Going to the Polls #1

Here in Alberta, it's election time. Last time we had a Provincial election, 60% of voters stayed home. Perhaps that's because the same party (Conservative) has been in power for forty years. That's right, effectively a one party non-democracy.

Howe ever, the Conservatives have done some stupid things recently, the most dramatic of which is letting people find out that one Parliamentary Committee, which hasn't met since 2008, pays each member $1000 per month, just for being on the committee. Do the math: $36000+ each. The Chair, our MLA, is paid $1500 a month - that's $54000+ !

There is a new party on the map here, the Wildrose Alliance (the wild rose is the provincial flower), an even further right wing party than the Conservatives. Other parties, more to the left, are Liberal, New Democrat, and The Alberta Party. All are peripheral in Alberta.

The pundits tell us that the Cons and the Wildrose party are currently neck-and-neck in the polls. The Conservatives new leader, the first female Premier in Alberta, seems a good head, and a sort of "Red Tory" if such a thing exists. The southern rural vote will lean heavily toward the Wildrose, we are told.

The two leaders, Alison Redford and Danielle Smith, are both highly intelligent and very well spoken. It sounded like it would be a really good campaign, with policy and philosophical differences getting aired pretty freely. In the opening shot of her campaign, the Premier stated that her party desired change and growth for Alberta, a move away from the same old way of doing things. (Sounded strange from a party that's been in power for four decades!)

Then the tone plunged…a deep plunge. Smith's response to this ststement was "The Premier doesn't like Albertans! She wants us to become someone else…she wants to change us! I like us just the way we are!" Public response was strongly negative to the "negative quote" strategy that appeared to unfolding from the Wildrose people. People phoned in to radio shows saying, "hair pulling has no part in an election"…"Smith blew that one! It's playground stuff." And so forth.

I guess I'm naive. I actualy thought that with two intelligent women running the main contenders, we might actually have a civilized, thoughtful and intelligent campaign. Apparently, 'a politician is a politician is a politician', ad nauseum. I'm waiting, as are many thousands of others, to see how the Premier and the Conservative Party respond to this stuff. But I'm not holding my breath! As Grandma Black used to say, back in the day, "More anon…"

Town Centre

We are currently engaged in a struggle between winter and spring. One day, lots of wet snow. The next, three days of warm winds and lots of melt. Today it is 0° C, right on the cusp, damp and grey and chilly, with a warm afternoon promised.

In our school district, it is "March Break" - what used to be "Easter Break" when I was a child. This means that the movie theatre if full most nights, and Tim Horton's is overfull most days. Tim's usually attracts a large group of elders - seniors, retired farmers, people on days off. This week, there is the added load of adolescents when jam into booths, order outrageous drinks and fries from Wendy's next door, and either talk of play with their phones for an hour.

It's quite a jolly and eclectic place, the closest thing to "town centre" that we have in Ponoka. Down in the centre of the old business district, there is a little coffee shop that could be the Town centre, except that there is nowhere to ark, and this is a car and truck (mostly truck) town. The little place makes nice lunches, but is generally funeral-ly quiet.Kiss of death, unless you want to read the paper in peace.

Tim Horton's is out on Highway 2A, the road that rips right through the middle of town.Central it is, these days. It's build on an old swamp where some of the men who coffee there caught frogs when they were boys, and love to tell you about it! The Premier dropped in the other afternoon as part of the start up of her election campaign. She has work to do to hold this riding, after the MLA pay scandal of recent weeks.

It seems to be a universal fact of small town life on the prairies that in each place, no matter how small and fading, there is one place that dominates the coffee circuit. Here in Ponoka, it's Tim's. There is a MacDonald's - mediocre business; there is an A&W, busy early AM, there is the downtown Coffee Hut, quiet most of the time.

How do people decide which place it will be? What factors go into the choice they make? Two things seem to figure in the decision here. First off, it's highly visible, and there's easy access from two directions. Secondly, Tim's is associated with hockey. Sidney Crosby's picture looks large. Before that, an old black-and-white of the original Tim Horton pulled in the old boys. How long this will last for them is anybody's guess. It looks like "forever," but we know that sooner or later, something will change, and everything will shift.

Which seems to be the one certainty that can be gleaned from life currently: 'something will change, and everything will shift.' Reading and reflecting on 'The Hunger Games' phenomenon underlines that statement heavily. In the story, this recurring fact moves the story along, and seems guaranteed to help young adults identify with that fact cum bromide, and ponder the ways they might influence those changes. (I hope it prompts some of the +18's to VOTE in April, in the Provincial elections. Last election, only 2 out of five eligible voters cast a ballot, a poorer percentage that even Afghanistan can boast!)

Much of the time in Alberta, the general population is sitting back on its heels, and change is initiated by "the establishment" - the Province or Big Oil. Most of the prosed changes that 'slide through' involve the  gradual eroding of individual rights, or safety. At the moment, it's all about "fracking." I'll attempt to explain fracking next time

The "Hunger" Games

This is the weekend of The Hunger Games! Thursday midnight (and in some places, also at 3 AM), it opened all over the country. Even in our little rural theatre. Went Friday evening ($14.00 for two tickets plus popcorn), every kid in town took in the midnight show. The movie was excellent, for a young adult crowd. Also for me. I've almost finished book one, and I'd say it is quite faithful to the novel.

What is so impressive to me is how Suzanne Collins has captured and explicated so many of today's current issues for young people. Among them, the expanding gap between the very wealthy and the very poor, the emphasis politically on social control and repression of "radical" ideas. The notion of sacrificing the young as a means of control and as a means of entertaining the populace also struck me. The prevalence and popularity of so-called "reality" TV is mirrored in the book. The adulation and pressure put on youthful sports heroes, even at the cost of their health and/or lives, struck a chord. "Hunger" was a literal theme in the book. It's clear that our young people express a number of "hungers" in their lives currently. How will they express those as we move into a less secure future? What steps will be taken to control and/or suppress those hungers? Take the Donald Sutherland character - Mr. Control and rule - and put his beard on Stephen Harper and you have, voila, our country as it stands today.

In these ways, and others as well, I think one could look at The Hunger Games as a parable, a message to today's young people. In the movie, anything that allows youth to "band together" - even love and affection - is deemed radical and threatening to the Establishment and is punished. My thoughts went immediately to the "Occupy…" movement. Lots of young people, protesting the extravagance and waste of the inordinately rich, the entitled, the "in-charge" people; these kids and their supporters were branded as dangerous radicals, those who threaten  the status quo, who had to be disbanded and arrested so they would be off the TV screens. I can't help but wonder if others will make these connections and push them as the books become more widely read, and the movies become cult hits.

As it stands, I'm almost done book one, and have two and three on my Kindle, waiting to be read, ASAP. I'm sure I'll think more on this, and have more to share.

Winter…kills

Wednesday last was the first day of spring - "the vernal equinox." It had been lovely for a few days…and then Thursday it snowed, overnight. Friday it snowed more. We suuddenly has a beautiful white covering of wet and heavy snow. Evening came, and slowly ice began to form under the snow, and we had…slick!

Quite a shock for the spring-hopers. For me, quiet, internal pleasure. I am really a winter person. The chill of a wind, the bite of the cold temperature, the crunch of snow under my feet; this is where I am most at home. My spoken rationale is that summer heat bothers me and it's much more difficult to escape. Well…air conditioning is a help, but only if the humidity is low. In winter, one van always keep the cold at bay with the correct gear - parka, mitts. long johns - and by moving, walking, shovelling. So I'm actually pleased with a fresh cover of snow. I even shovelled it, rather than hauling out the blower. That was a bit risky to do, given the state of my back, but it was exhilarating, and it keep me warm!

Today, the snow remains - it was -15 degrees Celsius last night - but there is lots of ice, making driving a whole different thing. There were many street accidents In Edmonton after the snow arrived. In just two days, everyone forgets how to drive in winter! It amazes me how the arrival of snow helps people disengage their brains before the dazzle and excitement of fresh powder. Sometimes this is annoying. At other times it can be fatal. The other night, five people were tooling around open fields on a snowmobile in the late afternoon or early evening - the light had faded and was poor. They had lost track of just where they were on the fields, so they were totally unprepared when their speeding toy shot off the top of a an embankment, six metres above the highway! That's over 19 feet above pavement. Three of the five were killed, the other two seriously injured. One couple of the deceased were planning a wedding in the near future, and the young woman was bearing her first child. Joy and inattention helped a toy to kill three people. The definite downside of winter, assisted by human folly. Just as the heat can kill in the summer if the conditions are right, and people aren't protected, so also winter can kill if one isn't prepared for it, or inattentive to its implications.

At various times during this winter, there have been stories of snowmobilers attempting to race up mountainsides in the soft powder, despite warnings of the avalanche dangers prevailing at that time. A number of men have been killed in this manner since last fall.

People who live in desert regions or near the equator, learn early the ways that a person can survive in the heat. I well remember my beloved friends Vincent, from Madras, India, always keeping his head covered in summer - even in Canada. So it surprises me when Canadians, who have lived with winter their whole lives and with the experience of generations gone by, "forget" or ignore the perils of the season.

All this aside, I still love the season. I have always felt that I was a child of winter. Perhaps that comes from being born in December, although I'm sure there are all sorts of "December babies" who long for summer as soon as the snow flies. But I'm not one of them.

Changing seasons, maybe

Twice a year we have solstices - summer and winter. Twice a year we have equinoxes - spring and fall. These are astronomical events having to do with the angle of the sun's light hitting earth, or the distance of the sun from our part of the globe. Brief, and non-scientific descriptions, but good enough for today.

Whether or not there is a scientific basis for this or not, I am virtually always affected by the equinox and the solstice - more by the former. Usually, I feel out of sorts for a day or two, sometimes I get quite depressed for no discernible reason. Most of the time I have to be reminded of the seasonal event afterwards, when I am trying to figure out what I've been going through. There is always a little inward "aha" that I experience when I 'get it.'

I wonder if any other people have this experience, or if it's completely idiosyncratic. It always puzzles me, but I am usually relieved to discover that there might be some "reason" for my brief dip in mood and feelings. Leading up to this most recent equinox - March 20, Tuesday last - I experienced a two day headache. This hasn't been an experience I've 'enjoyed' since my migraine days, over 25 years ago. Advil didn't help, but it wasn't debilitating. I just hurt, like there was something heavy on my mind. Of course, I was also suddenly depressed, and a little paranoid about some things. Weird. Does anyone else go through this? Is there any objective basis for this, or am I truly just…weird?

In any case, this morning - Thursday, March 22 - I feel much differently. Fine, even. Although I have, for inexplicable reasons, changed my morning habits! (You can't imagine how fixed and rigid my morning habits usually are!) No walk - "I'll go later, just before lunch, in the light." Really? Not first thing? Wow!

Now, those few of you who follow these ramblings will be sure that I am weird. Such a little thing, so firmly fixed, so "odd" to do. Like, who cares? Like, I usually do! So, I'm shrugging and saying to myself, "Oh well, even James can make a few little changes. Perhaps it simply evolution, working its wonders on even me, old and fixed as I am."

So to day, after I work out in the pool, and have a talk with my pastor, I will take the North trail for an hour, hopefully before the snow begins (Oh, yes, we're getting snow. Not spring yet, despite the equinox.) I will actually start looking to see if there is any basis in science for my current weirdness. It would be nice to gave some reason to be so…odd. Wouldn't you agree?

Sunday, bloody Sunday

This morning I conducted worship and preached at my spouse's church. Yes, she is a minister. Like me. Only quite different. The congregation that sponsored her when she went into ministry is having their 50th anniversary, and she wanted to attend. I offered to fill in for her so she could go. For me, it was a loving gift, and it had a cost.

I was very nervous about doing this, because I feel so ambivalent about her congregation. I have felt that since before we moved here. In the letter they sent her confirming the "call to their pulpit," They made it clear that they were calling her and not me. At one level I completely understood that statement. I had  profile in the Conference. Because of my teaching position in the Health Care system, I was somebody of some importance. They simply outlined the boundaries.

At another level, I felt quite distanced by that sentence, even rejected. I was hurt that they thought they had to even say such a thing. Did they not think I would be aware of that issue? So from the start, I felt apart from them. In the almost nine years we have been here, I have had very little to do with them. I attend worship from time to time, but I have worked enough that this has not been a regular thing. I did some "supply preaching" for them when Beatrix had her surgery a couple of years ago. They paid me, as they should. This weekend, i did it for her, and I don't expect them to compensate me. I'm sure they will not offer.

My ambivalence toward them has increased over the years. I feel they treat my spouse badly. She gets very little feedback from them, and almost no positive feedback. They rarely thank her for anything. They are also quick to criticize her work. It situations where she needs support, her Council rarely supports her. I easily become annoyed with them. So I was nervous this morning, not sure if I really wanted to be there, but sure that I wanted to support my spouse.

I'm actually relieved that so few people read this blog, because I use it - like today - for very personal musings. I actually don't want the world to know about me. Whoever reads this should be aware that I am quite raw when I write, and I hold you as special; you are my confidant. I have to trust you. This is not easy for me.

Although I can be very outgoing and seem quite extroverted, I am actually a very deep introvert. I share little of myself with people. I grind my gears privately, and put a good face on it. Perhaps some of you are like that. I hope so, because you might understand and appreciate what I have written.

There are times when I feel that someone who has reached my "advanced years" ought to have all this figured out and be ,ore at peace with it. Not me. I may be old, but I do not feel wise. Only experienced. And old. I will be glad when Beatrix comes home tomorrow. I miss her a lot when she is away. She is a huge part of my world. Enough already!

The best of movies

Saturday morning, dark and blustery. Windy with a hint of snow in the air. NOT spring yet. My spouse is away in another city at an anniversary, so I am holding down the work front until Monday morning. Empty house, but some surprises have made it just fine. I spent the day in Red Deer yesterday, getting some errands run, and brought home two really good bottles of scotch…also  inexpensive… a real find.

The high point of the weekend so far has been the quality acting I watched through two movies. The Descendants with George Clooney, and My Week With Marilyn revealing a surprisingly gifted Michelle Williams.

George Clooney is 'head' of a completely dysfunctional family, with a wife who is terminally injured and about to die. He discovers that's she has been on the brink of leaving him - has been conducting an affair - and he is under pressure to sell a huge chunk of family land that will make "everyone" rich. All against the backdrop of Hawaii. The various tensions in the movie swirl around Clooney, and he demonstrates the internal struggle superbly. The Hawaiian backdrop is disconcerting, as it should be. Really bad things happen to people, even in paradise. Watching Clooney at the top of his acting game was a treat. He was genuine and real in his portrayal. Grade A.

Michelle Williams was/is an unknown quantity for me. I never watched Dawson's Creek, so I had never seen her act.She does Marilyn Monroe with wonderful realism. The story is a true one, taken from Colin Clark's diaries. He was the junior director on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl, which Monroe made with Laurence Olivier. The Marilyn we have learned about through various biographies over the decades was all there; captivating and heart-meltingly gorgeous, terrified and insecure beyond belief, and desperately needing to believe that whichever man was in front of her loved her more than anything. She was in her third marriage at that point (Arthur Miller), but that was rapidly falling apart. Colin, the junior, became her fiend, and she skipped out on the production for a few days with him. They were buds at least, perhaps more. But she needed the total attention, and that "week" appeared to save the movie making afterward.

Williams portrayal was stunning, both visually and personally. She "did" Marilyn with great confidence, and reminded old geezers like me just what Marilyn did to men when she turned on the charm. We didn't know till later how damaged she was, how twisted was her sense of self. Williams showed us that beautifully.

I think I found these two experiences so satisfying because I've been watching movies that were less than well done, less than well acted - crap, in fact. These were genuine acting performances, against real backdrops, revealing genuine people. It was as if they grounded me for a time. I had, for example, the best sleep in weeks last night after watching them.

The whole thing reminds me how i miss the old Family Therapy days, the times doing therapy where helping to unravel a personal mystery wrapped in a family's life was so engaging and enjoyable. It took 30 years off my age! I guess that is what movies, at their best, are intended to do: engage one so that life changes, even for a time. It worked last night.