I like picking a line here, or a line or two there, and adding my own two-bits-worth to it.....May I? Please? (It's your blog, Ray - whatever makes you giggle!)
Justin Trudeau cannot bridge this chasm.
Alas, Dear Reader, Justin is not a 'Chasm-bridger' nor is he a 'Chasm-jumper'. He is a plotter of nefarious plots intended to make indigenous cabinet ministers the goat for failed plans to let crooked associates off the hook for corruption and bribery in the multi-millions of dollars dating back decades. He moves slowly, in little steps, and one does not jump a chasm in increments but in one swell foop! And swell fooping is not his strong point. Get the picture?
Public acknowledgements that we stand on stolen land are common.
"O Canada! Our Home on the Natives' Land..."
Wokeness means that when it comes to race and gender issues, many of us are stranded on a different planet from our younger colleagues and our kids.
I'd like to go back to that small foreign planet with the domed cities and the laser-beam power transmission system that I landed on in my little battle-weary spacecraft, one interesting night in 1979..... Everyone I'd ever known were all collected under one of those domes, partying because I had survived to return. I landed the craft next to the airlock, and as I entered, there was cheer, and a lovely creature I thought I'd forgotten from grade 5 in public school, now all delightfully grown up, handed me a tall cool drink, kissed my cheek, and said 'Welcome Home, Ray!' to applause from the surrounding mob.....and then I woke up. Damn! I want to go back there, and finish that party....
The morally outraged disagree. They think the quarrel over the term 'genocide' is just a sideshow that distracts us from our refusal to see what's really going on.
So what's really going on? There's plenty of disingenuosity to go around, Kiddies. There's no shortage on either side of the issues here. Sure, there's Reserves in the hinterlands located where no paleface with any of the social graces would choose to live, where services like clean potable water are lacking, and decent medical care is hundreds of miles away by aircraft. Unconscionably primitive. Alternatively, a few blocks down the street here, nearer the waterfront, we have the richest 'buckskins' in Canada! They own the land on which sits the north end of our Lions Gate Bridge, and a nearby portion of their Reserve contains the southern half of our Park Royal Mall complex, now rapidly becoming its own little city, and from which, said 'buckskins' receive rent to the tune of millions annually. I was in one of the upscale stores there one day last winter, and struck up a conversation with one of the 'landlords' walking through, with his long grey pigtail down his back, and a contemplative look on his face.
I said, "How's your day going so far?" He replied, "Could be better - how about you?" I said, "About the same as you.... How do you feel about all the big changes they're making here to the Mall?" He replied, "It's quite impressive, but I don't live around here. I'm a member of this local band, but I live in Seattle. We don't need passports to cross the border, you know - we just go, like there's no border there at all for us. I'm just up here visiting my sister who isn't well."
So I said, "And she has a lot better health care up here than you do in Seattle, I betcha!" And he said, "Like you, I'm no spring chicken any more either, so when I need really serious health care, I don't mess around in Seattle, I get my ass back to Canada!" And I said, "Could I possibly convince you to pack up and move back here?" And he said, "No, you probably couldn't because I've got the best of both worlds right now, and I'm not yet sick enough to need steady serious medical care - but I will be back here one day, you can bet on that!" We wished each other a nice day, and thanked each other for the chat, and away we each went. Like I say, there's more to this story than meets the eye. You should rub elbows with the participants more often, to get to it.
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