Everything is Amazing

 To what have we allowed ourselves to become accustomed? Only at divorce time do I ask this more than I do during the Christmas/New Year's season. I have not had the chance (and that word was chosen assiduously) to become accustomed to marriage or its spouse divorce but had I done, I am almost certain that I would have contemplated this question to distraction. Legally it should never come to bear given that to all outward appearance it is within the human nature to become accustomed to wild and obscene extremities like cohabitation and all of its trappings with ONE person for the majority of one's life, having a billion (or to my mind even a million) dollars, or behaving in customary fashion and observing the same customs every day, week, month, year, or lifetime. Why, I guess I'm asking, has it become customary to largely forego the customization of our existence and make customs customary?

Existence is a funny thing, isn't it? We don't exist for an eternity, then we exist for a blip of time before we return to eternity. We're dead forever, live a short time, then we're dead forever again. Life, then, is a miraculous, unfathomable break or separation of eternity. In our mortal minds it would seem impossible to reach the end of an infinitely long road or put a tail on an infinitely long snake or find the beginning or end of a circle. Yet here we are doing it! We're privileged to be experiencing something insanely paradoxical as a break in eternity. The beginning of the solution to the bewildering enigma of infinity has been gifted to us and what have we done with it? What do we do with our victory over the tens to hundreds of million fellow swimmers who accompanied us to the egg and said, "No, you first. I insist." Maybe those aquanaut acquaintances thought we were ready for this. Were they right or wrong?

But back to marriage. Or more to the point the end of it because despite our best (or sometimes our second, third or hundredth best) efforts, unlike that infinitely long snake, most marriages have a tail end. The end of the tale of romance, whatever we customize that custom to be, that comes in a courtroom surrounded by legal representatives whose business it really ought to be none of but who have made it theirs and have made their business indispensable. What the hell can any mortal being do anymore without an attorney? So to borrow a poignant phrase from the movies, the law firm of "This is Mine and That is Yours" tries to judiciously (or if they're not proud (which I mean - ppfffttt - they're lawyers!) GREEDILY) decide to what exactly the victorious party in the proceedings has become accustomed. That REALLY should make us all go "Hmmmmm...." and marvel at this custom to which we have become accustomed. How have we gotten into the custom of accepting anyone, or worse, ourselves saying, "I want the single life that was my former custom, but I want to customize it with as many of the customs to which I have become accustomed during marriage as I can." Just one of the myriad oddities of our customary lives of acquisitiveness I suppose. 

Which leads us to Christmas. If you are not Christian, and to a lesser extent even if you ARE, Christmas, you gotta admit, is an oddity. This holiday season we refer to as "merry," "joyous," even "gay" not long ago though that has become uncustomary, seems to be a yearly heaping of responsibility, expense, traditions, and customs upon ourselves that has snowballed so far out of control as to sap a goodly chunk of that merry, joyous and gay positivity right the hell out of it! 

"Should we have ham or turkey or both; what's ___ getting me; what could I get ___ of equal value; what could I get ___ of lesser value; where can Gramma and Grampa sleep; will they bring their cat; how will their cat react to our dogs; will ___ make her disgusting Jell-O mold; where could I put this garland; where could I put this ribbon; where could I put this wreath; who could I re-gift this fruitcake to; should we visit Uncle ___ and Aunt ___; will I get a Christmas bonus; will I get paid before Christmas; will I be able to work overtime during Christmas; what Christmas movies should we watch; is "Die Hard" a Christmas movie; what about Rambo; who's playing football; who's playing hockey; should I put apples in the stuffing; should we have a real tree; would ___ be offended if we had a real tree; how can I polish the good silver; will ___ notice if we don't dust; how much will the electricity bill be; how are we going to fit everybody in the car; is this custom really worth it any more or should I just go Buddhist??????????

The pressure we put on ourselves! You know who would undoubtedly tell us to relax before we start stroking out? Jesus! Right, the Christ from Christmas. You KNOW he would! While shaking his head and smacking his forehead at how much further from the original observances, traditions and CUSTOMS Christmas can be pushed this year. Has it become a custom to make Christmas more UNcustomary every Christmas?

Over my many years I have observed almost a step-for-step parallel to THAT custom but in reverse. Something that we have made a custom of making MORE customary every year is our use of technology. Is it too soon to refer to it as our "dependence" on it yet? I am starting to think not. I was recently talking about the internet with a young man who has made IT his career goal and is studying it in university now. He reminds me of two quantum physicists I met while working in Victoria. They regularly had coffee and chatted with me. They both realized that the more they learned about the physical world, the LESS they understood. They told me they had originally assumed that studying matter would lead to a greater understanding of everything but for both it led to a greater awe at the miraculous and UNexplainable nature of everything. The one take-away quote that I have mentioned in many a conversation from these two physicists was, "The very rudiments of science are nebulous at best." Today this young tech-savvy student told me that the very building blocks of the internet are just as shaky. So enjoy reading this while you can!

This got me to thinking about what we would do without it. It gave me a warm and cozy feeling all over. I can't say the same for the other participant in our conversation. This is a person who wakes up to her phone alarm, turns on a podcast and listens to it through her Bluetooth earbuds while she pours herself a coffee from a coffeemaker that is synched to her device to brew 10 minutes before her alarm. She texts and answers texts while putting on her makeup. She then loads her son into her vehicle with climate control, tire pressure sensors, back-up cam, semi-autonomous center line and ditch reading and adjustments, and computers controlling everything else right down to the headlights. She programs their destination into the GPS and takes her son to school where he learns from smartboards, computers, and tablets for a few hours. Upon arrival back home she logs on to work where she accrues bits of information and stores them on the Cloud. In her spare time she plays games on her phone and watches TV shows on her TV that has a dozen remotes for routers, boxes and soundboards that are all cyber connected somehow. When I said it would kinda be nice to lose the internet she disagreed. I said I'd miss a few things that I had become accustomed to like one of the phone games we both play, but I thought fondly of the days when people did not need to take their vehicles to a mechanic who was also a computer tech. In fact, some of us could fix our cars ourselves. 

As I reminisced my conversation partner seemed to get more and more freaked out. She was not so young that she had missed the days before our tech dependency but she had become so accustomed to it she seemed to have forgotten those days. She actually asked me how I would print things out without the internet. It couldn't have been more than a decade ago that Bluetooth became mainstream for printers. They still HAVE printers connected to computers by wires I think. I questioned why anyone would want to trust the "Cloud" when they could store stuff on their terabyte hard drives but she disagreed with that idea too even after what the IT student had said, ready to cling devotedly to the technology she had had no need for for the majority of her life. It makes me wonder how crippling it would be to the younger generations who have never known lives without computers or the internet.

At contemplative times such as these I am often reminded of comedy and things that my favourite comedians have said. Louis CK once talked about being in a plane and hearing an announcement... well, I'll just use some technology and upload the clip right here:

Maybe we need some time where we're walking around with a donkey with pots clanging on the sides. That's precisely how I was feeling during the above conversation. "How quickly the world owes him something he knew existed only 10 seconds ago." This I perceive to be the problem. We have developed our abilities to become accustomed to things WAAAY too fast and we've become less and less grateful. We just advance too fast to give us time to become grateful. 

To sum up, maybe we need to customize our accustomization to customs. How long do we need to do something before it becomes a custom? I think we become accustomed to things before they even become customs. Everything right now is amazing and we don't have time to stop and appreciated it enough. So my message in this post is simple: In the words of Jesus Christ during this Christmas season, "Relax before you start stroking out for my sakes!!!"

Have you ever thought of giving up the internet? Look how it affected Louis CK's daughter. Maybe we could have such an impact on others. Don't go cold turkey or they won't be able to call you in to work when someone fakes sick. Get your hit from the web occasionally but limit yourself from the things Louis talks about. You have experienced them too. Talking to someone who is on their phone or who is just waiting for you to stop blathering so they can get their fix of screen staring. Louis and Conan describe it as one person thinking they are connecting and then dying inside when you cut off that connection in favor of your device. "They just disappear."

I sometimes approach friends who have headphones or earbuds on and their listening to audiobooks, music, podcasts, whatever and I know that if I want to communicate with them their first one or two words will be "What?" So I have to prep myself to repeat what I want to say at least once. Over Thanksgiving how many of you were slaving away in the kitchen doing pies, turkeys, casseroles, veggies and all the customary trimmings? And how many of you time maximisers had your ear pods in? And how many were approached by someone else in the house like, "Hey, Mom. What can I do to help?" "What?" "What can I do to help?" Takes out ear pods. "Sorry honey I can't hear you. What do you need?" "Never mind..." Then you went back to furiously cooking for the whole house and cursing the custom wondering how it became customary for the women to work and the men to play on this holiday and adding sententiously that it sure would be nice if the ungrateful kids would offer to help? And how many, I'm sure we'll never know, of us haven't had such an encounter simply because somebody knew you were listening to your stories?  

I'm not saying that this isn't a bit of fantastical thinking. I see people reading this going, "Yeah that'll be the day! My kids offering to help at Thanksgiving." But you never know if you can't hear them. I see others reading this saying, "Yeah they only do that to cover their asses. They KNOW I'm listening to my music and take that moment to make an offer of help knowing I won't hear it but also knowing that during my upcoming stressed-out rant about how nobody pitches in during the holidays they can honestly say, "I offered to help but you didn't hear me," with angelic, holiday grins. 

See how it happens? See how the stress builds? I'm not even including the ear pod zombie as one of the many ways the internet and technology have made us less empathetic and less appreciative of genuine human contact. I'm not even including this as one of the many ways the relative anonymity of the internet has made us less courteous or even downright rude. But we are becoming accustomed to behavior that borders on the antisocial. 

Nothing against the antisocial, we need them. We need them to fix and maintain the machines that do the antisocial, repetitive, mind-numbing work humans hate. But our future careers, and our kids' future careers lie in the soft skills - the social abilities that computers will probably never become as good at as humans. The tragic irony is that with increased exposure to the internet and technology comes decreased abilities of problem solving, mediation, creative thinking, critical thinking, teamwork, leadership, and other things we learn from being with other people. We are creating customs, and becoming accustomed to them very quickly, like sitting in groups silently staring at phones, texting someone in the next room, spending several hours at a time with online friends instead of real friends and we may be subconsciously excluding ourselves and our kids from experiences that will be extremely valuable to our futures. 

Imagine a future in which people from what used to be called "developed" countries" have become incapable of living with each other and they need to hire (at great expense) social arbitrators who grew up in less technologically advanced countries to solve the problems we create with our silly bickering. It's coming folks. We may not be able to avoid it but we might delay it a bit by slowly weaning ourselves off the internet. But who knows? Maybe it'll come crashing down like the house of cards it is and save us all. 

We shall see how amazing everything really is shan't we? 

My Troubles Are Over

 Like many Americans and Canadians one of my best good friends Heather and I have been trying to solve our cashflow problems and so far our best idea has been the lottery. I've inspected the local lottery and even bought a few tickets. They have more numbers down here! It's HARDER! So that has not proven fruitful.

Our most recent idea has been something called NaNoWriMo. It's an incentive website where people form writing groups and upload their progress on their novels during the month of November. We're already both behind and with my 11th and most intensive M. Ed. course beginning tomorrow, I have my doubts that my book, "The Last Dreamer" is the working title, will ever be completed. Since nobody really reads any more and when they do, it's so often on a device that can play a movie anyway, I see the ultimate goal of novel writing to be having your book bought by Hollywood and made into a movie. In fact I'd settle for Bollywood turning my book into a music and dancing movie, I'm not picky. 

Even though my novel is set sometime in the future when humans have lost the ability to dream and even though it's about a young boy who has miraculously retained this gift and even though it's set in Canada where the Canadian government has set up companies to make fortunes from broadcasting this boy's dreams onto computer screens, interpreting them, and selling the best prognostications to countries that could be impacted by them, I'm finding it difficult to keep current events out of my story. For instance even though "proggers" are about 75% accurate, a recent "prog" proved to be wrong and Hurricane Juan swept across Florida demolishing Mar-a-Lago, the former residence of the originator of K.A. (The Kingdom of America). What has yet to be written is that progging is really 100% but errors... DISASTROUS errors are allowed in order to increase the market value of dream prognostication. But THAT concept is hardly futuristic...

See what I mean? I always seem to circle back to the impending doom that will only make Heather and my cashflow problems worse. So today I got to thinking... 

You're probably thinking I should be writing a fantasy like Lord of the Rings or a children's adventure tale like Harry Potter. A superhero book might sell well while they're hot although the bottom of THAT barrel has been scraped pretty clean. Squirrel Girl, Arm-Fall-Off Boy, Maggott, Bird Brain, Glitter Girl, Door Man, Dog Welder, and maybe my fave, Matter-Eater Lad. Check them out. These are not made up! The Simpsons superhero Lard Lad could be the next successful Simpsons spinoff! I haven't read any Matter-Eater Lad but I imagine if there's something the matter, he'll just eat it. He'll be a massively obese Everyman sort of hero. lol And how super could Arm-Fall-Off Boy be? I gotta check those out!

Sure enough, Arm-Fall-Off Boy's arm detaches with a "plorp" and he can beat opponents with it. To be fair, he WAS rejected by the Legionnaires...

No, my idea is even more super than Arm-Fall-Off Boy who, tell me if you agree, looks like he's old enough to be Arm-Fall-Off Man doesn't he? At any rate, I won't take off my arm and beat you about the head with this side-idea any longer. My REAL idea came to me this morning when I heard that Marco Rubio was chosen to be Trump's Secretary of State. Trump calls Rubio "Little Marco" and makes fun of his big ears. Rubio calls Trump vulgar and offensive and makes fun of his little hands. A match made in Heaven to be sure!

JD Vance, Trump's vice called him a "moral disaster," "reprehensible," "cultural heroin," "total fraud," "cynical asshole," and  "America's Hitler." Vice President Flippety Flop. THERE'S a good superhero name!

Kristi Noem, who Trump might nickname "Killer Noem" had a dog named Cricket that she called "untrainable" in her book. So she shot her dog. Now she'll be in charge of homeland security. Anybody caught crossing the border more than once might be considered by her to be "untrainable." Who knows?

Robert F. Kennedy called Trump a "terrible human being," "unhinged," "barely coherent," and "probably a sociopath." Trump called him a "radical left lunatic." Kennedy said that under no circumstances would he join a Trump presidential ticket. Buuuuuut Trump promised to let Kennedy "go wild" on healthcare. 

You may know Kennedy as that roadkill guy or the one with a worm in his brain. Now he's likely to become - you guessed it - a member of the Trump presidential ticket. My favourite quirk about Kennedy is not those two stories or his ideas of making vaccines a little less "sciency," it's his anti-fluoridization stance. I can't help thinking that maybe Kennedy has seen the following speech one or two times too many. Hell he even has a striking resemblance to Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper! Do you suppose he blames the Russians for contaminating our "precious bodily fluids?"  

I'm telling you, if this wasn't all so tragic, it'd be fucking hilarious! Soon Trump will appoint as secretary of education someone like Alfred E. Newman, Beavis or Butthead, Curly or Larry or Moe, Don Quixote, Jar Jar Binx, or... ummmm... Betsy Devos. Soon he'll appoint Jimmy Kimmel as his secretary of pro-Trump propaganda. Soon he'll appoint Secretariat as his secretary.

Well I'm not going to sit back and let this opportunity pass me by. Neither is Heather. We have abandoned our fledgling novels in their infancies to embark upon more modern and lucrative enterprises. Nobody reads anyway. We are going to start uploading vids absolutely slagging Trump. It's something we're already good at. It's always fun. And we're both constantly in front of our computers anyway.

This is a cinch! First we will need to get Trump's attention. We'll need a good jab like Kimmel's "Isn't it past your jail time?" We'll know we've been successful when he gives us nicknames. Nothing too clever, but something just a bit beyond "Poopy ca-ca head." I imagine he'll call me Dummy Dave or Dopey Dave and Heather will get Hosebag Heather or Heather the poopy ca-ca head. Yeah, I change my mind. He's NOT beyond Poopy ca-ca head.

So then we can update our YouTube handles in ironic reverence to his nickname prowess. We'll get more followers. Some who like us and some Magaflakes who hate us. Then the money will start coming in. YouTube will recognize our popularity with small cash rewards. 2-12 bucks for every 1000 views can really add up!

Once we're established we could even make vids as a team. Join forces and increase our viewership. We might even be so hated by the new administration "Season 2 of the Celebrity Appotus" that we will receive financial backing from liberals and left-wing activists. 

The ultimate goal, and I see this as being a lot more achievable than a successful novel, would be for Trump to hate us SOOOO much, he'll give us cabinet positions. All we'll need to do then is completely flip-flop, start cranking out theater like all the flunkies currently associated with him (except maybe his wife. Models seldom make good actresses.) and we're on Easy Street.

I'd better get busy. Forget this blogging shit, there's vlogging to be done!

WTF

 The first thing I want to say is:

I remember having faith in the people of America. Maybe because I have met some Americans who are above average. Turns out I didn't know how far above average they were. I say this with the tiniest morsel of respect that is due, you fucking, fucking morons! You got the leader you think you wanted. I'm talking about the vast majority of the people who voted for this convict out on bail. "I voted for the convict." "I'm voting for the convicted felon." The hats and T-shirts are selling like hotcakes to those who are not taking this election seriously. They like this orange meatball because he pisses off people they don't like. Well THAT'S worth a vote isn't it? Fucking cretinous numbskulls. Soon they won't have the spare cash to buy that kind of merch. But they'll blame that on Biden I'm sure the same way they blame the Trump Covid crash on Biden. This was the largest single day drop in the history of the DOW. March 16, 2020. This made the rich richer and Trump will do it again. This time he won't have a pandemic to blame it on, but he's got more power now so he doesn't fucking care! Trump vs. the United States saw to that. A supreme court that he had previously loaded voted on making it okay for the POTUS to fracture a few laws here and there. 

The only people who voted for Trump intelligently are the super rich. They should have been the ONLY ones voting for Trump. Why? Because he's gonna crash the economy. You know this "plan" he has been hinting at? The one with tariffs? He'll put huge tariffs on anything foreign (except his Trump Bibles and other merchandise made in China of course). There is no doubt about the effect this "concept of a plan" will have. Take it from some Nobel prize winning economists:

Next year when you are dumpster diving and collecting food stamps, at least you'll be able to have a good laugh at the vote you cast for this con man convict. You might even still have the T-shirt. Most likely by then you'll be so mad at Trump you will want to have him thrown in jail... which is where he WOULD be if he hadn't been elected you witless buffoons! 

I was watching the election coverage yesterday and it was repeatedly reported that the number one and two issues on voters' minds were the economy and democracy. I ASSUMED the electorate were going to be smart enough to vote for the candidate who would have been far and away better for the economy... but I was wrong. I saw a couple with a few kids and one on the way interviewed after voting. The husband was a business owner and he said he voted for Trump because his business was struggling during the Biden presidency. Probably blaming Biden unfairly and he probably jumped on the Covid supply chain excuse bandwagon and raised his prices knee-jerkily right into a downturn in profit. Probly blamed THAT on Biden too. And his wife was nodding and agreeing and his 4 kids will likely be told how Biden hurt them. You think you have hard time NOW.... you stunned schmucks!

And how about democracy? The guardrails of government that protect democracy have been removed. Trump doesn't like neutral rules of governance. They obstruct his ability to rule like his non-democratic heroes Shi Jin Ping, Vlad Putin, Kim Jung Un, Hitler, and the late great Hannibal Lecter. Here's a vid that explains it well. Particularly the last parts labelled "tariffs" and "government." 

This guy who should be in prison is going to run the US like a dic(k)tator and he's got the power now to do it. "Only he who does not desire power is fit to wield it." This guy has broners for the dicktators who have most irresponsibly abused power AND he needs the power of the presidency to keep himself out of prison. Does anyone desire power MORE? He'll probably pardon himself. And maybe other co-conspirators. Then imprison his detractors like a good dicktator. Maybe he'll remove term limits like his buddies Putin, Shi, and even Orban. He'll probably invent new ways to abuse his power. The effects will not happen in a vacuum. The US, like it or not, has the most influence of any country on the rest of the world. I can foresee little to no positive influence forthcoming, but maybe I'm just thinking negatively. 

Anyone see an upside to this? 

Addendum: I usually remember my dreams. They never have any real significance. Like the other night I dreamt Kelly handed me some butter that was soft and I told him to put it on the middle shelf in the fridge which was completely empty. You KNOW that was a dream! lol But I am living with an American family that is fortunate and smart and hardworking enough to have a constantly full fridge. So maybe that dream DID have some significance. 

 I got up at my usual 4:30 early thinking/writing time today, the second day after Doomsday, after having a dream that was not really a nightmare, just a feeling of frustration and helplessness that shocked me awake. I was in a theater or an auditorium somewhere and I was the only one making any noise. I was talking or breathing or something and noticed that the hundreds or even thousands of people surrounding me were dead silent. I mean I got the feeling they COULDN'T make noise. It was so strange! Not just the alienation of being alone in a huge crowd but the correlation to real life I almost never get from my dreams. THIS is the feeling I am having right now. It's like I'm the only one taking this election of Trump seriously. I know I'm not and I'm with other people who recognize the gravity of this election, which is comforting, but that seems all we can do: huddle together and comfort ourselves while the thousands of voiceless zombies around us go down with the sinking world we're on. Is this too dark and pessimistic? I don't think so, but maybe I'm wrong.

I saw Jimmy Kimmel trying to make sense of this and like my other news anchors, Seth Rogan, Stephen Colbert, and the crew of the Daily Show, he just couldn't. Then he went out to the streets and interviewed the public asking, "Today, November 6th, are you going to vote?" and "Do you think Biden or Trump will win?" We don't get to see how long it took for his crew to find these clueless folks but it would probably be depressingly fast. They had people saying they were going to vote and they walked past the line-ups at the polls and they think Biden will win and they wish Kamala Harris well and how important it is to get out and vote because there are a lot of rights on the line... 

If you know me well enough you know I do not believe the lesson we should be learning from this is that we should vote. It IS the lesson many will try to derive from this state of affairs, but it's the wrong one. There was one tattooed kid with big O's in his earlobes that said, "I don't believe in voting because it's the higher-ups on Wall Street that run the show." They made a joke by saying, "And they don't listen to us, right? They need bigger ears." ha ha ha. The thing is, that kid is right. When you have a feckless, soulless husk of a man who could be the author of the end of the world running for the most powerful position of leadership in that world and all you have to combat him is an almost completely disempowered vote, you realize there needs to be a better way of doing things. But that's the noise I have been making since I started this blog and it has made me feel like I felt in my dream. A lone voice in a sea of apathetic silence. Here's the Kimmel:

And here's a quote from Noam Chomsky, "An uninformed electorate votes against its best interests." Is that what happened? I'm not even sure of THAT. Here's another statement that was made by someone we all know - can you guess who said it? If there were fair elections the Republicans would never win. I can't put quotes around it because the person probably didn't use those exact words. I'm quoting another person quoting him. It was Donald Trump. This didn't stop him from crying foul when he lost, but I don't hear him crying foul now. 

Elections in general and particularly the ones in the US are too important for the rich to leave to the electorate. There is no way that Trump in the Whitehouse is what the majority of America sees as a good thing. I just can't believe immigrants are voting for a guy with KKK in his blood and his henchman from the country of apartheid who will cut 2 trillion in unnecessary programs from the federal budget. They may be uninformed, but not THAT uninformed. I can't see women voting for a guy who has pledged to take their rights away and is an infamously misogynistic scumbag . They may be uninformed, but not THAT uninformed. But that's what their owners are giving them and telling them to like. "Nothing like this happens in functioning, developed countries." Maybe it's time for America to face the hard fact that it is NOT a functioning, developed country. It goes so far beyond the vote! Fix your broken democracy that is all about greed and money and power that comes with wealth and THEN the vote will mean something. I am not the only one who feels this way. Here's another voice in the silence:

This is what Noam said back in Trump's FIRST stint as president. I can only imagine how he feels right now. 

But back to that family... I love them very much and felt gutted when I woke up to the news that Trump had been placed in the position of power he so richly does not deserve. Of all the families I know, this family will be most impacted by this tin pot dictatorship. Jobs will be erased by Elon Musk's "fat" trimming, careers will be destroyed before they start, health will suffer due to pre-existing conditions, and the economy crash on TOP of all that... this is hurting my friends. Directly. I think there are few people who DON'T have loved ones that will be hurt by this. Votes have proven impotent. NOW what are we gonna do about it? Does ANYbody really believe the country of America that is SO proud of their "freedom" and "democracy" said, "What the heck, let's try this strongman thing."??? Come ON!!!

Rachel Maddow has some advice for practically the whole world, not just the Americans who are going to get fucked by this crap. Time to be frickin' pirates. And THIS is what I've been saying for years. Maybe it's starting to sink in...

Sanity for Vanity

 I'm not generally a fan of new music. The newest band I'm a big fan of is probably Tool and I know they are NOT new. But today I heard a song by Lizzy that I really liked! It was called Games People Play and it included these lines: "Never meaning what they say Never saying what they mean And they wile away the hours In their ivory towers Till they're covered up with flowers In the back of a black limousine... People walking up to you Singing Glory Hallelujah And they're trying to sock it to you In the name of the Lord... Look around tell me what you see What's happening to you and me God grant me the serenity To remember who I am 'Cause You've given up Your sanity For Your pride and your vanity Turns You sad on humanity And you don't give a da da damn. "

The tune was good too! And Lizzy had a nice, comfortable, Cheryl Crow style about her. I was impressed! But.... surprise, surprise, the song was NOT new. In fact the original was released in 1968, written and sung by that household name, Joe North. Or wait a minute, Joe West. Nope, it was Joe South. Right Joe SOUTH. It won the Grammy for song of the year in 1970. So it ain't new and neither are the universal concepts old Joe Compass was singing about. Particularly giving up our sanity for our pride and vanity. Let's unpack that nugget, shall we?

As you all know, I love George Carlin. I don't fanatically agree with everything he said or even think everything he said was funny. I've seen him bomb! But he HAS been responsible for some of the thruthiest truth I have heard from microphones held by comics, MC's, announcers, anchors, poets, singers, teachers, and speechmakers of all sorts. This might be his best:

Nobody has ever said it better. I never get tired of that rant. Now... think hard about this question... have you ever heard one of these disgustingly obese, systematically undereducated, Pavlovically consumerist, Orwellically media-dependent tokens in the games rich people play say, "I am not proud of my country."??? Well, guess what, George has something for that too. 

"The big red, white and blue cock that's being jammed up your asses." ha ha ha ha. And old Joe East, or was it West? Anyhoo, he couldn't even say "give a damn," he had to turn it into "give a doo doo dee dum doo" or whatever. Think of how far THAT part of America has progressed. We're allowed to swear now! Yet on the issue of the "owners" playing their game and calling all the shots - things haven't budged an inch. In fact, they have probably gone backwards. So what's the pride for? "It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." That goes for a lot of "dreams." Yet people are "proud" of how we've turned those dreams into nightmares. Is it just something we say? Do we say it cuz we're not allowed to say the opposite?

"Pride" should be reserved for accomplishments or skills not for random, geographical happenstance. "It's not a skill to be Irish." Pride goeth before a fall. 

I believe that all it takes for most of us to acquiesce to our roles as pawns in our owners' games of chess they call the "free market," "economics," "business," or some other dismissively euphemistic thing like that is the mere whiff of riches. It ain't about freedom any more, I think we're all aware of that, but there is very little a RICH man can't do. To be more specific, there are few freedoms the super rich can't buy. Musk is breaking the law with his million buck a day reward for being a MAGAflake. Alice Walton (Walmart) drives drunk a lot. Even killed a person with her Porsche. Amazingly (!!!!!) the arresting officers get suspended, statutes of limitation on breathalyzers run out, and charges disappear. The rich have super-human powers and it's only because of the Mammon worship that has crept into so many cultures. This should elicit the exact opposite of pride from participants in those cultures but somehow it doesn't. It's absolutely insane! Manufactured insanity. 

Consider this another fall post, but this time it's not my favourite season I'm talking about. It's the fall that the rough beast humanity is irrevocably slouching toward. That's right, I don't believe it can be changed any more. The good guys are losing. All we can do now is slow it down in isolated incidents. Wanna speed it up? Vote for this ethically bankrupt imbecile: 

Thanks Giving

 Just so's I can keep everything straight at this time in my life, I'm going to post a little update on the major issues I have. If you are interested, go ahead and read. It's Canadian Thanksgiving and I'm trying to find things for which to be thankful even though, other than some family and friends, most of the things I'm thankful for are not in Canada. Like the Peet/Spiwak fam. They're just letting me stay here and participate in household goings on as if I am a part of their family. Rob and Terri did the same. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the charity, but how did I become a person who has only charity to be thankful for? Maybe this list will shed some light on that...

1. M. Ed. To begin with, my endeavors to become a master of education have been successful but (you'll notice a pattern here) the paper saying so has met with a roadblock. My M. Ed. studies have been on hold since I found out that I have to do a study on a class of 25 students or more as course #11 and write the study results as course #12, my thesis. I already had ideas of writing on some of the more interesting things I had studied in the previous 10 courses. This is not how it works at the U. of the People evidently. They give you a false feeling of choice by offering a small variety of topics on which to base the study they are forcing you to do. Educational studies and the tedious formats and mechanics by which they must be administered are the mathematics of education and I am not at all interested in them. Even reading them is frustrating because of the over-specificity required to say something insanely simple that we all know without the study like, for instance, small classes are better than large ones. That would probably be my choice of topics to study IF they weren't forcing the students to do their studies on classes of 25 or more. 

I am currently not working and that will be number 2. Because of that, I have no class upon which to conduct my thesis study. This is a problem. I contacted the prof of my 11th course after registering and reading the course outline to ask what I should do since I was moving to the US, had no class to study, and it was the summer during which there are no fucking classes at all. I received no response so the day before the course drop deadline I dropped the course. I have since been informed by TWO academic (both meanings) advisors that I should have contacted my prof. They told me I would have received instructions on how to do the study on teacher interviews or using "archives." I don't know what this means or how I would do it so I was instructed to open my dashboard, click on "my courses," locate the class members list, click on the prof, and send her an email. Anyone see the problem? Neither of my academic advisors realized that without being registered for the class, I click on "my courses" and I get a blank page. So now I have been referred to the supervisor of my two academic advisors who has told me she will contact the appropriate parties and get back to me within 5 business days. That was 6 business days ago. 

2. Unemployment. I am not missing employment at all, but I miss the money. Living in Maryland has been one big holiday. I do chores around the house but haven't done a day of work since early July. It's been nice. Let's see so far some of the things my family of besties and I have done together have been... fishing (and catching!), Much Ado at Roman's College, open house at Roman's College, Cubs vs. Orioles/Wash. vs. Milwaukee baseball (my first two MLB games), meeting two families of friends of the family, Kings Dominion amusement park, pool party at Roman and Reilly's work, a trip to the big Baltimore Bass Pro store, a visit to see Ed Allan Poe's grave (incl. a trip to the Poe House), plenty of Olympic watching, sport watching, bbqing, game playing, and lots of swimming in the family pool. I don't like being unemployed but I'm having a really good time!

I knew someday I'd end up in the Poe House - just didn't think it'd be so soon.

Me and Eddie.

Not big fish, but at least I'm not getting skunked here.

The tiresome flume ride with Mike, Reilly, and Kelly.

So I gotta say... I'm thankful for being unemployed? And, as recent posts describe, that IS at least partially to do with Canada so I suppose I'm thankful that Canada sucks for me as far as employment goes. 

3. Taxes. I had my taxes done for the almost 10 years I was away from Canada and the H&R Block worker gave me some positive results. The problem is that everything positive in my life comes with nagatives attached. That's why this post is such a challenge. I'm getting money for the time I was away from Canada. That's great right? Of course not! There's work for me in Canada but I can't get it. At least not enough of it to pay the bills. So I reckon I have earned a little tax money due to the hardship of being forced to leave my country to obtain a living. Not to mention paying tax on things I bought in Canada while being away and contributing zero carbon to the Canadian air. When you look at it that way, the amount I was supposed to receive was very little. But I guess someone at the Winnipeg Tax Office didn't see it that way and I was audited. They withheld some of my tax money (I still haven't done the complicated calculations but it's likely between 2 and 3 grand) until I gave them some information about where I'd been living in Canada since I returned. That's right, my government was EXTORTING information from me and it was information that had to do with less than 2 of the 120 months represented by the tax return they were blocking. But I sent the information. It was received but the funds were not deposited into my account. I received a letter saying the information had NOT been received so adjustments would be made and I might receive less or even have to pay money back that I had already received. (Remember-less than 2 months. How the fuck could it make THAT much of a difference?) I have spent 5 months sending emails to these jagovs and to the ombudsmen who are supposed to oversee them and recently received a letter (by snail mail) admitting that they DID receive my information. So I qualify for benefits from Feb. '24 to now. No mention of the withheld funds and my bank account has not been properly enhanced as yet. I got a number to call because it's much easier to keep a person busy without actually helping them that way. Nobody wants to email me cuz it's too hard to hide. Even text messages are not accepted. I haven't called the number yet but have no doubt it'll just start a whole new chapter in this saga. 

4. Telus/Koodo. Still being harassed by Telus about the internet I had while living in Trail that I have contacted them about and have been told to ignore the messages FROM THEM because my account is fully paid up. I've blocked them in every way I know how but still a message sneaks through now and again. This is what happens when you break the law and make your service WAAAAY harder to discontinue than to start up.

With Koodo, my phone, it's the exact same thing. Before coming to the US I went to a mall Koodo booth and told them I waned to cancel. The dude there said there is an international plan. The FIRST thing I asked him was if I got it, would it be easy to cancel because I've had trouble before. He assured me there would be no trouble cancelling from my personal online account page but it is impossible to do from my personal online account page. What I didn't ask was if the fucking service would work because... you know... you kind of expect that. I can't make calls or receive calls and I'm paying 79 bucks a month. For text messages. My internet data doesn't even work! So I try to discontinue the service and everybody tells me they can't do it. I just told one person to fuck off and die, I will not pay you another cent. They had the nerve to tell me online that I need to call their toll free service number. Using my phone you have turned into a brick? "No, just use someone else's phone." This, folks, is illegal. They get away with it because nobody does anything about it. I WANT these fuckers to try to get their money out of me through legal action. Bring it on Telus you scamsters! So not at all thankful for THAT. Let's move on.

5. Teaching. I have an ongoing offer of employment to teach in public schools in Taiwan that is as roadblocked as these other things and for the same reason - intentionally impotent paperwork and protocol. Now this is a bit sketchy but I've long since grown accustomed to at least a little sketchiness in jobs teaching overseas. It's part of the hardship to which I referred of leaving Canada although I am NOT saying Canada is without its own abundance of sketchiness. My employer, Teach Taiwan, wants to ensure its clients - parents - that all their teachers are licensed in N. America. Normally that means they have teaching certificates and even experience teaching in Canada or the US. I have taught in the public schools of Canada, Korea, China, and Indonesia though I am not properly licensed. But that's okay. You see there are some states, Illinois being one, where they issue substitute teaching licenses. All you need is a BA. You send them your transcripts (and some states also want fingerprints to do a criminal record check) and wait a few weeks. BAM, you're now technically licensed to teach in N. America. A bit sketchy but what the hell. I'd have classes or more than 25 to teach so I could kill the proverbial two birds by making money AND finishing my master's. I sent my transcripts and just waited. I poked them a few times but they just kept telling me to wait longer. Finally someone told me that I need to have my degree "translated." In short, does it equate to a 4-year degree in the US. Here comes some more paperwork and protocol. I went to grade 13 in Ontario then 3 years of university. I received my honours BA (4 years) as opposed to the non-honours BA (3 years) so I figured I'd be okay. My BA has been endlessly verified and honoured internationally as the equivalent of an American BA. In fact I was accepted into the U. of the People where they would not have accepted me without the equivalent of a 4-year BA. HOWEVER... I have received word from a few of these credential translators that my BA is only worth 3 years toward an American BA. I have talked to Illinois and several other sub licensing state school boards and they all say the same thing. I need an accreditation agency to officially equate my BA as equal to an American BA. I have given up on all except North Dakota. I may end up getting a sub job in Fargo so I can finish my friggin useless M. Ed.

6. Education. Did I say useless M. Ed.? I sure did! Get ready for some more impotent paperwork and protocol. I figured that since I was stalled in my efforts to finish my degree with the U. of the People I'd look into transferring into a local program that is similar. I went to the open house at Roman's college and was impressed. They have a Master of Arts in teaching program there. I contacted a gal named Crystal who was very nice and helpful via email. I just don't know why other people can't be! She told me to send my transcripts from both my BA and my master's. I did so and she said that I needed more credits in my major and that my master's credits would not be accepted because the U. of the People is not REGIONALLY accredited. It's nationally and internationally accredited, but not regionally. I would think regionally, being smaller, would be the less prestigious (and transferable) of the two but life, eh? Regionally accredited schools are more widely accepted. So I started asking other schools about my credits. Not accepted at any of the M. Ed. or similar programs I looked into. W---T---F??!! 7 years of hell to get my BA and now over 2 years of hard work to get 10/12ths of my M. Ed. and neither degree is as good as I had been led to believe! I know Westly told Princess Buttercup that life is pain and anyone who tells you different is selling something but... IS EVERYTHING IN LIFE A FUCKING SCAM??? Right now I FEEL like Westly knowing this pearl of wisdom but hardly able to move a finger to do anything about it.

Let me splain... no, there is too much. Let me sum up. My head is swimming with all the variant but essentially identical plots and schemes (they're the same thing) to screw up my life and career in exchange for money. The epicentre of this shitstorm if not the source of all of my "suffering" is Canada. So on this Canadian Thanksgiving weekend I am finding it nigh onto impossible to be thankful for anything Canadian except friends and family that I have to leave behind BECAUSE of all the shyte I'm not thankful for. I am going to make some ribs and corn on the cob for Thanksgiving dinner and I will feast with the family I am most thankful for here in America. Then about a month from now, I'll do it all over again. Maybe by then I'll have an American job, an American teaching license, and American school to study at, or something else Canada can't provide and the meaning of Thanksgiving will return. For now it's just an excuse to eat some good food with good friends. We'll watch some good sports and probably do something fun like taking hockey shots, polar bear swimming, bonfiring, playing games or going on outings together. For these things I am thankful but I would be REALLY thankful if I could stop being a charity case and become gainfully employed once again. Maybe even offer charity to someone else. That's what I'd LIKE to be thankful for.

Oh well, as usual I'll just have to hope for better days ahead.

Onward Migration From Canada: It's Not Just For Foreigners Any More

 Canada is increasing immigration. I admit to being a bit misleading with that opening statement because for many, including myself, the immigration to other countries is what Canada is causing. That's really emigration but it's still immigration because when you do it, you don't change your visa at the "emigration" office. Hoooo hooooo trust me, just those two words together - immigration and office - give me the willies and I don't love willies! While referencing the IT Crowd I'll continue to say that although we like to put Canada on a pedal stool, many, maybe most immigrants tend to find the whole experience of relocation to Canada at best a damp squid, and at worst a friggin' nightmare. 

Oh, I am also talking about what we all think of when we hear the word "immigration" as well. So before we get into the immigration from Canada to other countries, let's do a bit of fakety-fake history taken from highly (and purposefully) misleading Stats Canada immigration numbers, shall we? 

I'll only go back to the 90's but we know I could go further back. Allegedly, 2.2 million people came to Canada in the 90's making it the highest immigration total for a decade... at the time. Today Canada has the highest percentage of immigrants in the G7 with 23% (2021). At today's population of 41,000,000, 23% would be around 9.43 million people. HOWEVER... there are permanent, non-permanent, student, and of course illegal immigrants. The REAL total is certainly not lower! Last year, for example, there were (again according to highly biased statistics) 471,771 perm, 804,901 non-perm, 485,000 study permits, and who knows how many illegals? If you add this up and account for a highly optimistic total of around 400,000 illegals, you have in one year the number of immigrants we had in the entire decade of the 90's. That'll give you some idea of what has happened in Canada since then. And it is steadily increasing. The goal is to "level out" at half a million perm. a year and most likely higher in all other categories. 

As far as illegals and "students" who are actually using student visas as back door entries into permanent Canadian residence, the government agencies like IRCC (Immi. Refugee, Citizenship Canada), IRB (Immi. Refugee Board of Canada) and such overtly ENCOURAGE such illegal behavior. If you want to see what a mess it has become for (largely Indian) international students you can watch this vid I have posted before. In it, former minister of Immigration Sean Fraser says it's distasteful. He hated the student immigrant scams in Canada SO much... he quit being the minister of immigration. Now it's Marc Miller a long time friend of Justy who lent him a pencil in English class in Quebec when they were young. I have heard of recent cuts to student immigration (which is really what it is) and limits on working while on a student visa, but I have also seen vid of Miller admitting that international students commonly work full time - a breach of their visas. If I remember correctly (and I posted the vid somewhere on this blog) he called it their "RIGHT" to work full time in breach of their visas. So I don't see anything happening any time soon.

You may wonder why this is allowed, or at least a blind eye has been turned towards students working far beyond their caps be they 20 or 24 hours a week. I know, and know many people who know, international students who work more. It's harder to find one who works less. What gives? Well it all has to do with the myth of perceived worker shortages in Canada. It's as simple as this: Canadian citizens know you can't get anywhere working full time on 18 bucks an hour. I won't get too far into the reasons for that but the largest is because of the housing shortage and explosion in accommodation costs that have been created by massive immigration. And the programs to hire immigrant workers to build the houses we need to drive housing prices down have already started. No experience, we will train. Any programs like these for Canadian citizens? Nope. We are left with the 18 dollar an hour jobs and have international students and illegals to compete with. There's your "worker shortage." I know a guy who was turned down for work as an electrician. He was told they only hire "from within." It was a program such as this:

Good old extremist Canada committing massive discrimination in reverse of the norm and brainwashing us into believing it's not just plain discrimination. Are you honestly going to tell me we don't have people already living in Canada who are out of work or working shitty jobs who would give a kidney or a spleen for these opportunities? You - no. Our government - that's what they expect us to believe. Worker shortage my ass! A shortage of these jobs for workers is what we have. We also have reverse discrimination but heeeey, don't be negative, Canada is a kind, nice, wonderful country... what an insult to intelligent Canadians!

When I was working at the Centre For Newcomers in Calgary my students told me about all kinds of benefits such as this. They get housing assistance (not just finding housing and finding jobs building housing, but getting money to make rent more affordable), medical assistance, education/training for free, childcare for cheap or free, taxes done for free, all kinds of social outings and programs, and I constantly found myself (squeaking by on the $240/week I made there) asking if I could get in on some of this. Nope. Only for immigrants. While programs like that are only accepting applicants "from within," my job was NEVER going to become full time because, as my supervisor told me after 10 new teachers were hired part time and my hours did not increase, "Sometimes we have to make 'outside' hires." 

Most of the feel-good stories in Canadian immigration are from the refugees who back in the 90's were mostly from Iran, Bosnia/Herzegovina, and Sri Lanka while these days (and I know this from teaching and getting to know them) the majority are from Syria, Iraq, Eritrea, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. But not even all of these, in fact I'd venture to say FEW of these are feel-good stories. At least not right away. READ THIS ARTICLE. It's about a couple from Pakistan who were both professionals. He was a branch manager at a big bank, and she was a teacher who had a master's in education. They immigrated to Calgary where they struggled for 7 years to get permanent residence. He installed carpet and she was unemployed. They went through many rejections for jobs for which they were overqualified, even suffered the scams of people who say they will get you work if you sign up for their program for a non-refundable fee. Eventually she got work as a lunchtime supervisor at one of her kid's schools and he got on as a forklift operator in an oil warehouse. Finally she took a two-year course (probably free due to her immigrant status and unavailable to non-immigrants) to get work as a teacher's assistant and he got a job through his oil connections as a pricing analyst in the industry. Those 7 years left them scarred physically and with the kind of PTSD that I and a LOT of other people try to avoid by getting the fuck OUT of Canada. She suffered years of stress and weight loss and he got high blood pressure and cholesterol along with diabetes. This is a "success" story of Canadian immigration but it is nothing like the scenarios of hope and success the millions of immigrants have been bringing to Canada since the 90's. If those pie-in-the-sky hopes and dreams could be tempered with reality like the couple from the article, perhaps Canada would not have the problems it has with immigration. 

Have you ever heard of Stompin' Tom Connors? That's Canadiana for you! He is the artist responsible for The Good Old Hockey Game. 

He also wrote a song called Believe in Your Country. This was back in 1991. In it he writes "... if you don't believe your country should come before yourself, Ya can better serve your country by living somewhere else." He sings about factories closing down, politicians dividing our precious land, and our jobs being traded away. But Canadians know him better for the Hockey Song. 

Maybe... just maybe if Canadians believed in Canada or stood on guard for it as they sing with unconscious irony before most hockey games, I could live in my own country. Maybe if we started making programs for people IN Canada instead of importing folks who are not necessarily going to be any better or even stay in the country, we'd have a little more to believe in. 

We're told that onward migration from Canada is way up. 31% according to this:

The video contains a few good examples of why. In a nutshell, a lot of immigrants, and a lot of Canadians are not getting the message that Canada believes in them, so it's hard for Canadians to believe in Canada and all the more difficult for immigrants. Most immigrants would rather go home when they encounter difficulties in their adopted countries. That's what they're doing. When you get screwed (as I have) by your own country in education, taxes, employment, accommodation, and cost of living, the very staples of life, what do you have to believe in?

I agree with Stompin' Tom but the solution is not for people to get out of Canada, it's for Canada to transform from its current state back into a country worthy of pride, belief, and faith. That's got to start at the political level and I'm sorry but every last politician I've wasted the time researching appears to be one of the many zeros coming to save the day that Stompin' Tom sings about. I agree that, as he sings, we are short on heros, but as long as politics is our largest corporation and we recruit businesspeople rather than those who believe in Canadians, this trend will continue. You know who would better serve our country by living somewhere else? The greedy scumbag politicians, bankers, and captains of industry who persistently shatter the faith in Canada of both those who are Canadian and those who come to Canada hoping for better lives. 

Canada definitely has more immigrants than the 23% it wants us to believe. Them, along with the untold numbers of nationals who can't get by on shitty jobs that are available and for which they are probably overqualified, can easily go from wanting to get out of Canada to believing in it again. We can't believe in a place where we can't live dignified lives. We need more money. But with the hyper-capitalistic protocol that pervades all government action, we could raise minimum wage to 40 bucks an hour, but businesses would just find a way to pass whatever percentage that raise amounted to AND THEN SOME right back onto the customer. That's what has fucked things up in Canada. We can't expect the banks, government, and industry to UNfuck what they have fucked. When this is the case, which it is, even Stompin' Tom can't expect us to believe in Canada. 

I have to be honest, I am Jim, Jackie, John, and May. If I can find a good job in America (or anywhere else in the world for that matter) I'll leave the crappy, permanent part time jobs, or full time low wage jobs that are the only ones available to me in Canada for someone else. In that way I am serving my country better by living somewhere else. Take a look at how sad even the success stories of newcomers to Canada are while actually having many advantages that the locals do not. A lot of them think THEY are better off leaving Canada too. If THEY don't wanna stay there what chance do I have of success? 

Any advice?

Progress?

 

A common theme or moral I get upon reflection

is we can't call it progress when we choose the wrong direction.

First class, deluxe, cutting edge, prestigious, chic, or glamorous...

Ego stroking, soothing words we say instead of avarice.

Caveat emptor, don't lose your shirt, down you need to hunker

before confronting "Honest" Ed who's selling you a junker.

"Honest" Eds are everywhere they never used to be

charging what the market bears to keep that market "free."

I don't feel free. Do you? Not me when freedom seems to be

getting gauged and overcharged for things that once were free.

Before you call me cynical or thrash me as contrarian

I warn you my health care and yours neglects both health and caring.

Nestle, Danone, Coca-Cola, the drinking water giants

count us, the naked royalty, their snake oil guzzling clients.

Our civilized societies have yet to launch a law suit

for marking up a million times what once flowed from our faucets.

You and me just being we, that's free of charges surely!

Not so my bro, here, as you know, reality gets squirrely.

Like primordial ooze, we did not choose to pop into existence,

but just relax and pay your tax or rot on social assistance.  

Can we share the very air we need for respiration?

Au contraire ma soeur, mon frere. Not by my calculation.

Look above and show some love to aircraft of all kind.

They own the airs and take their shares of fares that keep us behind.

Before you think or put in ink philosophy or wisdom,

you must beware of what I term crime thought/thought crime sadism.

Do not disparage the gross miscarriage of justice by the laws.

The penalty is harsh, you see, for confusing effect and cause.

If we should choose to forfeit and not participate

in this existence we are sold as civil, refined, great,

we won't have a dime and for that crime we'll be charged by the banks.

They'll get our pay either way. They'll even get our thanks.

Who can save us from our fates? How can we get protection?

We'll stage a ritual of faith and call it an "election." 

But leaders speak in codes of which they stand in dereliction.

How can we call it "progress" when we choose the wrong direction?

It's All Academic

 I think most of us know that there are two meanings of the word "academic" and I for one do not believe that the virtually opposite definitions are just beautifully coincidental. One meaning is anything related to education and scholarship. The second meaning, one that most only discover through education and scholarship, is anything that is not of practical relevance, usefulness, or interest. You've heard the saying, "It's all academic." It's something you say when any further action will be useless, disinteresting, and irrelevant. That's meaning #2 and we all know that "number two" has a dual meaning as well. Bearing that in mind, I will begin this post by saying that my M. Ed. efforts have taken a sudden turn from #1 to #2.

Let me hit you with another well known saying - and sayings tend to become better known in proportion to their truthfulness - You get what you pay for. I chose the University of the People because it had a Master of Education program and because it was cheap. Not free although they claim to be tuition free. I don't give a rip whether you call it "tuition" or "a modest stipend for the professor," I am concerned only with how much this education will cost me. "Free" tends to catch the eye more than the word "affordable" which also appears on this page. I guess they got me there! 

I have recently found out a few things about my current Master of Education studies, as well as the institution through which they are being conducted, the University of the People, that are screaming definition number two and are illustrating saying #2 because if you ask me, they stink like number two. I will let you in on those things and what I think they signify. Please tell me if you think I am jumping to conclusions.

I started my studies officially in April of 2022 while still living in Gongju, Korea. I was accepted into the U. of the People on the strength of my Canadian BA that I am currently being told is only the equivalent of three years of study toward an American 4-year BA. Translations and equivalencies... a frustrating and unfair part of academia that sometimes subverts definition #1 in favour of #2. I have also been informed by a Maryland university that my credits from the U. of the People are not yet acceptable or transferable to that college because while the U. of the People IS accredited by the DEAC (Distance Education Accreditation Dept.), which is recognized by the US Department of Education (USDE) and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA), it is not, as yet, recognized by the WSCUC (Western States Commission for Senior College and University). Wait, wouldn't that be WSCSCU? Abbreviations, initialisms, and acronyms... one of the most common ways to disguise #2 as #1. 

I will get to the shafting I believe I am receiving that has to do with my final two courses in my master's, but first an illustration of the above. I contacted my academic advisor (chuckle chuckle... academic is right) Sampada about the BS I am going to relate and she focused on one part of my correspondence: my use of the "U. of the People" instead of what she called the "acronym UoPeople." I am going through an educational crisis that could end my studies that have cost me a several thousand dollars and hundreds of hours and she is lecturing me (erroneously) on how to abbreviate the name of the institute?!?! The following is what I felt the need to send her:

As a friendly reminder, kindly note that "UoPeople" is not an acronym. One of my pet peeves is people who throw around acronyms like LINC (Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada) and initialisms/abbreviations like PBLA (Portfolio Based Language Assessment) especially when speaking to people who do not know what they mean. It is a pretension of professionalism that I try to avoid since it leads to highly UNprofessional confusion. In many cases it is just an affectation used to impress. 

"UoPeople" is neither an acronym or an initialism. I'd refer to it as an awkward abbreviation. What I did is abbreviated "University" in the accepted "U." form and then wrote the rest of the title in full. In my opinion, it is a form of the university title that is less prone to confusion. However, I think we would both know from context and experience what is being referred to even if one of us would type UoP, U.P., UoftheP, or some other short forms, so let's not be pedantic. 

The focus of my B.A. was English literature. I had more than my share of professors who analyzed every detail of my syntax, grammar, and writing structure to the point of excessiveness, but they did it correctly. It made my writing better. One part of my predominantly positive experience at the UoPeople that has been difficult for me to deal with is the weekly criticisms of my written work done by fellow students, many of whom do not speak English as their primary language, that have included incorrect corrections which cost me grade points. There is so little recourse that I have taken to skipping the peer correction portions of my classes. It has hurt my CGPA, (an initialism, not an acronym) but saved my sanity. 

See? I have far too much free time. I need to get back to my studies. :-)

So in future, let's not be concerned about each other's writing, grammar, spelling, etc. I think it would be preferable to concentrate on giving program advice relevant to my academic experience at the university. 

I hope you agree. 

I received a reply that ignored my advice and continued to refer to UoPeople as an acronym and it was purposefully overused. I will henceforth use only "U. of the People" and never "UoPeople" to refer to the institute with which I am currently, and precariously, attached. 

You may consider all of this academic... because it totally IS. But I have grown sick of this sort of number two. I have reached the limits of what Faulkner would call the "baseless hoping that is the diet of weaklings." I am mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more. This is the start of me fighting back. 

The acronym LINC and the initialism PBLA were chosen for a reason. They are two of 100 such misleading and confusing short forms that were bandied about by self-congratulatory academics at weekly meetings in the Calgary Centre for Newcomers where I used to work. They cherished all of their secret code words and Pavlovially honoured and protected them as loyally as Sampada with "UoPeople." They sprinkled these abbreviations generously into their meeting lectures to assure the higher ups of their worthiness and irreplaceability and to assure the newbies that if they don't understand, it's because they are UNworthy and replaceable. The entire room was full of people who fancied themselves teachers and who were loathe to explain things or TEACH things. Is this what we consider to be academia?

Anyhow, I digress. Is my university accredited? The short answer is no. It is not regionally accredited and unbeknownst as well as unbecarenst to me, regional accreditation is widely considered superior to national accreditation in the US. It is more prestigious. Well la de da, who gives a fuck, I wanted my M.Ed. for international or possibly Canadian teaching purposes. 

However, now I know that often when the word "accredited" is used, it only means regionally accredited. For example Canadian universities recognize transfer credits from similar courses from accredited American universities. So I could go to the U of T, UBC, McMaster, SFU, Queen's, UVIC, or major unis like that in Canada and just grab two more credits and claim my master's, riiiiiggghhhht?Well, I am now learning that like the answer to almost all questions in our lives of manufactured complexity, the answer is, "It depends..." Maybe, like the Maryland university that refused my U of the People credits, Canadian universities will only accept REGIONALLY accredited university credits. 

Who the hell looks deeply into this? I mean honestly, before I signed up for the U of the People should I have called every university and college in Canada at which I thought I might at some point want to use my master's for teaching and/or studying and asked whether credits from the U of the People would be recognized? What about the ones around the world? And that answer can change. The U of the People is currently a candidate for regional accreditation. I think I know one of the ways they might be going about trying to attain it and it has to do with me and my fellow M. Ed. students being forced into performing studies and writing them up as our theses rather than choosing topics about which we are more passionate. In almost every class I took the professors gave us readings from the internet, JSTOR, LIRN, e-book central, Gale, ACM, or other such cherished abbreviations with which to complicate our educational vernacular but we were also tasked with providing our own outside sources in everything we wrote. In almost every class I noticed some of the websites I had used in my writing being assigned as required reading in subsequent weeks. It probably happened other times without my notice and it definitely happened to other students. This is not plagiarism and with the profs not getting full salaries, who can blame them, right? My baseless hopes were that only our sources, not our writing, would be used for the benefit of the university.

I have no evidence and I am not suggesting that this is happening, but what if the reason we are all being forced to write professional pedagogical studies on classes (something exactly none of my fellow students have expressed an interest let alone a preference in) is so that the university can combine our studies and theses into a macro-study that can be published by the university as a means toward qualification for the more prestigious regional accreditation? That's how this academic number two works, isn't it? If you answered no, stick with me.

 I have to tell you that part of the 11th course, aside from conducting your research on a class of students, is compiling a comprehensive list of articles, documents, and works that you have cited or referenced in your writing throughout the previous 10 courses. They want at least two for each week of study. The courses are 8 weeks each. Along with weekly correspondence and peer evaluation between fellow students and the prof, we are expected to do one discussion post, one formal writing assignment, and one portfolio writing assignment. We don't always have all three but usually do. That amounts to almost 240 written assignments by the end of the 10th course. Each are 2-3 pages and each must have several sources. I have some with more than 10 works cited. 

If I make a "portfolio" of the most important sources from the most important writing assignments, we'd be looking at conservatively over 700 sources I have used. Part of the 11th course is to write up that list and they provide us with a template we must adhere to. In the beginning (2022 and 2023) we were forced to use the online portfolio program called Evernote. Like most of my fellow students I found Evernote to be unnecessarily complicated, tedious, and completely superfluous, but we were forced to make entries, take screenshots of them, then submit them for grades. Also like most of my fellow students, I have kept all of my writing in an organized file and it includes well over 1000 sources recorded in perfect APA citation. They are also recorded in the program I use that makes the APA perfect called Perrla. I don't need a "portfolio" but the school has hopped on this pedagogical bandwagon, this fleeting fad, this flavour of the day in education - port fucking folios. 

Can you tell how much I like this process? I hated using it for my studies (as did all of my fellow students) and I hated using it in the classes I taught (as did all of the students). It's just a giant waste of time. When I was doing the PBLA classes at the Calgary Centre for Newcomers, trying to organize each student's binder and trying to organize each lesson, handout, exercise, assessment, quiz, etc. into the appropriate heading, sub-heading and sub-sub-heading with uniformity that would pass the auspices of the governing bodies constant watchful eyes, the only thing uniform was frustration for everyone and time we could be learning to speak English completely wasted. At the Calgary CFN it was useful for the bosses, however, in making sure teachers were teaching what was wanted and not teaching what wasn't. For the U. of the People, it's just a more organized and convenient printout of academic sources their students find and they use for their own purposes. But BOTH try to soft soap the teachers/students into believing it is all for our own good. Well fuck 'em. I am reminded of Korean banks forcing customers to use their bankbooks. After 100 transactions without updating the bankbook, your account will be frozen. It was even worse in China. They assure us it is for our "convenience" but it's just so they can keep track of our money. In Korea I got into the habit of starting new accounts after 99 transactions and making a grand display of throwing my pristinely unused bankbook in the garbage before taking home my new bankbook that would be thrown into the same garbage 99 transactions later. I am VERY tempted to tell the U of the People to take their fucking portfolio and flush it down the toilet because it stinks like number two.

Before Sampada became my academic advisor I had Renuka. About half way through my 10 courses I asked her to make sure I took all the electives and mandatory classes I needed and to give me an idea of what was acceptable for thesis topics. I gave her a description of some of the things that had interested me most in the courses to that point and how I would like to formulate a thesis from them. It was basically how to use Paulo Freiere's tactics for teaching adult literacy to oppressed Brazilians and employ them in the area of adult ESL for today's politically oppressed learners. I would still like to do that and I have a list of reading and research I have already done in preparation. I was never given an answer by Renuka. In fact the last email I received from her was an introduction saying, "Hi, my name is Renuka and I will be your new academic advisor."

I think I had Renuka to get me through the good 10 courses and now I have Sampada whose job it is to bully me into finishing this thing up. I recently asked her if I really had to find a class and do a study on that class. I am finding it difficult to get work in Canada, U.S., Taiwan, and other places as described in my previous post. Her response was that I could have worked out other methods like surveying teachers or using archives. But it was my fault for dropping the course without getting in touch with my professor.

The reality is I sent an email to the professor via U. of the People email which is the only means of correspondence with her I had been offered. I waited until the night before the course dropping deadline and received no response from the professor. So I guess I was expected to stay in the class having absolutely no idea of what the course would entail other than the tedium of the portfolio and conducting some sort of process that I was NOT interested in which would ultimately become the basis of a thesis I did not want to write. 

I chose to drop the course and am currently on leave of absence   NUMBER TWO. 

Evidently there is a maximum number of leaves of absence a student can apply for and take. After that I don't know what happens. From early indications of the help I will receive from Sampada, or lack thereof, I think I may find out.

There may yet be a way to make Gatorade out of this pile of gators but if not it is still another piece of extraordinarily bad luck in an extraordinarily bad luck career. 

The one saving grace is that it IS entertaining to write/complain about, don't you reckon?

The Oppression of Pedagogy

 And now for your reading pleasure a look at the tangled web time, corruption, and circumstances have woven for me in the area of education. It consists of oppressor's wrongs, the insolence of office, the law's delay, proud man's contumely, even a few pangs of despised love. In the end my patient merit has been met with the spurns of the unworthy. 

The oppressor's wrongs

From 1964 to 1985 there was a military dictatorship in Brazil that oppressed its people through censorship, human rights violations, and persecution that included torture and killing. A guy named Paulo Freire believed that education was the only way to overcome the oppression and he began teaching adult literacy with two primers called Saber Para Viver (to know is to live) and Viver e Lutar (to live is to struggle). He was accused of spreading communism and almost all of his literacy plans were cancelled at the start of the military coup. Freire was jailed for 75 days before choosing exile to Bolivia and Chile. His book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed described how his goal was to teach literacy through studying relevant concepts of the oppression experienced by his students as an ultimate means of fighting it. The capitalist "development" within Brazil was one repeated worldwide that consisted of replacing empathy or love with the hegemony of abstraction. 

Distraction, preoccupation, diversion, abstraction in place of human contact, socialization, community... see any of that anywhere? The only thing missing, for now, in the societies in which I participate is the military coup. 

Freire's teaching of concrete, relevant concepts, words and ideas to farmers in the Pernambuco area of Brazil virtually eliminated illiteracy AND FAST! He started with farming terms and eventually got into politics and the state of oppression with which all were outraged. His successes were repeated all over Brazil and by no coincidence Brazil became literate as well as politically active. They ousted the military dictatorship and a few years later had their first democratic elections.... speaking of abstractions.... 

What? Who said that? 

Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs and Steel) writes of several examples in which simple living, cooperative, empathetic, egalitarian societies were oppressed and often wiped out by those who chose the path toward the abstraction and complication of what we euphemistically call development, progress, or advancement. That path invariably includes

The insolence of office

It seems to be a weakness of the human condition that A) we gravitate toward the choosing of leaders and B) we choose the people least qualified for the positions. The very worst quality a true leader can have is...

Proud man's contumely

This is the very haughtiness, narcissism, and overwhelming self-love that makes a person believe he/she DESERVES to be leader and it can be clearly identified by oppressive treatment of others they consider to be below themselves. This can only come via an education that focuses on the abstractions of separation, competition, and disunity while downplaying or ignoring natural, concrete commonalities and interconnectivity. 

The law's delay

Almost all of the institutions and organizations that comprise the offices that separate classes, castes, tribes, even nationalities are entrenched in rules, regulations, and laws that are intentionally complex to the point of abstract ambiguity for the purposes of delaying proper judgment or not performing it at all. These rules have become the currency of almost all social climbers in societies transfixed upon the abstraction of progress. It has reached the point at which only the unapproachable are privileged with any discretionary power, and since they are by design unapproachable, they have little to no opportunity in which to employ it. This predicament, however, has evolved in an ever-changing world in which the necessity of challenging and contravening obsolete rules has never been greater. But I challenge you, dear reader, to challenge a rule in any area of "civilized" government, or more to my point today, education. There you will surely encounter the law's delay. 

The spurns of the unworthy

I skipped over the pangs of unrequited love since that whole flock of waaah waaah tends only to fly after copious imbibement and as of this minute I am as sober as a university chancellor. As for the spurns of the unworthy, my recent experiences, including one this very morning, have required Job-like patient merit and have been chock-a-block full of such spurns. It is they that have inspired this post.

Enough with the Shakespeare 

Now then... you may wonder at my brief biographical inclusion of Paulo Freire. It serves multiple purposes actually. First of all, a discussion of how modern day U.S. (and possibly Canada) could employ methods of teaching English to illiterate people (largely newcomers) that resemble those of Freire, was to be my thesis topic until I was informed of a rule 10 courses into my master's in education that the 11th and 12 courses were to be a study done on a class and the write up of that study was to be my thesis. The entire time I've been studying, since April of '22, nobody informed me of this. Not even my academic advisor who I asked about it! She wouldn't even offer any concrete advice on which courses I should choose so that I wouldn't - you know - take any extra. 

As you may know I was teaching newcomers to Canada before I quit and moved here to the States. I got to know some of their situations and the political situation in Canada in which they are embroiled and it contributed to the already well established oppression of the Haves over the Have nots in my country. To be clear, I don't think the refugees or newcomers are the worst of it either. Just part of it. A lot of them come to Canada with promises of settling allowances and housing support along with $18/hr. jobs. They can be experienced carpenters that end up in furniture factories (one of my students) or bakery owners who end up baking for owners (another of my students). Then they find out that 18 bucks an hour barely pays for food and rent. A lot of them burn out and go home. 

As for America, the class division and social hierarchy is better documented and may be more firmly entrenched. The violations of rights, oppression, torture, and censorship are more subtle, but I believe they exist and teaching English through lessons that include political commentary could prove to be successful pedagogy of the oppressed. 

The second purpose for the inclusion of Freire is that he taught his students what I believe to be the most valuable lesson in education, perhaps the very genesis OF it and that is to seek out as much knowledge as you can by questioning. This will invariably lead to disappointment and suffering, but in the end, you can remain ignorant or you can live a life of intellectual struggle. To know is to live and to live is to struggle. 

While teaching newcomers to Canada we were given binders, online lessons, shared files, and an entire resource room full of Canadiana that was allowable to teach. Things like the provinces, the government structure, the positive things about our history, even heroes like Terry Fox (The 44th TF Run took place 10 days ago and might have increased the $900,000,000 total money raised for cancer research to over a billion). However, it takes a while before students feel comfortable enough with the teacher to share complaints about Canada and ask questions about political issues that they hate. Taxes was the biggest issue in my class and I probably would have been fired if I taught a lesson on taxes. They kept a VERY tight watch for teaching like that. Any personally created lessons had to meet or exceed the very stringent auspices of the PBLA and LINC and whatever other abbreviated board of busybodies there exists to censor and keep education less relevant. This is not even to mention the management of the location where I taught who checked binders, made classroom visits, required frequent meetings, demanded online and written summaries of materials you taught and evaluated, and basically spied on all the teachers. 

The current state of educating in my life

I probably could write a thesis that could pass challenge on the above topic, but at what institution and where could it be implemented? I am currently in the position that I've read is shared by a lot of scientist nowadays: I can't write or study about what I want, I have to write and study about what is required. I read the 11th class description and there was a list of topics the study needed to meet with and I think the topic of class size is what I came up with in my mind as I read it. I'm still not even sure it would be accepted. Quite a big difference from what the 10 courses up until now have inspired me to write about! When I heard the news about needing a class to study I had already decided to quit my part-time, dead end teaching job in Calgary, but I don't mind telling you, because of the betrayal perpetrated on me by my university not making it clear that there was such a limited range of thesis topics, I did not waste a moment's thought on keeping the job for the purposes of my master's. Besides, my degree has a focus on high school students so I wanted a high school class. I was in contract negotiations with Japan about a university job there but I found an offer in Taiwan for public middle and high school teaching. Strap on your seatbelts for this!

I sent a stack of documents to Taiwan, passed an online interview, sent another stack of documents, got fingerprinted, received a criminal record check, sent that, made a teaching video and sent that, and finally I had my transcripts from my Canadian university (Lakehead) sent to the Illinois Board of Education along with a detailed application form (and another stack of dox) to get a substitute teacher's license. The girl in Taiwan named Tiffany who is my handler I guess said that she will shop me around to public schools (using (cringe) my video) once she receives my sub license. So I wait for two months and the license doesn't arrive. I sent a few emails to the Illinois BOE in the mean time that were answered with basically "be patient, this takes a while." Not long ago a DIFFERENT person answered yet another email saying that she was sorry and my Canadian transcripts need to be sent to an equivalency translation agency (which might be the epitome of abstraction if not bureaucratic dogshit) and their evaluation needs to accompany my transcripts on file before they can issue a substitute teacher license to me. 

Bear in mind, this is America! About 55,000 vacant full-time teaching positions and 270,000 positions currently filled by underqualified teachers. They gave me a list of about 20 agencies that would gladly translate my grades but this is America the apotheosis of that mighty abstraction called money. There would be about a $300 fee for this service. Luckily ONE of the many places to whom I emailed my situation got back to me in human form rather than letter form or form letter and said that my transcripts only appeared to be 3 years of study so he could only give me credit for 3 years toward a 4-year US bachelor's degree. 

I went to grade 13 in Ontario, the province in which I got my BA. The transcripts appear to be only 3 years worth of study because they ARE 3 years worth of study. In some convoluted (possibly just a knee-jerk educational complication/complexity) scheme that only lasted a short time and has now been done away with, the government of Ontario once offered an "honours" program or grade 13 as part of high school which would count towards the "honours" 3-year BA in university. If you got your 3-year BA without grade 13 it was called a Non-Honours BA. So grade 13 + 3-year BA = 4-year BA. Equivalency in the US = a 4-year BA.... right? Well to add to the complexity, distraction, and abstraction that keeps us from being a happy, well-functioning, empathetic, egalitarian society  -----  No. No, it doesn't. Not necessarily... Particularly not when your education, career, dignity, or LIFE depends on it. Especially not then!

I offered to send transcripts from my high school to the service but the guy said he has rules to abide by and could not accept them. At least he doesn't have the discretionary power to accept them. So I sent an email to Illinois (or 5) telling them the situation and asking if there was anything that could be done. I offered my high school transcripts to THEM too. They replied with the rules and regulations response as well. I explained the whole situation to Cyndee and she informed me that there was nothing that could be done. At least Cyndee did not have the discretionary power to do anything. I even told her that I was accepted to teach in universities and study at universities where my degree was evaluated and found to be the equivalent of a 4-year BA by the various international evaluation bodies but that made no difference. I don't want to waste $300 on a service that will only give me credit for 3 years toward an American BA and then not receive my substitute teaching license. Again, this is America during a teacher's shortage. I have already worked in the public school systems of Canada, Korea, China, and Indonesia and have over 20 years of teaching experience. They're whinging about teacher shortages but are withholding a license from me on a minor technicality! 

It may be off topic but I can think of several parallel actions of abstraction involving property managers, nurses, and crying about shortages when it's just insane amounts of certification, licensing, rules, regulations and other such abstraction that causes inaction. "Maybe we should just import people from other countries with those skills..." I won't go down THAT road to abstraction here.

Now I will fully admit that Taiwan wants me to get this certificate so they can misleadingly ensure their clients that all teachers are "certified" teachers in public schools. It's a slight fractiuring of laws and this is the kind of baloney that has led us down this rabbit hole of horrific complications and complexities. This kind of behavior should open things up to wider discretion, but the opposite action has caused confusion (and abstraction) rather than solution. 

The current state of education in my life

SO... since my Taiwan plans have met with an existential road block, I thought I might consider alternate routes through which I could continue and even complete my Master's in Education. I went to an open house at St. Mary's College nearby and was impressed with the commitment to education. One I have seen precious little of in my experience. You will remember that my choice for thesis, should I continue at the University of the People would be class sizes and how smaller is DEFINITELY better despite the current trend in the opposite direction. They are proud at St. Mary's of offering a better experience through getting to know classmates and instructors via small class sizes. That gave me hope for the world of education, a world with which I have grown steadily more and more disenchanted. I decided to look into it.

Unlike most government agencies, school, and universities, I was easily able to get an email and correspond with the right person on the very first try! You can't have a good idea of how rare that is in my life right now but I almost cried! With renewed hope in humanity I sent Cyndi documents, transcripts, and related my story. She consulted some other people and came to the conclusion that St. Mary's is not the place for me largely because the University of the People is not a regionally accredited school. This is not to say that Cyndi is unworthy to spurn me, but with my experience and education, I am certainly not a candidate worthy to be spurned. Yet here we are. 

You can be sure I checked on accreditation well before I started studying at the U. of the P. back in April of '22. Why, here is a page that says it is  What in God's holy name was Cyndi blathering about? Oh... SHIT! I can't even be mad. They told me on the U. of the People website!

So Cyndi said that I could receive no credit for the courses I have taken at that school. Maybe if they are regionally accredited in the future.... ah the law's delay. 

There is a bit of good news. Cyndi gave me the names of some other local schools and suggested that they might not be so particular about allowing my credentials and more suitable master's programs to which I could more easily transfer my credits. I also have it on good authority that I don't need certification to sub here in Maryland. However, there are gonna be some visa issues, applications to fill out, maybe even some OTHER certifications to get and other legal hoops to jump through to be sure. I might be able to relate to Tiffany my situation and she may offer an easier way to get substitution certification from another state here. Or I might be able to get a job in some other country teaching for peanuts while I finish my master's at the U. of the P. 

Anyway, I am in an existential crisis here questioning my education and the value of education as a whole. I have fallen more out of love my career with every misadventure I've had as a teacher and now it has spread into my studies too. Don't get me wrong, when I'm in the classroom doing my thing, I am happy. It just seems that happiness is destined to be disallowed. The most absurd parachute-not-deploying facet of my tangled web of educational abstraction is that experience has been directly proportionate to INaction rather than action. The more I teach, the less qualified I become. 

Maybe I should write a parallel to Paulo Freire's The Pedagogy of the Oppressed called The Oppression of Pedagogy.

You reckon?