Oh Canada in the World.

New Year, new life, new job, news, no gnus...whatever. This is the year that is and I pleased to be in a cooler clime and in vision once again. My homeland as foreign land. Whatever could be better? Viz.... this take on racism alongside the Atlantic. Or this forever narrative of First Nations suffering while at best the rest ignore, if not enable. How about how we always blame Americans for everything? Even humming. Thanks Al Jazeera English.

Cold Gold

Welcome to this world, temporarily mine. It's Dawson City, Yukon, Canada. This image is from some weeks ago and much has changed. The dominant beast of winter has emerged triumphant which is no bad thing. That river below is a white wilderness of twisted ice floes and the town and hills gleam white in rare bouts of sunshine. The days get shorter and darkness is our external state most of the time. But only on the outside. Within, this is a welcoming, lively, fascinating, occasionally provocative place. It seethes with art and ideas. Men and some women still scoop gold from ancient creek beds in those folded hills behind me. Indigenous communities develop their lives and culture in relative harmony with incomers, like me. Yes, it's cold, very cold, and getting colder. The cold is almost alive, a presence to be considered, respected. Warmth is more valuable than gold and friendship better than diamonds. We are lucky people.

Back

Here we sit. Post summer of severe challenge and roller-coaster emotions, we contemplate trauma. Post trauma, we wonder what lies ahead. What test or surprise or challenge to complacency. Sometimes you think you've been through what you've been through. Much of the time you just go through it. Or so it seems on the far side of a potentially vicious curve, a pass between the Vale of Despond and the Great Unknown. Take that world. You don't lose us yet. We just be scum in the multitudinous surface film coating this rock in space, but we cling. What else could we do?

The truth about money

This is not from the left. Nor the paranoid right. But it is the truth.  Money has taken over everything. And its current bout of flu is infecting us all. The correctives applied in Washington, London, Ottawa and elsewhere are aimed at propping up money. They are not meant to make things right. To correct the vast imbalances of the past decades will take more than public funds pumped into private coffers. In fact that's entirely the wrong way to go about it. The coming shakedown will affect the changes but our governments and money managers will be behind the curve. We don't matter all that much. Read this and see what I mean. But don't stop there. Read more and blog, share, post and think. It's got to come from us, our ilk, the mobs and masses and wise crowds who know, truly know, that everything being done now to stave off an already arrived disaster is wrong. Disastrous in itself because it bankrupts the future. Stop. Enough. 

Isn't it time?

For countries like Canada to get rid of the notion of foreign heads of state? See Rick Mercer's take.

I mean, I thought we (and Australia and New Zealand) were sovereign independent states. Turns out we're not. We make our new citizens swear allegiance to a German-Greek-vaguely north European British family that mostly lives in London and Scotland. Why?

Money. No Money.

For the take, for the ideas expressed simply and in ways we all can understand. May I suggest  this blog. As we go down the tubes, it will make the swirling maelstrom more manageable.

Ghostly dampness at year's end

Yes, it's that time. Again. And we wonder, and we shiver, and we worry. Rightly so. There's much to worry about. The near, middle and medium-long terms are all payback for the scoundrel times we've already endured. With, of course, scoundrels getting off scot-free. Yet there are those who believe otherwise. May they be right. I don't think so but what do I know?

The Nut

Let's get one thing straight right away. They won. They almost always do. What happened in Mumbai could happen almost anywhere. Murderous, suicidal, young male rage with weapons and ammo -- nothing can stop it without an extraordinary measure of foreknowledge or luck. India had neither so carnage and fear metastisized. Ugly, tragic, inevitable. So much blood and loss, so little wisdom or real determination to change things. For one thing, why did no one see this coming? Not this specifically but the likelihood of such a thing? Details are superfluous but evil intent is a known known. To point quivering fingers of blame beyond India's borders is to guarantee it will happen again. To behave like the Bush Administration post 9-11 is to speed up that inevitability. Preventing, heading off, combatting terror isn't about crackdowns or hard vs. soft response. It isn't about other countries or governments. It's about planning, homework, painstaking research, open minds, outside-the-box thinking. I'm positive that none of these things will happen in India or anywhere else. This beast has legs and it's picking up speed.

Good bandwagons

Yeah. This is a good one.


And you know what? We need to be aboard to make sure it steers well and to our advantages, our joint advantages. Bring him on, and more importantly, bring on the agenda that counts. Broad agreement folks, no whining about center-this or centrist-that. Go for good outcomes, however long it takes and let's brace ourselves for a world that maybe peoples' descendants don't have to pay and suffer for, forever. A planet without civilians being constantly bombed as a sick video game becomes a substitute for statesmanship. A globe of striving to resolve conflict and challenge, not exacerbate them. A joint commons that is enhanced not plundered. Not that one fellow - however exceptional - should have that weight on those admittedly broad shoulders. But if it doesn't even begin to work this time, then I'm joining the Maoists. Okay? You listening DC?

India Express rocks India!!

The book hit Indian shelves on September 30th and is getting excellent reviews, not least on the New Delhi cocktail circuit. Here's what Zee News had to say.
India Abroad News Service had some interesting views. Businessworld talks to the author and asks some tough questions!! And here's a piece from the Sakaal Times. My friend and admired fellow writer, Pavan K. Varma, was very kind in India's best newsmagazine, Outlook. And finally, my hometown paper, the Toronto Star, liked the book. Why not check it out for yourself!!

The United States edition. Get it here. Read what
Bloomberg’s Jim Pressley had to say. Kirkus Reviews said
that India Express "makes a convincing and thoroughly readable case for India’s claims to be “the next liberal superpower."

India Express: the future!

It's a book. Published by Penguin Canada. You can get it here. And here too. It's just out. I like it, but I have to -- I wrote it. Stay tuned. More to come. Honest reviews welcome and will be posted. Life's like this. Ya know????

Easing up

A year creeps in, a personal best of aging as ever. Time's march has no reference point save time itself. Winter's grip tightens, flexes, quivers a bit. It's supposed to be change's turn. We wait and watch and bait our breath. Perhaps the end of night is nigh, perhaps the letter "t". We may find out. We may not. I sit and ponder shenpa. Hooked. Attached. And loving it. Maybe, just maybe chance breeds change. But maybe too it doesn't. We find out by finding out. I bluster and blather and treasure every moment of laughter. Such as they are. Change. Please. Soon.
Please.

Carlin's ever relevant take