood and stone tools, but probably had more relaxed and rewarding lives than we do today. Yuval Noah Harari makes that case in his international bestselling book titled Sapiens. A Brief History of Mankind.

Ancient peoples were hunter-gatherers who fed themselves by gathering berries, nuts, roots, insects and plants and by hunting animals. Getting food was their main job and, in some ways, it was easier than the jobs we have today.

These hunter-gatherers set off into the meadows and woods some time after dawn in search of mushrooms, bugs or anything else edible. They likely had all they needed by noon and were back home for lunch, with the rest of the day for napping, telling stories and playing with the kids.

Today, many folks climb into a vehicle after dawn, endure a frustrating commute to the shop, and work repetitive, mind-numbing tasks until early evening. They make the same irritating and boring commute back home for a late dinner, perhaps a bit of TV, then bed.

Many are not totally happy with this lifestyle. It probably is a factor in the social unrest we see today.           

And, not just in capitalistic countries. There have been stories recently about Chinese workers, notably younger ones, suffering burnout from long hours doing boring jobs.     

Dolly Parton sang about working 9-to-5; the Chinese now are singing 996, a reference to working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week.

Hunter-gathers also had a lighter household work load. No dishes to wash. No toilets to clean. No vacuuming or sweeping up. No beds to make.

Today we have luxuries like vacuum cleaners and dishwashers to help us but luxuries need to be maintained, which costs time and money, which requires us to work harder.

Overall, Neanderthals had more time to relax and less worry about what was going on around them.

There were no organized politics back then, so Neanderthals did not have to put up with the thought manipulation, misinformation, and outright lying that we have today. No arguments over vaccines because there was little infectious disease and no large, crowded populations in which epidemics thrive.

The Neanderthals did have worries. If one fell and broke a leg, there was no health care. 

Going to work could be dangerous. You could be bitten by a poisonous snake, eaten by a sabre tooth tiger or stepped on by a woolly mammoth.

Folks today don’t have to fear being attacked by wild animals while going to work. However, we could be killed in traffic accident or in a drive-by shooting. 

As our cities grow larger and more crowded, they become more dangerous, less healthy and less likely to be places of better living. More people are feeling this and are moving to smaller, more relaxed places. 

Statistics Canada reported recently a sharp rise in the number of people moving out of our three largest cities – Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. It reported that 87,444 people left those three cities between July 2019 and July 2020 for other parts of the same province, up from an average annual exodus of 72,686 the previous three years.

Few of us would want to live in a cave, or spend the day digging roots and catching insects for food. But many people are looking for less stressful, simpler lives. 

Harari’s thoughts in the book Sapiens put the lives of Neanderthals, plus our own lives, in a new light. It’s a fascinating and provocative look at human history and is followed up by: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. 

The latter contains thoughts, supported by some interesting facts, about what our future might hold. 

The Neanderthals lived lives directed by the forces of nature. Today increasingly large chunks of our lives are directed by computerization.

That leaves me wondering not just whether the Neanderthals lived better lives, but whether algorithms will become more important than nature and life will become simply data processing. 

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I’ve been worrying about my granddog Rusty who has been s...

I’ve been worrying about my granddog Rusty who has been suffering through the West Coast heat wave.

Rusty has a daily walk and on a recent outing during unusually warm temperatures he began panting heavily. His mom took him home immediately, gave him more water to drink, and washed his paws and head to cool him.

The time it took to slow his panting was a concern, but he recovered nicely and of course was anxious to get out for another walk.

Rusty’s incident shows us just how dangerous our increasingly frequent, and severe, heat waves are becoming. They are affecting the health of humans and their pets, notably dogs who are difficult to keep cool because they sweat mainly through their feet and don’t cool effectively with fans.

The heat has been killing hundreds of people in the Canadian and U.S. West. There is no point trying to give actual numbers because many jurisdictions do not have the same criteria for labelling deaths from severe heat exposure.

No matter what the accurate numbers, Canadians and Americans are dying of the heat more often and in greater numbers than any time before.

Some researchers say the heat that has caused hospitalizations, deaths and fires out west in the past couple of weeks is not a once-a-year event. Severe heat events are a developing health emergency that has the potential to become as serious as the current Covid emergency.

A study published recently in the journal Nature Climate Change found that 37 per cent of the world’s heat-related deaths are due to higher temperatures from human-caused climate change.

A couple of weeks ago the Canadian Institute for Climate Choices issued a report calling for action to help us all adapt to the new realty of extreme heat from climate change.

"Climate change is an escalating public health emergency, and we need to start treating it that way," said the introduction to the report.

U.S. climate assessments predict there will be 20 to 30 more 90-degree Fahrenheit days a year in most parts of that country by the middle of this century. Extreme heat already is a leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, killing an average 600 or more a year between 1999-2009.

An earlier Canadian study predicted that by 2050 major Canadian cities will experience four times the number of extreme heat days than they did less than 10 years ago. Cities can become high heat islands because their buildings absorb heat and because they lack plentiful greenspaces with protective tree canopies.

Increasing extreme heat events impact more than our health. 

Agriculture is endangered by high temperatures because some crops require cool nights. Hot nights also stress livestock, causing milk output to decline in cows They also cause slower growth and reduced conception rates.

Hot nights also deprive roads and buildings of cool down time and result in deformed concrete and asphalt.

Research, and even what we are seeing and feeling in recent summers, tell us that government urgently needs to do serious planning on how to adapt to and deal with the consequences of extreme heat events. They need to identify and plan for protection of vulnerable populations, for more cooling centres and how to use heat-reflecting products for roofs and for roads.

Nature, as usual, has some of the answers for protection against extreme heat. Trees and other vegetation are known to reduce temperatures through shade and transpiration in which tiny water droplets are released by tree leaves, providing water vapour that cools the surrounding air.

The problem is that we are knocking down more trees every year. Various studies show that despite some improvements in recent years the world still is losing too many of its trees.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that the area of primary forest worldwide has decreased by over 80 million hectares since 1990.

Trees can be a major factor in helping us all get through the horrors of predicted future extreme heat events. 

There are impressive tree planting programs seen throughout the world. But some scientists say that planting more trees is not the best approach to having more protective forests.

The best approach is to reduce the number of trees we all cut.

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Nature regularly shows us that life doesn’t have to be as...

Nature regularly shows us that life doesn’t have to be as complicated as we sometimes make it. It’s showing us again this month with a spectacular display of one of its simplest, most modest wildflowers.
The common daisy is straightforward, inspirational beauty sometimes called sunshine on the ground. It is in full bloom in June, and especially abundant this year along roadsides, in fields and other open areas.
The beauty of the daisy is its simplicity. It has a radial arrangement of 15 to 30 small and thin white petals surrounding a bright yellow central disc. There are 23,000 species of daisies but the one we see in this part of the world is usually the ox-eye daisy.
In sunshine or in shade clumps of daisies radiate innocence and purity, plus an unpretentious cleverness.
Ancient civilizations considered the daisy clever because of its usefulness. Four thousand years ago, the Egyptians nurtured daisies in their substantial gardens for medicinal uses and for decoration.
A variety of peoples throughout the centuries used daisy extracts to treat wounds, coughs, colds and bronchitis. They also have been used for kidney and liver problems and for skin problems, including inflammations.
Henry the Eighth, the English king who had six wives, ate daisies to stem stomach-ulcer pains and other ailments. 
There is a growing daisy extract market today, driven by a ‘return to nature’ movement which favours herbal remedies over synthetic medicines.
The name daisy comes from the Anglo-Saxons whose ‘daes eage’ meant ‘days eye’, a reference to the flower closing its head at night and opening it first thing in the morning.
The Romans associated the flower with the nymph Belides who turned herself into a daisy to escape the sleazy attention of Vertumnus, the god of seasons. 
The Vikings associated the flower with motherhood and childbirth, while Celts believed that when a child died the gods sprinkled its grave with daisies to help relieve the grief of the parents.
Christian religions associated the daisy with the Virgin Mary because it symbolized chastity, humility and innocence.
I understand the symbolism attached to the daisy over many centuries. However, I see something else.
The daisy reminds us of what lies ahead. Although we are in the heart of summer, the daisy’s white head and golden face remind me that changes are not that far off.
Daylight hours already have begun to get shorter and just six weeks from now the greenery of the trees will begin turning to the golds and reds of autumn. Much later, the leaves will fall and the landscape will take on the whiteness of the daisy’s outer petals.
That seems to be depressing, wildly negative thinking. What sane mind thinks of cold and snow when we have just started enjoying the sunshine and heat of summer?
Seeing those white and gold daisies as reminders of colder, darker days ahead is more mindful than negative. It’s possible to soak up the beauty of flowers and other joys of summer while being mindful of coming changes.
Change is important because it is inevitable. It is the most basic law of nature, yet many of us don’t like to think about it. We like things to remain the same. 
We live in a world of change that is not just unprecedented, but is accelerating. We see evidence of climate change almost every day. Many aspects of our culture – our politics, our communication styles, even our religious institutions – are undergoing tremendous change but we spend much time arguing about them and too little thinking about how to deal with them.
Nature teaches us to accept change and to adjust to changing conditions. The beautiful daisies of summer are just one part of nature’s many lessons.
The daisies tell me something else. They remind me of how lucky we are to live in a country of four seasons.
Each season brings us different experiences, different foods, different clothing. We get to swim and water ski in July and skate and snow ski in January.
Each season brings its own trait. Summer gives us exuberance, autumn reverence, winter perseverance and spring hope and renewal.
We are lucky folks, we Canadians.
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Imagine you are a potter whose prized vase slides from s...

 Imagine you are a potter whose prized vase slides from slippery fingers and falls to the floor.

If it is only cracked, you try to patch it. If it is shattered, you sweep the pieces into the waste bin and start over, building a new one.

That is the situation of our elected representatives in Ottawa. They are the potters whose prized possession, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), has slipped through their fingers and crashed on the floor. It is in pieces, cannot be put together properly and must be swept away and rebuilt.

The corruption and controversies are too serious and too longstanding to simply fix. It’s time for a complete rebuild.

The Canadian Forces changed dramatically in the years following the Second World War. They were unified in 1968, supposedly to improve efficiency and to save money. 

Unification damaged morale and although some unification has been pulled back, the forces have become more civilian-thinking and more bureaucratic. The soldier-warrior of the CAF of the past has become the soldier-manager of a bureaucracy more interested in careers, politics, and executive-style benefits and thinking.

Canadian Forces scandals have been continuous since the Somalia Affair in the early 1990s. That was when two members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, supposedly peacekeepers, beat to death a Somalia teenager.

Then came the coverup, which thankfully was revealed by hard-working CBC journalist. A Somalia Commission of Inquiry, led by a federal court judge, was started in 1994, but was cut short by the federal government with the approach of the 1997 election.

Before it ended, the inquiry issued ‘Dishonoured Legacy’, a report highly critical of the Canadian Forces’ military and civilian leadership. 

“Our soldiers searched, often in vain, for leadership and inspiration,” said the report.

It also said: “Many of the senior officers who testified before us, reveal much about the poor state of leadership in our armed forces and the careerist mentality that prevails at the Department of National Defence.” 

The Somalia Affair was a national shame. It revealed white supremacy thinking within the forces and resulted in the disbanding of the highly-touted airborne regiment. Also, it resulted in huge loss public support for the armed forces.

So here we are again, swimming in a torrent of reports of sexual abuse and corruption within the forces. And, it’s not something new. Sexual misconduct in the forces has been reported for years with little effective change to correct it.

In 2014, Macleans Magazine published a major report on sexual harassment. A year later a former Supreme Court justice conducted an investigation detailing sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in the CAF. A year after that Statistics Canada issued a report on these problems.

Now there are so many sexual misconduct investigations of the CAF’s top leadership, and so many resignations, that you need a playbook to follow the action.

Earlier this year Lt.-Col. Eleanor Taylor, one of the country’s top female soldiers, resigned, saying she is sickened by sexual misconduct in the armed forces and dismayed that it has taken so long to bring the problem into the open.

"Some senior leaders are unwilling or (perhaps unable) to recognize that their behaviour is harmful both to the victim and to the team," Taylor wrote in her resignation letter.

"Some recognize the harm but believe they can keep their behaviour secret. Perhaps worst of all are those in authority, who should know better, but lack the courage and tools to confront the systemic issue."

The first step in tearing down and rebuilding the armed forces must be the resignation or firing of Defence Minister Harjit Singh Sajjan. He seems to be an honourable and decent man but in six years has done little to fix the scandalous problems in the CAF, which now are held in contempt by many Canadians.

Last week the House of Commons voted to censure Sajjan for what it called mishandling of the ongoing sexual misconduct crisis. 

It’s now up to the prime minister to do the honourable thing and initiate the tearing down and rebuilding. With an election likely in the offing, that is not likely because doing what is right and honourable at election time just doesn’t fit with the way politics are done these days.

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One positive aspect of climate change is the theory that ...

One positive aspect of climate change is the theory that it warms our northern reaches making them less hospitable to blackflies, the spring curse of anyone who spends time in or near the woods.

That is something to cheer, and there has been plenty of cheering this spring in parts of Ontario where the hated blackfly has been little seen, or in some cases, totally absent.

It’s true that parts of Ontario normally tormented by blackflies have been spared this year. But climate change is not the reason.

The blackfly season is roughly three to four weeks, starting in early to mid-May and its intensity is dictated by the spring runoff. This past winter saw a lighter than usual snowpack combined with an earlier spring runoff. Less snow melting earlier was not good for blackfly populations. 

Blackflies must have plenty of clear, cold running water in the spring to develop their eggs. When the spring runoff is light and ends earlier than normal, blackfly populations have reduced chances of developing. 

That’s the opposite story for our other most despised insect – the mosquito. Mosquitoes love puddles or any other places that collect stagnant water. They will even hatch their eggs in a bottle cap filled with old rain water.

There are more than 2,000 species of blackfly, 161 existing in Canada with 42 species identified in the Algonquin Park area. Only a few species in our part of the world actually bite to get a blood meal for their eggs. But their bites are nasty – actual puncture wounds that can cause swelling, headaches, nausea, fever and even swollen lymph nodes. 

Fewer blackflies might be reason for many of us to celebrate, but fewer blackflies actually are not good news. Scientists say that a healthy blackfly presence is a sign of a healthy environment. 

Clouds of the pests tell us that clear and cold running water is nearby; water filtered by a healthy forested watershed.

Blackflies are making a comeback in parts of North America and their populations are increasing. That’s because of the environmental movement’s pressure for cleanup of polluted areas and creating clean, running water. 

Raw sewage, effluents from paper mills, and runoff of various other industrial waste and agricultural chemicals have been stopped or at least controlled because of pressure from environmentalists. 

One example is the cleanup of the English-Wabigoon River system in Northwestern Ontario. That system was basically a sewer with mercury poisoning affecting wildlife and poisoning Indigenous communities. 

Tens of millions of dollars have been spent cleaning up the river system, although some mercury and other contaminants still exist in the water and will take many more years to eliminate. 

There are numerous other stories of water systems being cleaned up and studies have shown blackfly populations are recovering there.

However, some people and some governments still don’t get it. Pesticides mixed with diesel fuel and kerosene are still being dumped into streams to kill the larvae of blackflies and other insects. 

Recovering blackfly populations mean more irritation to we humans. But other animals, and birds, also are affected. Blackflies have been known to kill animals such as deer because hundreds of bites can cause severe blood loss. 

They also are known to drive loons from their nests. If you see a nesting loon constantly shaking its head, it likely is trying to shake off a cloud of blackflies. 

Birds get their revenge by eating millions of blackflies, and mosquitoes, providing some control of populations. Bats and dragonflies also eat them, 

Some areas have noticed an absence of dragonflies this year and that’s not a good thing. Those heli-like critters not only knock down blackfly populations, they provide food for birds and fish. 

Dragonflies, like blackflies, require clean water and stable oxygen levels, and are considered reliable indicators of healthy natural ecosystems. 

So, the blackfly, like so many things in life, is a genuine Catch-22. Cleaning up environmental pollution increases blackfly populations, which increase human irritations. More pollution decreases their numbers. 

All things considered, a little irritation a few weeks a year, is easier to accept than a polluted world. 

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The sorrowful story of Canadian residential schools, esta...

The sorrowful story of Canadian residential schools, established to wipe away Indigenous languages and culture, is back in the headlines.

What returned it to the forefront is the discovery of unmarked graves at a former Kamloops residential school for Indigenous children. It is believed the graves contain the remains of 215 children, presumed to have been undocumented deaths at the school.

The Canadian government along with several Christian churches operated 139 residential schools between 1831 and 1996. The schools were designed to turn the children into “normal” Canadians by stripping them of their “Indianness.”

An estimated 6,000 children died at the schools from disease, accidents, neglect and abuse but there are no complete official records, so an accurate figure is unknown. Most of the dead children were buried on school grounds, often in unmarked graves.

There are few revelations in the latest residential school news, except that ground-penetrating radar found many more bodies than expected. That technology likely will find other remains at other residential schools with unmarked graves.

The Kamloops discovery has reopened wounds from the residential school system and debate about who was wrong, who has and hasn’t apologized and why there has not been enough action taken on promises of reconciliation.

That is unfortunate because much of the debate is focussed on the past and is draining time and energy from the most important action that needs to be taken now.

Almost everything there is to know about what happened in residential schools is known. It has been the subject of piles of studies, books, news stories and major commission reports such as the Truth and Reconciliation Report (2015) the 1996 report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

It’s all history, and while history is critically important and should not be forgotten, it is time to focus on the present and what we do not know: How many unmarked graves are there, how many children are buried in those graves, who are they, and what is the plan for giving their remains proper burial in proper cemeteries with proper markers?

A variety of political figures, government agencies, churches and religious orders have been blamed for the residential schools’ nightmare. However, all Canadians, even those not born in the residential school era, must share the blame, shame and the responsibility for doing what needs to be done now.

We all must because residential schools were a shameful act of racism committed by our country. And, this racism still exists in Canada today with not enough effort to eliminate it.

It’s racism that dozens of Indigenous communities are without clean drinking water despite years of government promises to clean up polluted water.

It’s racism that we have done next to nothing to act on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 calls to action. The Commission called the residential school system “cultural genocide” but only 10 of its 94 calls to action have been completed in the last six years.

Four years ago, on National Aboriginal Day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said:

“No relationship is more important to Canada than the relationship with Indigenous Peoples.”

If he really believes that he should personally lead urgent actions to restore the dignity taken from our Indigenous brothers and sisters by the residential school system. Action now, not limping action dragging over the next five, 10, 15 years.

It is urgent that the bones of those children who died in residential schools be placed in well-maintained cemeteries where people can see who they were and understand the shame of what happened to them.

Those cemeteries and the children they hold will remind us that this kind of shameful abuse against our own people can never be tolerated again. They will remind all that Canada is a racist country but that we are working to change that.

They also will be a reminder that the world is populated now by only one species of human being, not the many different forms of humans that existed thousands of years ago. One species with different cultures, different languages, different religious beliefs and different skin colours.

But one species of human beings, basically the same and all deserving equality and each other’s respect.

It’s refreshing to hear a politician say what he or she ...

 It’s refreshing to hear a politician say what he or she is thinking, rather than just tonguing to lick up votes.

“It begs the damn question: what the hell is going on in the United States of America?” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said following the massacre of nine people in last week’s rail yard shooting.

That was just after the San Jose killings last Wednesday, but just before Sunday’s shooting of two dozen people at a Miami rap party.

“What the hell is wrong with us, and when are we going to come to grips with this?” he asked. “When are we going to put down our arms – literally and figuratively – our politics, stale rhetoric, finger-pointing, all the hand wringing, consternation that produces nothing except more fury and frustration ... over and over and over again?”

Exactly. What is wrong with Americans and America, a madhouse of “rinse and repeat” cycle of mass shootings now averaging roughly 1.5 a day, based on figures supplied by the U.S. Gun Violence Archive? The Archive defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more persons are shot and killed or wounded.

There have been roughly 18,000 gun deaths in the U.S. this year to date, more than 600 of them children 17 or younger. Just under 1,500 other children have been wounded.

Individual Americans own 393 million firearms, which is about 46 per cent of civilian-held firearms worldwide, or 120.5 for every 100 residents. Those figures come from the Small Arms Survey, an independent research project in Switzerland.

And, they are buying more. Two million guns were sold in the U.S. this past January alone. Two million new guns in 31 days. That’s on the heels of the 17 million bought last year.

Research at the University of Chicago shows that 39 per cent of American households own guns, up from 32 per cent in 2016.

The country is gun crazy. And the crazy things Americans do with the increasing number of guns grows by the day. 

It’s not just guns and killings. Other signs of America’s deteriorating mental state are becoming more evident. 

There’s the Covid disaster, of course. Thirty-four million cases with 600-plus thousand deaths making the United States, probably the world’s most advanced country, with one of the world’s worst records in handling the disease. 

Then there is the drug pandemic. 

Addiction Centre, a company providing information on addiction, says that drug overdose deaths have tripled in the U.S. since 1990. Also, more than 20 million Americans have at least one addiction and that alcohol and drug addiction costs the U.S. $600 million a year.

Then there’s the racism, an issue that needs no elaboration. 

The country’s healthcare system is a mess; too many people just don’t have quality health care. Ditto the education system, in which college costs are far too high and too many kids are condemned to slum schools. 

Adding all that up, it’s fair to say that the quality of American life is lower than many other developed countries. Americans carry heavy debt loads, work long hours to lighten them and have little time to enjoy themselves and appreciate each other. 

Their politics and politicians are no help to them. Ideas, actions, legislation are frozen in blocks of icy partisanship. The U.S. political system now is about as helpful to its citizens as a frozen ballpark frank. 

It’s an emotionally insecure country, with people seemingly wanting to protect themselves from each other. Why else would they have so many guns? 

There is little intelligent focus on the issues in the U.S. and Americans really don’t know much about the rest of the world. They are too consumed with ‘getting ahead’, working long hours to pay the bills resulting from trying to get ahead and with buying guns to kill each other. 

Much hope has been placed in the presidency of Joe Biden. But he’s only the triage guy in a packed emergency room. The country needs major long-term treatment to get healthy before the Chinese and the Russians move in and start euthanizing the population. 

America is one sick puppy. We Canadians should be concerned because Americans are our best friends. 

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There’s a shortage of everything this COVID-19 spring. Ev...

There’s a shortage of everything this COVID-19 spring. Everything from lumber to foodstuffs to ATVs and nursing home rooms.

Everything is on back order; everything except – dandelions. There are billions and billions and billions of them. It’s a dandelion world, with those bright yellow petals turning to white seed puffs that hitchhike a breeze and parachute into new patches to create colonies of billions more.

“Dandelion don’t tell no lies,” The Rolling Stones sang.  “Dandelion will make you wise . . . . Blow away dandelion, blow away dandelion.”
Pretty impressive to have the Stones write a song about you.

Even without the musical fame the dandelion is highly impressive, despite being the most hated plant in our manicured neighbourhoods. 
The dandelion is a plant world overlord, unchallenged in its ability to survive and repopulate. A dandelion plant can live for 10 to 13 years, with each flower head producing multitudes of blow-away seeds every year. A plant with three or four flower heads produces thousands of breeze-riding seeds, many of which can become new plants.

The dandelion’s nutritive roots go deep into history, possibly tens of thousands of years, but certainly back to the times of ancient civilizations in Egypt, China and Rome. Its roots and leaves were important sources of medicine in early civilizations.
It is hard to believe while looking out over a field of millions of them, but dandelions are not native to North America. They were brought here by European settlers for food and medicine.
The plant is believed to have been brought to Canada by French settlers whose name for it was dent-de-lion – lion’s tooth because of its saw-toothed leaves.

Dandelions are said to have more helpful vitamins than many vegetables and were used by settlers for stomach and liver problems and a variety of other ailments. They were used to make teas, root beer, coffee substitutes and salads.
Dandelion tonics remain popular with some people, but their numbers have declined since the home remedy era gave way to the pharmaceutical industry.  

Interestingly, modern research has found that dandelion extracts have antiviral properties, and may reduce the ability of viruses to reproduce. There has been some research and discussion about dandelion extract being able to kill some types of cancer cells but there is no conclusive evidence yet.
Not enough human thought and energy has been spent on finding all the benefits of dandelions and trying to make use of them. 

There have been some important initiatives. Ford Motor Company 20 years ago began using crushed dandelion roots (some species contain natural rubber latex) to make synthetic rubber for auto parts. 
Continental Tires has been using dandelion root in bike tires and other companies are working on ways to make dandelion rubber commercially viable. Soon, the tires your auto rides on might be made from dandelions.
However, most of our time, energy and resources have been spent trying to eradicate them.

Eradication of dandelions is a loser’s game. Not only has the plant a relatively long life, its growth rate is fast. The flower head can go from bud to seeds in a matter of days.
Its leaves thrive in barren habitats, pushing their way through heavy gravel and cracked concrete. 
The painstaking work of cutting the roots with a blade and pulling the plants from the ground is not guaranteed effective. Just a small piece of root left in the ground can grow a new dandelion.
Chemicals are the only really effective weapon for killing dandelions, but many jurisdictions have banned them because of their danger to the environment and human health.

Some weary veterans of dandelion wars are thinking the unthinkable: waving the white flag. They are not exactly learning to love dandelions, just taking a deep breath and accepting them.

Some have joined the No Mow May movement, which encourages property owners not to cut their lawns in May. The idea of the movement, started by the United Kingdom, is to let lawns grow wild with flowering plants that help pollinating insects such as bees and butterflies.

Dandelions, which hit their peak in May, will love that, but the neighbours might have a different view.