Jim Poling Sr.'s Blog, page 27

Voices of our times

I was so overwhelmed by bad news this week that I decided to write a column about the good news that is plentiful, if you go looking for it.
There is no shortage of happy or inspiring news. For instance:
Last week five-year-old Layla Lester was playing in a park and saw a bride in a flowing white gown having her wedding photos taken. Layla believed the bride was a princess and ran to her yelling excitedly “Cinderella! Cinderella!”
The story and a photograph spread and before long a GoFundMe page raised thousands of dollars to send Layla to Disney World to meet some of her favourite Disney princesses.
Then the story of the woman who received a long-distance call from her Army vet brother who was in extreme pain and needed help. The woman telephoned her brother’s social worker to arrange for someone to take him to hospital.

She dialled the wrong number and found herself talking to a gourmet sandwich delivery shop. Instead of hanging up on a wrong number, the sandwich shop sent a delivery driver to the brother’s house and took him to a hospital.
And, inspiring news from the Shark Tank television show on which three young people pitched a new type of cutting board their father had invented.
Their mother had died of breast cancer while their father worked on the first prototypes of the Cup Board Pro.  The father dreamed of pitching the unique cutting board to Shark Tank but died before he could do it. He was a New York firefighter who got cancer believed related to the 9/11 terrorism attack at which he was a first responder.
His three children decided they should pitch their dad’s invention. The Sharks were so impressed they reached a rare unanimous agreement: each would invest $100,000 in the cutting board business and pledged to donate their profits to charities supporting firefighters affected by 9/11 illnesses.  There are dozens of these good news stories out there in newspapers, on television and a variety of Internet sites. They inspire and offer hope for a society drowning in problems.
The sad news is that good news does not make the bad stuff go away. We can encase ourselves in bubbles of happy news but the drug crises, homelessness, senseless traffic tragedies, the shocking rise of fascist leaders, and the racial and religious hatred will remain.
Good news is comforting, helpful and makes good people even better. But more than happy news is needed to cure society’s wrongs.
We need, as individuals, massive change in our thinking. Many of us know the problems but think there is little that an individual can do about them.
We are immersed in our individual lives of trying to balance work and home life, raising  children, paying the mortgage and generally making ends meet. There is little time or energy for helping to solve the world’s problems, so we leave that work to the politicians and government bureaucrats.
Even if we don’t have the time to volunteer our time and services to causes trying to right the wrongs, there is something we can do. We can speak out. Speak out regularly and intelligently to friends, family, associates.
Talk to them about the attitudes and the problems damaging our society and explore ideas on how society can be changed for the better.
The late Margaret Mead, American cultural anthropologist, once wrote:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Anyone lacking the inspiration to talk about the need for change should Google the name Amal Hussain. Google will display her photo, which is too heartbreaking to describe here.
Amal was a seven-year-old who has come to represent the nearly two million Yemeni children said to be starving because of  a civil war worsened by Saudi-led bombing of civilian targets.
Unlike Layla Lester, Amal won’t be going to Disney World to see her favourite princesses. She died last week of starvation. 
Just talking about these tragedies might seem pointless. However, one voice is like a breeze. Joined by many other voices it becomes a gale. Thousands rolled into one become a storm that brings change.

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Getting dumber by the decade

The 737-800 I am flying in just broke through 10,000 feet, the height at which the crew turns off the seat belt sign and makes the flight announcements.
“The bad news. . . ” says an authoritative and calm voice.
My heart jumps into my mouth. Obviously something catastrophic is about to happen.
An engine has fallen off, or someone forgot to fill the gas tank or we are about the fly into a hurricane.
The voice continues. “The bad news today is that there is no WiFi on this flight.”
Moans, groans and the odd swear word drift through the cabin. This is indeed a catastrophe. Without the Internet, passengers will be forced to find other ways of filling the time. Perhaps even read a book.
I stand up and stroll the aisle to stretch my legs. There are close to 200 folks on this plane and I observe that maybe three or four are reading a book.

My unofficial impromptu survey fits with what I have been reading about how people spend their leisure time.
Booknet Canada, a non-profit organization that helps the book industry in a variety of ways, has surveys showing that the number of Canadians who read books continues to decline.
An April 2018 BookNet survey shows that reading now ranks fourth as a Canadian leisure time activity. Twenty-one per cent of survey respondents said reading is their favourite way of spending free time. Other ways are time with family 27 per cent, watching TV 26, browsing the Internet 24, watching a movie 18 per cent.
Not surprisingly the situation in the U.S., which is led by a man who does not read, and perhaps doesn’t know how to read, is worse.
 The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported recently that the number of Americans who read for pleasure has hit a record low. Only 19 per cent of Americans surveyed said they read for pleasure.
The deeper you dig into U.S. surveys the more shocking the statistics become. Thirty-three per cent of American high school graduates never read another book after leaving high school. Forty-two per cent of college grads never read another book after college. And, 70 per cent of U.S. adults have not  been in a bookstore in the last five years.
All this statistical evidence leads some folks, me included, to worry that North American  society is becoming a post-literate culture.
The decline in book reading, however, should not be definitive evidence of a decline in literacy. People are reading electronically and there is a tendency to believe that reading from a screen is simply ‘playing on the computer.’
A wealth of good reading is available through computers. There is a question, however, about whether it is as focussed, and therefore as thought-provoking, as book reading.
Reading on a computer, whether it be desktop, tablet or smartphone, is subject to regular interruption. Beeps and dings from social media are constant, as are notifications from companies trying to promote or sell something.
The greatest evidence of declining literacy, in my opinion, is found in listening to and reading the comments of people commenting on important subjects.
Much of what you hear today on radio and TV talk shows or read in newspaper and social media comment sections is unintelligent rant. Quick hit polemics from tongues not connected to any form of self discipline or critical thinking.
Years of book reading helps us to develop good thought processes, and to ask questions that will help us be better informed. Reading books also is a pathway into history, which holds innumerable lessons on how communities and societies are shaped.
Recent studies in Norway and Britain have concluded that collective IQs have been getting lower over the last 50 years. Changes in lifestyles, such as changes in education systems, less reading and more video games, were given as possible reasons for the decline.
It is hard to accept that despite all the innovations of the modern era, people generally are becoming dumber by the decade. But there are days, especially after listening to a lot of political discourse, that you shake your head and mumble to yourself about being surrounded by idiots.    Email: shaman@vianet.ca
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The most magnificent high

There’s nothing better than being first. So I was ecstatic on Wednesday, Oct. 17 when I became the very first Canadian to get high as smoking marijuana became legal in Canada.
I had planned to be the first and sat patiently Tuesday evening, watching the clock. The new law would take effect at midnight.
Others also had plans to be first. Marijuana stores prepared for long line-ups. Thousands were queuing in anticipation of lighting up and being the first to soar. Video cameras were poised to record the magic moments when the very first legal puffs drifted into the night.
None of those news crews would be at my place on the lake to record my historic first. But I didn’t care. I just wanted to be the first.
Midnight in Newfoundland is 10:30 p.m. our time. So at exactly 10:30 I stepped outside and began to make history.
I walked a path through my woods, listening to the night sounds. Almost immediately my mind began to expand and my senses sharpened. I was getting high very quickly.
There is no better place to get high than in the woods. City streets won’t do it. Even urban parks are not the same. And, obviously never inside the house.

Newly fallen leaves whispered beneath my floating footsteps. An owl hooted to its mate and from across the lake floated the sad and lonely yips of a coyote.
There was a rustle and thump off to my left. Perhaps a raccoon setting off in search of something to burgle with those nimble little fingers. Or a bear knocking over a stump in hopes of finding some morsel of grubs and ants – another paw full of protein before denning up for its winter sleep.
The sounds reminded me that I am just one of many creatures sharing these woods. We all use the forest differently but we all share the same grave responsibility – to respect it and take from it only what we truly need and leave it natural for those who come behind us.
I lurch unsteadily down the dark trail to the lake where a brilliant autumn moon sprinkles diamonds across the gently rippled waters. The first people to this lake knew this moon as Mshkawji Giizis, the Freezing Moon, which reminds us to prepare ourselves physically and mentally for the lean, cold months ahead.
In my elevated state I see more brightly the constellations accompanying the Freezing Moon.
There is Taurus the Bull, which some ancients saw as a symbol of sexual love. Also Aquila the Eagle who carries Zeus’ messages down to we pitiful humans on earth. And of course Aquarius spilling water from his stone jar over a multitude of stars.
Aquarius tells me to dip my finger into the lake. It is cool, where less than one month ago it was still warm enough for swimming. The coolness will intensify until the lake stiffens and its newly-hardened surface starts to collect snow.
The coolness, the falling leaves and the birds winging south make some people sad, even angry. They don’t like change and want everything to remain the same.
Authoritarians like Hitler, Stalin and Trump try to block change but ranting against it and building walls and other barriers cannot stop it.
Nature teaches us that we should accept change. Learn to appreciate it. Adapt to it.
Nature’s lesson is that change is renewal. When autumn leaves turn, die and fall to the earth their decaying bodies bring the soil nutrients that help foster new growth.
Those enriched soils provide us and other animals the things we need or desire. They even grow plants used to get us high – barley for beer, rye and corn for whiskeys, grapes for wine and cannabis plants that produce marijuana.
Those are things that temporarily lift us above our problems. They make us feel better for a short time but they are an insignificant part of nature.
Nature, which embodies the essential qualities of life on this planet, is far more powerful than any individual plant. It can’t be smoked, drank or eaten. It can be consumed only by the body’s senses and when absorbed produces the most magnificent of highs.  

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Bad news about winter

Time to look ahead to winter and what we might expect from it this year. There’s bad news and more bad news.
Sorry about that but this is Canada, the country that has the world’s lowest average daily temperature – minus 5.6 Celsius.
Also, we have the world’s second coldest national capital. Ottawa ranks second in cold only to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia.
So news of  a cold and snowy winter ahead should not shock.
The Weather Network has given us a sneak preview of its 2018-19 winter forecast. Ontario, it says, will have a winter much like last year with bitter spells followed by significant periods of milder weather.
That sounds like more miserable patches of freezing rain conditions that last winter brought us not-so-great skiing, not so great sledding, much tense driving on icy roads and left us yearning for a real good old-fashioned Ontario winter.
A good old-fashioned winter is exactly what North America’s two best-known, old-fashioned weather predictors are predicting for us.
“Very, very cold,” says The Farmers’ Almanac. And, above normal snowfall.
Colder than normal and snowier than normal for all of Canada, says The Old Farmer’s Almanac.
Just so not to be confused there are two Farmers Almanacs. One is The Old Farmer’s Almanac of New Hampshire established in 1792. The other is The Farmers’ Almanac (minus the Old) established in 1818 in New Jersey. (Note the different placements of the apostrophe).
Both claim prediction accuracy rates in the 80 percent range. However, professional weather people usually raise an eyebrow when hearing weather prognostications from the almanacs.
The almanacs have formulas for predicting weather but these are closely guarded secrets. They apparently are based on magnetic storms on the sun and other such astrological events.
The Old Farmer’s Almanac keeps its secret formula in a black box at its offices. The secret formula of The Farmers’ Almanac is known only to someone named Caleb Weatherbee, which we assume is a pseudonym.
Meanwhile there is much talk about how climate change is disturbing weather patterns and making precise weather forecasting difficult. The world has seen a lot of unexpected weather events over the past year or so.

The Florida Panhandle, devastated last week by Hurricane Michael, saw snowflakes last January. The State of Georgia had 15 centimetres of snow about the same time.
It snowed in the Sahara Desert last January and in February dozens of people died in a cold snap in the UK, Ireland and parts of Europe. It also snowed in Rome in February and at the end of June in Newfoundland.
Last April was the coldest in 124 years in a couple parts of the U.S. and it certainly wasn’t much warmer in Canada. The average high temperature in Haliburton County last April was 5.9 Celsius. The warmest it got that month was 17.5 Celsius.
That was followed by a warm May and an unusually warm and dry summer. The average high temperature for May in Haliburton was 22.1 Celsius.
Weather ups and downs likely will be a prominent feature for the future.
There is plenty of argument about whether global warming is causing all the changes. But extreme weather events are nothing new, although there seem to be more of them these days.
One thing to watch is Arctic ice cover, which is shrinking every year. It doesn’t matter whether you believe it is happening naturally or caused by human-produced global warming. It is happening and there is little doubt it is affecting world weather.
In the last 40 years the Canadian Arctic has lost 40 per cent or more of its ice cover. When ice melts it exposes dark waters.
Scientists say that Arctic ice and snow reflects about 80 per cent of the sun’s radiation.  Dark water reflects only 20 per cent.
Less ice and snow reflecting the sun’s rays exposes dark waters that absorb the sun’s rays and therefore become warmer. More water warming means more ice melting exposing more warming waters.
That’s a cycle that you don’t have to be a scientist to understand.
Meanwhile, northwestern Ontario already has received its first dumpings of snow. Looking at the 14-day forecast, ours could be only days, or hours, away.

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A country at war

I step off the airplane into the California sunshine and am welcomed by the sweet voice of America’s senior citizen diva, Barbra Streisand. She is singing, through someone’s car radio, Don’t Lie to Me, a new song she has written to protest the Donald Trump presidency.
“Why can't you just tell me the truth?Hard to believe the things you sayWhy can't you feel the tears I cried today?”
It is an arrival moment that reflects the anguish of this country and its divided people.

This is a country at war. It is a civil war in which cannons are replaced by angry shouting and outright hatred.
The battles are not over pieces of ground. They are cultural battles driven by fears of change and loss of status.
Like Canada and some other countries, the U.S. is being transformed by growing population diversity and the swelling influence of educated, liberated women. Unlike some other countries it is not handling it well.
Change has created a culture of grievance in the U.S. The white, male privileged class is grieving its loss of power and control. Dissenting movements such as #MeToo are grieving and fighting attitudes toward women and the male dominance of society.
The brutal storm over the elevation of the dyspeptic Brett (I Like Beer!) Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court pushed the anger and disunity in this country to stage centre. It also highlighted the political polarization making compromise and working together for common good an impossibility.
 “The country is gripped by a climate of division and distrust rivalled by few other moments in the recent past,” the New York Times reported recently.
One columnist, Thomas L. Friedman, wrote last week that he began his journalism career covering civil war in Lebanon but “I never thought I would end my career covering a civil war in America.”
It is not uncommon to hear or read opinions comparing what is happening today to the events leading to the 1861-1865 American civil war.
Historian Joanne B. Freeman wrote recently of how the U.S. political scene today is similar to the 1850s when Congress became embattled by the slavery crisis that caused Americans to fight each other roughly 150 years ago.
“In 2018, a crisis over different fundamentals — immigration, the rule of law, the status and safety of women and people of color — is doing much the same,” she wrote.
Most worrisome is the state of the U.S. Congress, which was designed by the founding fathers to be an oracle of debate, compromise and consent. It has fallen to the level of a cockfighting ring.
Writes Ms. Freeman:
“A dysfunctional Congress can close off a vital arena for national dialogue, leaving us vulnerable in ways that we haven’t yet begun to fathom.”
If Californians are worried about all this, a visitor would never know it. Things are cool and relaxed here.
The autumn sun is warm and bright, the end of the fire season is in sight and there have not been any recent earth tremors. Also, Fleet Week activities have just ended after providing a relaxing distraction from the nation’s problems.
Fleet Week is a celebration of the country’s naval forces. People stroll, sit and picnic along the beaches of San Francisco Bay while watching warships steam under the Golden Gate bridge and the Blue Angels aerial acrobat team performs loops and dives overhead.
Relaxed though they may be, people in this part of California cannot avoid the signs of turmoil.

Sunday I went to the historic Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland to see Fahrenheit 11/9, the anti-Trump film by Michael Moore. The marque announced that the theatre will not enforce the film’s R rating prohibiting anyone under 17 from viewing it. 
Accompanying the announcement was the following sentence: “Political discourse must not be stifled.”
After leaving the theatre I realized the importance of allowing all teenagers to see the film. Today’s teens are the ones who will have to work to put the ‘United” back into the United States of America.
I also realized the importance of the film to Canadians. We need to learn from America and clean up the way we do politics to ensure the same things don’t happen to us.
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Of mice and mice traps

There is a mouse population explosion this year.
Everyone I have talked to reports their traps clicking and clacking on a regular basis. My own traps are singing loudly and more often than in recent years.

The worst thing that can happen during a mouse outbreak is encountering the critters nose to nose. And, my nose met a mouse nose the other day.
I am not frightened by mice, but it was disconcerting when I opened a cupboard door and found one staring at me. Bulbous, penetrating eyes locked onto me demanding: “Who are you and why are you here interrupting my business?”
I don’t have any government studies or statistics to report how bad this year’s outbreak is. I don’t really care about the numbers. One mouse is one mouse too many.
Mice are believed to have a population cycle of four years. Their numbers hit a peak on Year Four then drop drastically before beginning a new cycle. The last major outbreak in Ontario was in 2014.
Milder winters and warm and dry summers also can be factors in increasing mouse populations. Mice are really into love making and breed as many as 10 times a year, producing six to eight offspring each time.
Mice are cute in photos. They can be dangerous, however, especially in cottage country. Deer mice, the species found in cottage country, carry Hantavirus which causes serious respiratory disease in humans.
Small numbers of deer mice carrying Hantavirus have been found in northern Ontario, including Algonquin Park.
Hantavirus in humans is relatively rare. Health Canada reports three or four cases a year across the country. However, it is out there being spread by mice and it can be extremely debilitating, even causing death.
Hantavirus is most commonly spread through mouse urine and droppings. The greatest danger to humans is in cleaning mouse-infested areas by vacuuming or sweeping, or other forms of raising dust. The virus is in the dust, which is inhaled into the lungs.
Experts caution that mouse messes should be cleaned with extreme care and face masks and rubber gloves always worn. After clean-up the area should be washed with a strong disinfectant.
Keeping mice out of a building is near impossible. They will find entry through the smallest crack or cranny.
Trapping is the most effective, albeit often unpleasant, solution to mouse problems.
There are dozens of different mouse traps, many touted by their manufacturers as magic solutions to mouse problems. The absolute best in my view is one that you make yourself.
It is the rolling log mice bucket. You drill holes on each side of a bucket rim and run a piece of dowel through the holes. Partly fill the bucket with water and coat the underside of the dowel with peanut butter.
Place the bucket in a spot where mice can climb onto the dowel. They walk the dowel, lean over to get the peanut butter, the dowel rolls and they tumble into the water and drown.
Car windshield washer or anything containing some alcohol can be used instead of straight water to slow the rotting of the dead mice. It also can prevent freezing if the bucket is used in an unheated area during winter.
The beauty of the rolling log bucket trap is that you never have to touch a dead mouse. Just dump the bucket, refill and reload and it is ready to trap more of the little beasts.
Mouse poison is not a good idea. Poisoned mice will crawl behind walls or other hidden spots and rot, spreading horrible odours.
Also, poisoned mice can get outside where they are easy targets for birds of prey such as owls, hawks and eagles. When these birds consume a poisoned mouse they are a getting dose of poison.
Some people on my lake have noticed an increase in raptors this year. One cottager has reported seeing three young bald eagles and in fact has a photo of one.
An increase in the number of birds of prey might be connected to the increase in mouse populations. These are magnificent birds and we need to do whatever we can to keep their populations safe.
Let them eat mice (unpoisoned)!
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Sunshine and Lollipops

Canada has become a place where people are busy all day, every day, without getting much done.
We have slumped into a preference for sitting at tables and debating, rather than lacing up work boots and getting back to building a better place. We are tied to the politics of inertia - at all levels of government. Stand still and argue while critical projects and important opportunities languish.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities reports that more than one-half of Canadian city-owned roads are in need of repairs, and that one-quarter of our waste water systems need billions of dollars in update spending.

The federal Parliamentary Budget Officer reported earlier this year that only 7.2 billion of $14.4 billion budgeted for a first phase of infrastructure updating had been spent.
Things are rotting and falling apart because we are too busy talking and not doing.
One prominent example of our inertia is the much discussed, much delayed pipeline expansion. We are losing billions of dollars because we can’t get more pipeline built to deliver one of our more valuable assets to market.
Most of our oil and gas goes to the United States at huge discounts because we don’t have the pipeline capacity to get it to international markets and their higher prices. We continue to debate, yet find it impossible to settle, our differences over more pipeline capacity and environmental concerns.
Another example is the time-and-dollars-consuming debate over reducing the size of Toronto city council by almost one-half. That debate rages on while Toronto continues to become the most unpleasant city in Canada and among the most unpleasant in North America.
Maybe Toronto needs a smaller city council. Maybe not. I don’t know but I do know that the country’s largest city has huge problems that affect many who do not even live there.
While they argue about the size of Toronto city council, one or more persons every day are victims of shootings, stabbings or beatings in the city. Gang violence is out of control and Toronto-area traffic is a nightmare most days. Subway and bus travel is not much better.
To folks on the outside looking in, Canada on the whole appears to be doing well. The prime minister is out there talking about all the right things -- inclusion, diversity, environment, disparity. Everything is sunshine and lollipops.
Meanwhile, we are grossly underperforming. Growth is stagnant, employment is lagging. A six-per-cent unemployment rate is nothing to brag about.
The strongest part of our economy is a credit card industry driven by low interest rates. Those will rise and when they do, you don’t want to even think about the consequences.
We Canadians need to pull our noses out of the flowers and get the country moving. The best way to start doing that is to change our attitudes about politics and the ways in which we do politics.
Politics here, and in the United States, have become far too polarized. Politics no longer is the art of the possible. It is the art of political theatre.
We need to get back to prioritizing what needs to be done and get doing it without hyper-partisan debates. We need to elect people who will do the right thing for the majority, not people who will do the right thing for their political party.
Anyone in politics should be free to review a position and change his or her mind without fear of being smeared as weak or disloyal. 
Most importantly, we the voters need to become more informed and rational. Taking time to understand issues and to see the value in opposing ideas is an important part of being a citizen, and critical to our democracy.
Winston Churchill was quoted as saying the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
Most of us are not nearly informed as we should be. We know what the problems are but solutions can be complex and require information culled from a variety of sources.  
Information is everywhere and easy to get to these days. We just need to spend a few minutes each day absorbing some of it.
When we buy a new car or a TV set we spend time researching the item. We need do the same for political issues.
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What’s with the birds?

He is a splash of brilliance on a gloomy, overcast day. Sunshine yellow body feathers standing out stunningly against deep black wings and forehead.
It has been a long time since I have seen a goldfinch at the feeder. They used to come in flocks, along with troupes of pine grosbeaks, nuthatches, chickadees and others. Not  any more, regretfully.
I am no expert, or even especially knowledgeable in the matter of birds. I sense, however, a general absence in numbers and species. They just are not around in large numbers any more, at least not at my lake place.
The lone goldfinch stays at the feeder a long time and the more I watch him, the more I wish we could talk. I’m sure he would have much to tell me about goings on in the bird world.
We cannot talk, of course, so I turn to a next best source, the State of the World’s Birds report 2018. The report was done by BirdLife International, a conservation group working to conserve birds, their habitats and global biodiversity.

“The data are unequivocal,” said Tris Allinson, BirdLife’s Senior Global Science Officer, and Editor-In-Chief of the report. “We are undergoing a steady and continuing deterioration in the status of the world’s birds. The threats driving the avian extinction crisis are many and varied, but invariably of humanity’s making.”
Forty per cent of the world’s 11,000 bird species are in decline, says the report. Forty-four per cent are holding steady, while seven per cent of species are increasing. The other eight per cent or so have unknown trends.
BirdLife believes that a mass extinction event is occurring, the sixth in the world’s 4.5-billion-year history. However it would be the first mass extinction driven by a single species. You guessed it – humans.
“Scientists estimate that species are disappearing at a rate 100 to 10,000 times faster than the natural rate,” says the report, “with perhaps dozens of species going extinct every day.”
Not all the news is bad. The seven per cent that are increasing is positive news even if some of the species create smelly messes in our parks and on our lawns. Conservation efforts are believed responsible for increases among those species.
Conservationists believe that 25 more bird species would have gone extinct in recent decades if not for massive conservation efforts by government and many individual groups.
You don’t have to go to school and take courses to understand what is killing the birds. Agriculture expansion and the use of insecticides is a main cause, followed by urbanization and logging and climate change, which is developing into a major future threat.
The BirdLife report says that the earth once held six trillion trees. The number now is believed to be three trillion and the report says the planet is losing 10 billion trees every day.
Saving trees and growing more of them is an important way to stop this tree loss, which is a huge factor is declining bird numbers.
Thankfully we live in a society that seems to understand that. Roughly two billion trees are planted every year in the United States and Canada.
BirdLife, along with the Wildlife Conservation Society and the World Wildlife Fund plans to have one trillion trees re-grown, saved from loss or receiving better protection by 2050.
The BirdLife report says that as well as saving and planting trees we need to restore more of birds’ other habitats and eradicate or control invasive species. It has been estimated that 1,500 of various animal, plant and insect species have become established outside their natural areas because of human acts, making them invasive species.
It is not hard to watch the decline of bird life, shrug and move along. There are many other things to think about. Our lives really haven’t been changed that much because the passenger pigeon or Dodo bird no longer exist.
However, what is happening to the birds is a warning for our planet. Some scientists believe that biodiversity on earth already has dropped to unsafe levels.
When one species of anything disappears, others are affected. We are all connected, humans, other animals, plants and insects. When some start disappearing, especially at the rate we see today, we all need to become concerned.

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The Tecumseh connection

During the week of mourning and tributes to U.S. Senator John McCain it was difficult not to make comparisons with the life of another American hero. Correction: North American hero.
That other was Tecumseh, the leader, warrior, diplomat and rebel who became a hero in both the United States and Canada. He was a man who did not recognize borders and believed that a peoples’ strength lies not in diversity, but in unity.
Connections to Tecumseh were present, but unnoticed, when McCain’s body lie in state in Washington’s Capitol building rotunda, and later at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland where the senator was buried.

Just below the Capitol building’s dome windows is a belt of recessed space with19 painted scenes from U.S. history. One of the scenes is ‘The Death of Tecumseh,’ depicting the Shawnee chief being shot during the War of 1812 Battle of the Thames in southern Ontario.
At the U.S. Naval Academy there is a bronze statue named Tecumseh. Midshipmen at the Academy often offer prayers and pennies to the statue in hope that it will bring them good luck in exams and sporting events.
Tecumseh lived at time (late 1700s) when Europeans were feverishly colonizing North America, grabbing lands Indigenous peoples had occupied for hundreds of years. These people lived in tribes, separated by distance and language, and had no central organization or leader to oppose colonization.
The horse, brought to the Americas by the Spanish conquistadors, and Tecumseh, born in a village along the Scioto River just south of modern-day Columbus, Ohio, changed that.
Tecumseh, a name generally believed to mean Shooting Star, travelled thousands of miles on horseback speaking passionately against colonization and attempting to build the pan-Indian movement begun by Joseph Brant, the Mohawk leader who supervised building of the Grand River Iroquois settlement now called Brantford, Ontario.
Tecumseh became a powerful orator who travelled relentlessly, urging tribes to join together to save their land and their culture.
He was a diplomat who turned fulltime warrior when he was betrayed by William Henry Harrison, the governor of Indiana Territory later elected president of the U.S. Harrison gave 12,000 square kilometres of Indigenous lands to settlers of Indiana and Illinois, an act which Tecumseh said was illegitimate and caused him to begin what now is known as Tecumseh’s War.
Immediately after Harrison’s land grab, Tecumseh allied himself with British Canada, which was about to enter the 1812 war against the U.S. Harrison’s troops chased Tecumseh and his warriors into Upper Canada, killing him and ending his confederacy near present day Chatham on Oct. 5, 1813.
Many years later, in 1840, Harrison was elected U.S. president. He caught pneumonia and died 31 days after his inauguration. Some attributed his death to ‘Tecumseh’s Curse’ placed on him by Tenskwatawa the Prophet, Tecumseh’s brother, for destroying the Indigenous way of life.
Tenskwatawa had said Harrison would die in office and when he did everyone would remember Tecumseh.
“. . . I tell you Harrison will die,” Tenskwatawa is reported to have said. “And after him, every chief (president) chosen every twenty years thereafter will die. And when each one dies, let everyone remember the death of our people."
Since Harrison’s death six presidents elected in 20-year intervals have died in office: Lincoln (elected 1860}, Garfield (1880), McKinley (1900), Harding (1920), Roosevelt (1940), Kennedy (1960).
Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980, was shot but survived. George Bush, elected 2000, was the first bypassed by the supposed curse.
None of this has any connection to the McCain funeral. There was, however, a strong connection between Tecumseh and McCain: both believed that tribal rivalries must be set aside to get things done for the common good. Strength is found in working together.
“A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is strong,” is a quote widely attributed to Tecumseh.
McCain was a strong, if sometimes conflicted, advocate of American indigenous affairs. He was the longest-serving member of the Senate committee on Indian affairs and twice its chair.
Something Tecumseh also said, although it is sometimes attributed to other Indigenous sources, would have been appreciated by Senator McCain:     
“Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”

Email: shaman@vianet.ca
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A matter of spirituality

There is vigorous debate over the effectiveness of the Pope’s recent letter acknowledging the Catholic Church’s failure to prevent priests from sexually abusing children.
The debate is worthwhile and warranted, however is it missing a key point: Should Catholics disgusted by these criminal events consider abandoning their religious institution?
I have some thoughts on that because I was abused by a priest, although not sexually.

It happened many years ago when I was  an altar boy preparing for Mass. I was in the sacristy with another altar boy and a visiting priest, who was late and in a tizzy as he gowned to go onto the altar.
The other kid and I were acting goofy, as young boys often do. I can’t recall what we were doing but it was something innocuous.
The priest grabbed my friend and tossed him toward the doorway leading onto the altar. He then turned on me and hit me hard across the face with his open hand. He tossed me into line and pushed the two of us out to begin Mass.
I was hurt and humiliated, so once on the altar I turned, stormed back into the sacristy, threw my surplus and cassock on the floor and went home.
My father was working in the yard when I arrived. He noticed I was upset and saw the red welt on my face. He soon had the story out of me, ordered me into the car and we drove back to the church.
We waited in the sacristy for Mass to end and when the priest came off the altar my father grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against the sacristy wall. I don’t remember my father’s exact words, but they were something very unchristian, like: “If you ever lay a hand on my son again, I will kill you.”
Leaving, I turned and saw the priest, holding his throat, slide down the wall to the floor. That was the end of the incident, except for my father’s lecture on goofing around before Mass.
As I matured I found other problems with the church. Dogmatic thinking regarding birth control, abortion, its treatment of women, and of course its scandalous involvement, with governments and other religious institutions, in the Indigenous residential school system.
I came to understand, however, that the church was yet another human institution, run by imperfect humans trying to do good but at times misdirected to the point of doing evil. The church was a guiding light, but I discovered that my own spirit could be an important and sometimes more reliable guide.
Also, I was never inspired by church trappings. The stained glass windows, the gilded statues, the towering sermons and the sweet scent of burning incense did little to arouse religious fervour.
What did inspire me, and still does, are the people in the pews. Over time these have been family, friends and others who without fuss or pretensions radiate decency and humility. Imperfect people but people you admire and wish to be like.
I did not let a disturbed priest or other mistakes of the institutional church drive me away. I still go and sit in a pew, reflecting and thinking of those people and the people now around me.
They come for different reasons, anchored by various levels of belief and fervour, none of which is my business. My business is to reflect on who I am and how I should be living my life.
I don’t have to go to church to do that, but I do. I can do it where the statues are trees, the stained glass windows are mists rising off a still lake and the hymns are a breeze in the trees and a loon calling in the distance.
As Albert Einstein is reported to have said: "Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."
As I stare through treetops into a night sky I understand that I have an individual spirit to help guide me through the dark forests of life. I also understand that as powerful and important as I believe my spirit is, somewhere in that starlit sky is a greater spirit, more knowing and more powerful than mine.

Email: shaman@vianet.ca
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