the peanut-butter dilemma and other musings from a horrified Canadian
What to say? The attacks against my country from the lunatic and his vile team continue. And although we should not compare too much with Germany in the thirties, still, watching the Repugs during the State of the Union (the few minutes I could bear to watch) stand and cheer for a stream of lies, self-aggrandizing boasts, schoolyard taunts, and bullying – it must be what most Germans felt watching their politicians cave to Hitler, no? No, Trump’s not targeting Jews, in fact the reverse, sending billions more in arms to Israel to smash Gaza while ignoring Ukraine. Instead, he’s targeting Canada, top of the list, and immigrants. His enemies.
On FB, I shared an excerpt of a superb, must-read essay, The Rise of Corporate Monarchy, by Shane Almgren, illuminating what’s at stake here – that the billionaires and tech bros, Musk, Vance, Peter Thiel, and a shadowy monster called Curtis Yarvin, are absolutely out to destroy democracy and its governments. They see themselves and their goal of domination as the future, and we the people are in their way, the useless lumpen past.
Elsewhere, Canadians are taking seriously the possibility that Canada will be invaded, either by the Americans or the Russians. And that Trump’s empowering of Putin will lead to more Russian incursions into Eastern Europe.
Okay, on that cheery note, let’s move on. To escape, I am burying myself in rich and rewarding reading. You know about my time in Mexico City with John Irving. I did not confess that I was perhaps the only person in the western world who had not read a single one of his many bestselling books. It wasn’t a deliberate oversight — it’s just that I read mostly nonfiction. But now I am reading Garp and loving it. What a delectable book, what a skilful, imaginative writer; he plunges us in from the first paragraph and never lets up. An exhilarating joyride.
But now a challenger: a friend sent a Guardian article about Helen Garner, an Australian writer famous there and not well-known here, so I ordered a volume of her published diaries and Everywhere I Look, a book of essays, from the library. Instant bond with a kindred spirit; she’s marvellously honest, self-deprecating, funny — wise and all-too-human. Inspiring.
On top of that, another library book came in at the same time: 25 great sentences and how they got that way, by Geraldine Woods. So much reading, to take my mind off the horror of world affairs.
I’m glad our prime-minister has had a chance to show the world, and Canadians, his best side during this last crisis. He has many flaws, but it’s incontrovertible that he has a good heart and has done many good things. And he’s not bad to look at, either. If only he’d taken speech lessons and not indulged that annoying breathiness, he might have endured less ridicule.
Grocery shopping the other day took ten minutes longer, checking each label to be sure it’s not from the States. I do have a moral dilemma though – the peanut butter I adore, Adams, is American, a former family company bought by J. M. Smuker. I’m a connoisseur of pb, was such a fussy eater throughout childhood that pb kept me alive and has continued to do so — I have a piece of pb toast each night before bed, a final comfort. I do not want to give up my Adams and have decided some American products are produced by GOOD PEOPLE who should not be singled out by boycott. Anyone who produces a product this wholesome is a good person, I am sure of it, and in fact just checked: J. M. Smuker scores high in initiatives for employee fairness and racial equity. Phew!
But everything else is up for grabs.
And finally – I was in the gym as usual on Wednesday, in Carole’s class; she does something different, with new music, each time. We were doing lunges when I had one of those moments of blinding clarity — how glad I was to be there, lunging to music in my stretchy clothes in the big bright shabby Y gym, surrounded by a bunch of sweaty fellow exercisers I’ve known for years and in some cases decades. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” I thought, tears prickling my eyes. Ridiculous, I know. But not a bad thing to be grateful, often, everywhere, even in the gym.
I’m grateful Canadians are banding together as never before and that perhaps this is a wake-up call about the fascists billionaires aiming to kneecap our world. A sea change. Will we be able to fend them off? Stay tuned.
This is from one of my favourite writers, Oliver Burkeman’s book Four Thousand Weeks, which I loved, as I loved his new one Meditations for Mortals. Four Thousand Weeks is urging us to make good use of our limited time on earth. Bone-chilling though — I’m in the second-last row. Quick — the comfort of peanut butter!
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