Jim Poling Sr.'s Blog, page 24

Congratulations graduates of 2019

No matter the weather, no matter what is happening, June is the best month.
It is a time of hope. A time to believe that the world can overcome its problems and become a better place.
That’s because June is graduation month. Tens of thousands of young people in Canada and the U.S. are graduating from various levels of education, many moving on to even higher levels. These are the graduates who will shape the future.
I am at a grad ceremony at Miramonte High School in the Oakland Hills outside San Francisco, and not far from where the Toronto Raptors have been embarrassing the Golden State Warriors.
Here 300 students are graduating from Grade 12 and entering a new, important stage of their lives. The grad class is so large that the ceremonies are being held on the school football field.
When I look into these bright and smiling 18-year-old faces I see hope for the future. These are kids who will not stand by and watch the breakdown of society as we - their parents and grandparents - have.
These are not teenagers typical of those of the past. Sure, they are teenagers who act like typical teenagers, but beneath their typicalness is a socially aware generation.
They are acutely aware of America’s gun insanity that has taken the lives of so many school students like themselves. (As of the start of this week there have been 23,543 shooting incidents in the U.S. in which 6,215 people were killed and 11,959 wounded, according to gunviolencearchive.org).
They see the homeless living in cardboard shacks in underpass villages, and the thousands of people dying on the streets from drugs,.
They see the growing devastation of climate change: Communities inundated by flood waters. Communities ripped apart by unprecedented wind storms. Over the last month or so more than 500 tornadoes have ripped apart areas in the U.S., a record number. Canada also is seeing an increasing number of extreme weather events.
Climate change has made wildfire outbreaks a serious threat to some Canadian and American communities. These California kids live with the knowledge that the neighbourhoods they grew up in could be destroyed by wildfires at any time. It is only early June but temperatures in the 100s are forecast here for this week.
This is a generation of kids who have paid attention to these increasing threats to our world. And, although they don’t talk openly (at least to adults) about them, they do take them seriously and do not see existing political systems fixing them.
Like many of us, they see growing political tribalism blocking solutions. Politicians bark party lines and slap down anyone who does not agree with them. Political parties have become more important and powerful than the people.
But most importantly, whether their high school years were lived in the Oakland Hills, Haliburton or Mississauga, today’s graduates are among a new generation of people who place inclusion ahead of exclusion.
They understand diversity and live it daily. They are well read  (even if not on paper), are familiar and comfortable with new technology and have a globalized view of life. They are driven more by values than status and material things.
They also understand and accept change, and unlike many of us, have no yearning for the way things used to be. They yearn for open societies, not walls.
Education has been a key in shaping who these young people are. Thankfully, increasing numbers of them are getting more education as high school graduation rates are increasing in many countries.
Canada’s high school graduation rate stands at 85 per cent, still far behind Korea, Japan and the Netherlands, but better than the U.S., Sweden and Italy. The U.S. high school graduation rate is roughly 84 per cent, up four per cent since 2011, a rise attributed to the Obama presidency’s focus on education.
So congratulations graduates of 2019! Go out now and change a world burdened with problems that can be overcome with open minds and positive attitudes. You owe it to all those teachers, parents and others whose financial and moral support got you this far.
The world needs you.

#

Beware the ‘silent evil’

Blackflies and mosquitoes are true nuisances but at least you can see and hear them. A new danger developing in cottage country is one you usually don’t see – until it is too late.
Blacklegged ticks are moving north and bringing Lyme disease. Lyme is an infection that can cause joint pain, memory loss and extreme tiredness. It can be a seriously debilitating disease affecting the brain and neurological tissue.
Blacklegged ticks, also known as deer ticks, used to be confined to southern Ontario – in fact mainly to the northeastern United States, until a warming climate allowed them to migrate north. Now they are found in wide areas across Canada.
In 2017, confirmed Canadian cases of Lyme disease totalled 2,025, an astounding increase from 144 cases in 2002. Ontario in 2017 had 959 confirmed or probable cases compared with only a couple of dozen or so back in 2002.

Various studies indicate that the ticks are advancing north by 35 to 55 kilometres a year. They are well established in the Barrie-Orillia region.
Ticks carrying Lyme disease are not yet a huge threat in cottage country. They are moving steadily in our direction, however, and people should be building awareness,  learning how to avoid them and how to examine themselves and their pets for ticks attached to their skin.
The Ontario government has advised that areas not known to have ticks are not necessarily free of them.
“While the probability is low, it is possible to find an infected tick almost anywhere in Ontario,” says a government website on Lyme disease.
Examining your body for ticks after being in the woods is an important habit to develop. Unlike mosquitoes, which can infect you with West Nile disease with a single bite, ticks need time to pass along Lyme disease.
Also a tick gives off an anaesthetic while feeding on your blood so you do not feel its bite.
Medical experts say a tick has to be attached to your body for a day or more to get Lyme disease into your blood. So examining yourself promptly after being in the woods and removing any ticks is important in reducing the risk of being infected.
Ticks attached to your skin are not obvious. They can look like a small black dot, often the size of a poppy seed.
Awareness of tick and Lyme disease dangers has been helped by the experiences of two Canadian entertainers. Shania Twain lost her ability to sing because of a condition she says was brought on by Lyme disease.
She was bitten by a tick in Norfolk, Virginia in 2003 and was diagnosed as having Lyme disease. Later she developed dysphonia, which affects vocal chords and is believed caused by problems in brain tissue. She was told that this was related to Lyme disease.
She had surgery to correct the condition and took a 15-year break from the music business. She calls the disease a silent evil and urges people to be aware and cautious.
“You’ve got to check out where you are and whatever region you’re in, and what the rate of Lyme disease is in the region, if you’re going to go out in nature,” she told an interviewer in 2017.
She is not the only high-profile person to contract the disease. Canadian singer Avril Lavigne was bedridden for five months after being bitten by a Lyme-infected tick in 2014.
Lavigne has said she felt fatigued and lightheaded for months until finally being diagnosed with the disease and treated.
“I felt like I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t talk, and I couldn’t move,” she said in a People magazine interview. “I thought I was dying.”
Also, in 2006 former U.S. President G
"Lyme disease is preventable," he said in a recent news release. "That is why we are encouraging Ontarians to learn how to be safe and prevent tick bites. These simple precautions are the best defense for you and your family."eorge W. Bush got  the disease from a tick while riding his mountain bike. It was caught early and treated successfully.
Dr. David Williams, Ontario’s chief medical officer, has said most cases of Lyme disease can be treated successfully but  the key is to be aware.

#                       

The magic of Black Sox

Despite its wet, raw coolness, this spring has provided some joyful observation.

Blue jays, in their sartorial splendour, gorge greedily on seed we have spread on the ground. There are as many as 18 of them throating seeds almost non-stop, pausing occasionally to shoo away chipmunks that are racing about crazily, trying to get their share.
At a suet cage swinging above this feeding frenzy, a remarkable sight. A rosy-breasted grosbeak and its mate peck at the tallow needed to warm and energize them in this prolonged chilly spring.
It has been years since we have seen any type of grosbeak, once a common sight at our lake place.
Just as exciting, a flock of sunshine yellow finches descends on the Niger seed feeder. They are another touch of beauty that we have not seen in a while.
The Jays, grosbeaks, finches and two red spotted wood peckers lift spirits dampened by  sullen grey skies.
But then a doleful face appears at the clearing’s edge, threatening to chase off the colour and cheer. The face looks familiar, but it is not until he steps fully into the clearing that I recognize him.
It is Black Sox, the wily red fox who visits every spring. At least I think it is him, although it could be one of his progeny, or even a totally different fox.
I am convinced it is Black Sox, however, when I see his front legs, which are rich black from shoulders to feet. All red foxes have black on their legs but none I have seen has such prominent full black stockings.
Not only is his face doleful, his entire appearance is dispirited. He reminds me of a down and out city street person who has lost hope and is ready to give up.
Black Sox obviously has had a rough winter. His coat is thin and matted, his tail lacking lustre and bushiness. He is painfully thin and appears weak.
He might be suffering from mange, the awful skin disease caused by mites, but I see no patches of raw skin in his fur. He also might have an intestinal parasite eating away his insides. Or, perhaps he is undernourished from lack of food during a long winter of deep snow worsened by episodes of freezing rain.
Foxes feed mainly on small mammals such as mice and voles during winter because  berries and insects are not available. But from my observations mice were scarce last winter because they hit their four-year population peak last year and now are at the low point of a new cycle.
Whatever the reason, it is sad to see Black Sox in such a sorry state. Red foxes are beautiful and among the cleverest of forest animals. They are even credited with teaching indigenous people how to capture ducks for food.
Foxes have been known to go to the edge of a water body where ducks are plentiful and start acting crazy, jumping and rolling about for no apparent reason. Ducks are curious birds and will swim close to shore to see why the fox is acting so silly. One quick lunge and the fox has dinner.
Hunters from early tribes copied the trick by tying a fox skin to a stick and wriggling it crazily from behind a bush or in a patch of reeds. When ducks approached to see what the commotion was about, the hunter tossed a net over them.
Some people believe that foxes have magical powers. I would like to believe that Black Sox’s magic brought all those colourful birds to brighten our spring. Probably not, but it is a pleasant thought.
I also want to believe that Black Sox does have magic that he will use to heal himself. And that the next time I see him his coat is fluffy and vibrant, his black socks velvety smooth and his eyes radiating his keen intelligence.
The real magic of Black Sox, and foxes in general, is that they remind us that life, inside and outside the forest, can be difficult and at times dangerous. But they also teach us that using our intelligence, instead of our emotions, will help us to manage whatever life throws at us.
#

Endangered Bugs?

The ice, it seems, was scarcely off the lakes when the bugs were back.
Morning frost warnings and the absence of any semblance of daytime warmth has not postponed their return. The critical question now is how numerous they will be.
Will they be thick as a winter blizzard or thin as scattered snow flurries? Possibly thin and getting thinner if you read and believe recent scientific studies.

An Australian review of 73 scientific studies of insect decline has concluded that the total mass of the world’s insects is declining by “a shocking” 2.5 per cent a year. This rate of decline might lead to extinction of 40 per cent of the world’s insects over the next four decades, says the review.
“It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none,” says the review’s author, Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, at the University of Sydney, Australia.
Some might cheer at that, and perhaps even hope for a faster decline. It is difficult to feel empathy for black flies, mosquitoes and the like in our part of the world. They are nuisances with little apparent purpose.
Bugs, in fact, are a critical part of our world’s biodiversity. They are important pollinators, helping to produce the food we eat. They are food for birds and some animals and are  environmental stewards in that they eat dead matter and clear away waste.
In an earlier column I referred to E. O. Wilson, the American biologist and expert on insect life. His quote, mentioned then, is worth repeating: “If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”
The importance of insects on other species can be seen in world bird populations, which also are declining at an alarming rate. Last year’s State of the World’s Birds report said that 40 per cent of the world’s 11,000 bird species are in decline, and that one in eight bird species is threatened with extinction.
Shrinking insect populations are not a major reason for decreased bird numbers but they are a factor. Agriculture, logging, invasive species and climate change are listed as major causes.
Agriculture is converting forests into farmland less suitable for both birds and insects. Both are being hurt by the use of chemicals in agriculture, notably in pesticides,
Evidence of this is seen in the U.S. where more land is being converted for grain production, especially corn for biofuel. The review says that between 2008 and 2013 wild bee populations declined 23 per cent, the same period during which farming for biofuels almost doubled.
Also, between 2008 and 2011 more than eight million acres of grasslands and wetlands were converted to corn production. That figure comes from the Environmental Working Group,  a controversial American activist group that specializes in research and advocacy in agriculture and toxic chemicals.
It is not reasonable to simply blame agriculture for declines in insect and bird populations. The issue is much more complicated and is really about overall habitat loss due to a variety of factors: urban growth, food and biofuel production, filling in wetlands, cutting down forests, pollution, and climate change.
A best first step to stopping or reducing species decline is awareness. How can we reasonably modify our lifestyles to lessen our negative impacts on the planet?
(A tiny step forward would be to persuade folks to stop tossing their garbage out their car windows. Haliburton County is without doubt the worse area for this anywhere I have lived in Canada, and I have lived in a lot of places).
Steep declines in some species – in fact mass extinctions – have occurred before. Meteor strikes and volcanic eruptions have wiped out huge numbers of insect species in the past but insect diversity always has recovered, even though it might have taken thousands of years.
We can’t do much about preventing natural occurrences such as volcanic eruptions and meteor strikes. But we can help all the other species around us by thinking about how our actions affect them.
We all hate the buzzing and biting of mosquitoes, black flies, deer flies and other nuisance bugs. But I don’t think any of us would like the barrenness and bleakness of a world without them.

Boat launch day thoughts

Getting the boat ready for spring launch can be stressful.
Will the motor start quickly and run smoothly after its winter hibernation? Did you remember to insert and secure the drain plug?  Are the trailer lights shining and blinking, as they were when stored last fall?
Much to think about. Much to remember. No time for Made in China complications.
But there they are. The light switch I installed last summer falls apart when I give it a test flick. Made in China.
Neither trailer tail light burns brightly or blinks the way it is supposed to. Bulbs Made in China.
Boat launch day reminds me that we are a society smothered in cheap Made in China products. It is difficult to find much of anything – from toys to medicines to consumer electrics and even nuts and bolts and screws – that is not Made in China.
China is Canada’s second largest trading partner now. Since 2011 Canada-China bilateral total trade has grown by more than $50 billion and Canada’s trade deficit with China has grown to billions of dollars. In other words, we buy a lot  more from China than we sell to it.
Much of what we buy from China is low cost, low quality junk not meant to last. Some of it is unhealthy and downright dangerous.
Some readers might recall the Made in China toys that contained unsafe levels of lead. Or the firecracker inspections that revealed that nearly 50 per cent of firecrackers sampled in 2017 didn’t pass product inspection and testing.
It is not that the Chinese are incapable of producing quality goods. Their factories turn out lower quality, inexpensive stuff for a reason: we North American consumers encourage them to because we want goods at lower prices.
When we buy cheap Chinese goods we forget – or ignore – how we are hurting ourselves. Much of what China is producing for our retail markets was invented and originally produced in North American factories. We have turned huge amounts of manufacturing over to China simply because they will produce it more cheaply.
Meanwhile, more of our factories close and our people have fewer jobs.
Maybe it is time to change our thinking. Begin thinking about paying more for goods produced at home; goods that will help to create the jobs needed to build and sustain strong communities, particularly in rural areas like Haliburton County.
Trade with China, and other global economies, is important and necessary. But there needs to be a balance, which in the case of China, certainly is missing.
China not only floods us with cheap products, it plays dirty and we respond in typical Canadian Milquetoast style. We are holding Hauwei Technologies executive Meng Wanzhou in house arrest under a legal agreement with the United States. We are following a rule of law, something that China seldom does.
In retaliation, China has imprisoned Canadians on trumped up charges, has suspended or cut back imports of Canadian canola and pork and has issued a travel advisory against Canada. It’s nasty and unlawful but that’s the way China operates.
Canada needs to get tough and fight back. And we don’t need to wait for our government. Citizens can get tough through their buying power.
The next time you purchase an item, determine if it is Made in China. If it is, ask if there is an alternative manufactured elsewhere. If there is, be willing to pay more for the alternative, especially if it is produced here at home.
We all like to pay less for the goods we buy but often we end up paying more for cheaper goods that don’t stand up and need to be replaced. Paying twice for a low quality item usually means paying more overall than for one quality item.
Also, there is growing comment that buying goods produced locally is better for the environment than buying goods produced abroad. Certainly Chinese manufacturing is no model of environmental awareness. China burns 47 per cent of the world’s coal to power its manufacturing plants.
Small consumer boycotts might seem ridiculously ineffective against a manufacturing giant. However, there are times in our lives when doing a little is far better than sitting back and doing nothing.

#

A time for sane gun debate

The hard rock façade of The National Rifle Association (NRA) is starting to crack. And that’s a good thing.

The NRA, the world’s self-proclaimed No.1 defender of the right to bear arms, has become the No. 1 obstacle to stopping the never-ending gun violence in the United States. Its efforts to block sane gun control laws have extended into other countries, including Canada.
Now there are signs that some of the NRA’s four to five million members are beginning to question the association’s reason for being. There is growing conflict inside the NRA over whether it has wandered far from its original mission of promoting shooting sports and gun safety.
The NRA is no longer a shooting sports and gun safety organization. It is a far right wing political party with only one goal: Elect and influence politicians who will oppose any gun control legislation that will reduce the gunshot slaughter in America’s streets, homes, schools and houses of religion.
There have been roughly 17,000 gun violence incidents in the U.S. during the first four months of this year. That’s more than 4,000 a month, 140 day, or six every hour. Roughly 4,500 persons died in those incidents, another 8,300 were injured.
Doubt my figures? You can find them documented at www.gunviolencearchive.org. The site includes a U.S. map with red dots indicating locations where gun violence has occurred. The map looks like the back of a child infected with measles.
Cracks in the NRA’s stern, uncompromising attitude were seen at its recent annual convention in Indianapolis. The NRA board ousted Oliver North (he of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal) as president because of feud between he and Wayne LaPierre, the organization’s chief executive.
The NRA has deep financial problems and its tax exempt status is being investigated by the state of New York, whose attorney-general has called it a terrorist organization.
The NRA was founded after the U.S. civil war as a sporting club dedicated to teaching marksmanship, gun safety and promoting hunting. But in the 1930s it got into lobbying,  even supporting limited gun control.
All that changed in the 1970s when new leadership opposed to federal gun controls changed its main purpose into lobbying for gun rights and fighting gun controls. And, they did it in a loud, uncompromising way.
Charlton Heston, the actor and NRA president, became famous for his use of the phrase “from my dead, cold hands”, implying that’s the only way the government would take his gun.
NRA messaging has become even more aggressive since. NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch has said the NRA bears no responsibility for curbing gun violence and has vigorously attacked Democrats and the news media.
In 2016 she called the mainstream media "the rat bastards of the Earth . . . . I'm happy frankly to see them curb stomped.” Two years later when a guy with a shotgun killed five people in a Maryland newspaper newsroom she said she was not encouraging violence against journalists.
The NRA has a history of poking its nose into Canadian gun control debates. Heston attended a British Columbia Wildlife Federation meeting in 2000 and condemned our federal long-gun registry.
In 2005, an NRA strategist visited Canada to provide ‘political action’ training in advance of an upcoming Canadian federal election.
Our federal government now is studying whether and how to ban handguns and semi-automatic weapons. Despite its mounting problems, the NRA no doubt is again providing long-distance advice to Canadian anti-gun control groups.
Canadians don’t need any connection to the NRA, certainly not until its internal civil war returns it to its original mission of promoting sport shooting and gun safety.
The United States and Canada – in fact every country – needs effective and reasonable gun controls. This can be achieved through civil and informed debate with all sides willing to compromise, not with the mad-dog rhetoric of the NRA or other gun rights groups.  
Step One here in Canada surely has to be recognition that smuggled, illegal guns are a main cause of gun violence in our country. Step Two should be recognition that shooting sports are an important part of Canadian life and need to be protected from uninformed and unreasonably harsh calls of ‘ban all guns’ advocates.

Fish to our rescue?

With lakes opening, winter-weary minds turn to fish. A fish netted in the open water floating your boat is genuine proof that spring is here.
Fish, however, provide us with benefits beyond the simple joys of rod and reel. They help maintain biosphere balance, provide vital protein for millions of humans, and even give comfort to folks with home aquariums.
Now there is news that fish might hold the key to saving millions of lives. Some scientists believe that fish slime has antiseptic powers that might be used to develop new, much needed antibiotics.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that antibiotic resistance in microbes such as bacteria is growing to dangerously high levels. More and more infections, such as pneumonia, blood poisoning, food poisoning and gonorrhea, are becoming harder to treat as antibiotics become less effective.
WHO says that antibiotics are becoming less effective because of overuse and misuse.

For instance, a U.S. study found that 23.2 per cent of antibiotic prescription fills in 2016 were “inappropriate” use of those medications. The most common conditions for which those antibiotics were prescribed were coughs, colds and chest infections. Antibiotics kill bacteria but are not effective again viruses that cause coughs and colds.
WHO has started a campaign to prevent and better control drug resistance by educating and advising individuals, health care professionals and policy makers, as well as investing in research to find new drugs and vaccines.
“Without urgent action, we are heading for a post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can once again kill,” the health organization says.
AMR, the acronym for antimicrobial resistance, now causes 700,000 world deaths a year, WHO reports.  Some researchers believe that without urgent action now, drug resistant infections could kill 10 million people a year by 2050. That is more than the number of people around the world who die annually of cancer.
New antibiotics that infectious germs are not familiar with need to be developed. Most current antibiotics were developed from microbes that live in soil. Now the search has moved to other environments. That’s where the fish come in.
Fish produce a slimy mucus on their skin for a variety of reasons, the most important being protection against parasites, harmful bacteria and fungi. Microorganisms in the mucus have chemical mixtures that some scientists believe might be useful in developing new antibiotics.
Studies so far have found that certain chemical mixtures from fish slime have been found to tackle some staph infections, some E coli and even some colon cancer cells.
There’s a long way to go before we know whether fish slime can help develop new drugs needed to fight germs that have become resistant to the current ones. However, there is hope and considerable excitement about research work being done with fish slime.
Meanwhile, with the spring fishing season here we fishers need to remind ourselves that whether or not fish slime can produce beneficial drugs for us, it is still important to individual fish. We need to be careful how we handle fish in catch-and-release situations.
Slime is a protective barrier critical to good health of a fish. It keeps out tiny bacteria and keeps in essential fluids and electrolytes. A break in the slime coat is like a cut on human skin. Losing a swath of slime is like peeling off a large piece of skin from a human body.
It is difficult to land a fish without disturbing its slime, but there are ways to minimize slime damage.
Those inexpensive knotted, hard nylon nets are like running a rasp across fish skin. Coated nylon nets without knots are less damaging. Even better are rubber nets.
There also are fish grips for pulling in a fish by the lower lip and avoiding touching its body. The key to using them is to keep the fish horizontal, and not vertical, to avoid stress on its body.
Also, if a fish is laid on the boat floor for hook removal, keep it well wetted. Better still, cut the line and leave the hook in when you release the fish. Steel hooks rust and eventually fall out, which leads to another reminder: use regular steel hooks, not stainless steel which does not rust.
#

A pause in our discontent

Something exceptional occurred last week as so many of us watched flames, smoke and water ravage the iconic Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral.

As the steeple fell and the roof collapsed there was a brief pause in the disharmony consuming western society. People, no matter what their attachment to the cathedral - cultural, religious, aesthetic or something else - melded into one focussed community.
It was exceptional because our society has become so unfocussed and so divided. We are an angry society that is becoming increasingly violent.
The evidence of anger and violence is easy to find. It is seen in daily news reporting from different countries, not just the United States where gun violence is an hourly occurrence. (Roughly 40,000 people died in shootings in the U.S, in 2017; close to another 100,000 are wounded in shootings every year).
Canadian shooting deaths have been on the rise for the last few years. Gunshots are pretty much a daily occurrence in Toronto.
In the UK, where there are serious gun restrictions, knifing crimes totalled 40,147 in the year ended March 2018. A London police report says that knifings in schools are up 25 per cent, and that the number of children carrying knives at school has risen 50 per cent.
More children are being troublesome in our society’s schools. Suspensions have risen dramatically in Britain and more than 7,700 children were expelled in 2016-2017.
Growing aggression among children also is seen here at home. A 2017 study  by the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association found that 85 percent of teachers polled said classroom violence is increasing. Nine out of 10 said they have experienced or witnessed violence or harassment in schools.
Another sign of the discontent in western society is rising suicide rates. The overall U.S. suicide rate rose 26 per cent during the 10 years ended 2017.
It is difficult to get clearly understandable Canadian statistics on anything, but suicide rates here generally are up as well. Federal agencies list suicide as the ninth leading cause of death among Canadians.
Politics figure largely in our society’s discontent. Surveys show that more and more people feel that our  governments and institutions are failing us.
You see evidence of that in the yellow jacket riots in France, the Brexit chaos in Britain, the Trump absurdities in the U.S. and the bickering and demonstrations in Canada over pipelines and carbon taxes.
Our discontent even shows up in entertainment delivered through our telcom-television services.
The Canadian Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (CCTS) reports that it accepted 9,831 complaints between August 2018 and January 2019, a 44-per-cent increase over the same period the previous year. The biggest issues for consumers: billing disputes, misleading contract terms or non-disclosure of information and poor quality of service.
Simmering anger now is a dominant tension in western society. Opinions on why are numerous and varied.
Some point to a general decline in moral standards. Others blame entertainment that is more violent than instructive or soothing. Still others blame politicians who promise to satisfy the demands of every single voter, while knowing they do not have the means to do so.
To me, the anger and other ills of our society can be found in the foundations of our western culture. Our culture is one of individualism, in which a person is an independent part of society. Individuals look after themselves first, measuring their success on material achievements. Looking after themselves leaves little time to hear, to understand or to  think about others.
The pause in discontent that came with the Notre Dame disaster was a welcome respite. We need to pause more often, but not just because there is a tragedy.
We know how to restore our damaged structures. What we need to focus on is how to repair our damaged society, perhaps with less emphasis on individual achievement and more on understanding that the individual is a critical part of the overall society.
To do that we need to choose visionary leaders who possess the desire, and the courage, to act in the interests of the collective society instead of their individual selves and their individual political organizations. There are not many of those around these days, and there needs to be.

The miracles of spring

I am walking in the almost-spring woods, hoping not to slip and fall on one of the remaining icy patches left by the melting snow. If I do, I can’t phone for help because I have left my ever-present smart phone at the cottage.
I did not forget the phone. I left it behind deliberately.
These handheld marvels of digital technology give access to acres of information, but nothing as informative as the spring woods. Out here, cell phones are just an unwanted intrusion.
The spring woods are alive with information about life and living. The information is all genuine. There is no fake news here. This is the place where you see, hear and smell the miracles of life on this planet.
A couple of turkeys huddle nervously beneath a heavily-boughed spruce. They appear weak from hunger, which is possibly why they have decided to hide rather than run.

Turkeys are not good flyers, which explains why they suffer through the cruelty of our winters. How they survive the minus 20 and minus 30 temperatures in snows that bury most food sources is a miracle of the woods.
Smaller birds like chickadees flit from tree to tree, appearing frantic in their search for food morsels. 
They are not as desperate as we might think. They survived the winter by preparing for it. They searched out roosting cavities protected from icy winds and blowing snow and stored food in hidden caches.
Their advance planning, plus thick winter feather cover and the ability to lower their body temperature to conserve energy, got them through conditions that an unprepared human would never survive.
The trees they flit through stand stark and still, appearing hypnotized in the early morning chill, but there are signs that they are beginning to warm and awaken.
The oaks, maples and beeches are truly miracles of life in the woods. The early morning sun caressing their crowns glistens on bud shells soon to burst, giving birth to a new year of foliage. How do they know when to bud, or when to drop their autumn leaves to save energy?
More advanced than any of the trees are the small willows that already bear buds - furry grey-white catkins that reminded some earlier people of small cats, or pussies. Thus the ‘pussy willow,’ an important symbol of Easter in some traditions and the alarm clock that tells the other trees and plants it is time to wake up.
The greatest miracles of the spring woods are tiny and unseen unless you bend low and concentrate on looking for them.
A little ant runs across the face of a rotten log that has been thawed by the sun. I brush away some dead leaves beside it and see green shoots pushing through the moist dark earth. Some seeds, no bigger than flecks of black pepper, have landed here, and encouraged by water droplets from melting snow and the sun’s warmth, are creating another miracle of new life.
There is no antonym to accurately describe the opposite of miracle but I see what one word cannot picture when I walk from the woods and out onto Highway 35. A discarded cigarette pack rots in a wet ditch and nearby an empty beer can rocks in the morning breeze.
The beer can is a new addition to the garbage tossed from car windows along this stretch of highway. It wasn’t here an hour ago when I walked past.
“Who would be drinking beer at 9:30 in the morning?” I ask myself, before remembering that politicians are encouraging more alcohol consumption. Ontario has just allowed licensed establishments to start serving booze at 9 a.m.
I think of that tiny ant on the log back in the spring woods. Its brain is smaller than a grain of sand yet, unlike so many humans, understands its place in nature and the importance of trying to keep it natural.
I can’t think of an ant without thinking of E. O. Wilson, the American biologist and expert on insect life.
“If all mankind were to disappear,” Wilson has said, “the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”

Let there be white!

The plan this week was to write a column about the SNC-Lavalin political madness whipped up by the muddled minds of the nation’s political elite.
Plans change; this one because my mind refused to waste one more millisecond reading or hearing about political incompetency and corruption.

The SNC-Lavalin scandal, which could have been avoided with some honest moral leadership, continues while the critical problems of climate change, the opioid epidemic, the growing poor-rich chasm are lost in a fog of political war. It’s like kids screaming at each other over a broken toy instead of working together to fix it.
So I decided to write about my new car instead of the SNC-Lavalin mess.
Some months ago my wife and I agreed it would make sense to trade our aging car and 11-year-old pickup truck for one new vehicle.
It is a nice car. Smooth, frisky and smells good inside. The only complaint is that all the bells, buzzers, blinking lights and computerized thingies are almost as annoying as the politicians arguing whether corporate criminal acts should be ignored in the interest of saving jobs.
What is strange about our new car is its colour. It is white.
Many years ago I vowed never to drive a white car. It was a vow developed from a childhood trauma.
The trauma occurred the day my father came home with our very first family vehicle. It was a brand new boxy 1956 Chevy with pimple tail lights, and should have been the envy of a neighbourhood of rusting, slouch-back 1940s models.
It wasn’t. It was totally white and without an inch of chrome to give it some personality.
The neighbourhood kids were on to it immediately. Their taunts were devastating.
“Hey, there’s an ambulance at Poling’s house!”
“No, it’s theirs. His old man bought an ambulance.”
The adults were not any kinder.
“Did it come with a siren?” the next door neighbour asked.
“How much would it cost for a rooftop red light option?” asked another.
The jokes shouted across the lawns and the whispers and smirks at his workplace parking lot were too much for dad. One day he brought the Chevy back to Port Arthur Motors where he had bought it. It came back the next day with a painted blue roof. No longer could it be called The Ambulance.
All those memories washed over me as I drove our new, white car from the dealership. Would friends and neighbours start calling it The Ambulance?
Then after a couple of days on the road I realized that I was not alone in having a white car. Many of the vehicles around me, even trucks, were white.
Some research uncovered a startling fact: In recent years white has become the most popular colour for new vehicles. Every second car now imported from Asia is white. Worldwide, 37 per cent of all new vehicles in 2016 were painted white.
So instead of being laughed at and called The Ambulance my new car is lost in a sea of white cars out there on the streets and highways.
One reason for the trend to white vehicles is that some people consider them safer. Surveys show that black vehicles are 12 per cent more likely to be involved in an accident than white. Grey vehicles are 11 per cent more likely, and silver 10 per cent.
There are disadvantages to having a white vehicle. It is difficult to find in parking lots where the majority of vehicles seem to be white.
Also, there were times this past winter at the lake when I thought our car had been stolen. I would get up in the morning, look out to the parking spot and could not see it. It was indistinguishable in the fresh-fallen snow.
But my car’s colour is not simply white. No car colour these days has a name that is plain or simple. Blues, for instance, are no longer simply blues. Your new blue vehicle might be listed as Estoril, Indigo, Blu Nettuno or some other florid appellation dreamed up by marketing ninjas.
No, my new car is not a plain and simple white. It is Blizzard, which likely is why I had so much trouble finding it during the winter.
#