THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

One of my personal conceits is that I write fairly well. I'm an amateur, to be sure, but I enjoy it. I've always been able to write: as a kid in school, I used to love "composition" class, when our teachers would give us a topic or hold up a picture and challenge us to make a story out of it. I could do this easily, and my stories were usually given high marks and were read before the class. It was a sort of identity for me: the kid who could write.

As I got older, I began to think about using my writing skills to further my education and perhaps follow a career. I started to think seriously about journalism as my future calling. When the time came, I applied to Western and Ryerson because both schools had well respected programmes in journalism. I went to both schools, with samples of my high school writing in hand, to be interviewed by faculty, tour the facilities and get as much information as I could. It ended up that I went to Western, but didn't follow journalism, choosing instead to study more academic areas and ultimately go into teaching. Oh well …

However, my interest in journalism has never waned. In many of my courses, I had units in journalism, believing firmly that an understanding of media, how it works and its importance in our society was something my young students should know. I also attempted, on several occasions, to launch a school newspaper as an extracurricular activity. It was one of the great thrills of my career to see, with the opening edition of one of the papers, the entire concourse of our school fall silent with students bent over copies of the paper. Later, with the advent of social media, the hard copy paper fell out of favour, despite our best efforts to publicize it and produce interesting reading.

When it's done well, journalism is a form of living history. It chronicles the times in which we live, and provides material for future historians to use as they attempt to understand us. Good journalism, and especially good writing, can do wonderful things for us. It can teach, of course. It can enlighten. It can entertain with its intelligence and discovery. And it can sway us, and make us think of things that we hadn't thought before. I always believed that good journalism is a jewel in the crown of our democratic society: we need independent, intelligent, objective reporting of events and people in order for us to become aware of what goes on in our locales, our country, and our world. Without good journalism, we would be living in complete vacuums, ignorant and dark creatures of fear and superstition.

When journalism is done badly, as it often is, it becomes either a bad joke in our eyes, or a pernicious tool for those who seek to control or manipulate us. It can be propaganda for demagogues and dictators, or an enabler of mindless and childish titillation. It can be a distraction from real and unpleasant issues which require immediate attention, benefitting only those who drive or profit from those unpleasant issues. It can be clumsy, unprofessional, intrusive and, in its worst iteration, a form of semi-pornographic entertainment. When this happens, people often lose respect for the honest journalists who continue to ply their trade with the same conviction as medieval monks on some wind-swept island among the barbarians they're trying to enlighten.

We now exist in a post-journalism world. Social media, in its many forms, is the main source of information for many people. The 24-hour news cycle constantly hammers us with images and slogans that become, after time, mind numbing. People shun paper copies of publications. We read long form copy less than ever. And, as a result, we think less. The open hostility to real journalism, most blatantly shown in the Trump administration, appeals to many people because these people don't want to think: to do so requires effort. They want to feel, to let emotion rule. And the easiest emotion to conjure is fear: the second easiest is anger. Together, these are potent forces for the corrupt and opportunistic to use. And this is exactly what's happening now.

We need good journalism now more than ever. If our democracy is to survive and flourish, we must be willing to read more, regardless the platform we choose to read. And we must think more. For these to happen, we need to encourage young people to choose journalism not just as a career, but as a calling, as sacred as a religious calling. It is democracy's only hope.

A MAN HEARS WHAT HE WANTS TO HEAR AND DISREGARDS THE REST

You can learn a lot from your friends. I certainly do, every day of my life. And I'm grateful for this gift. Some of the things I learn are harsh and painful, exposing my weaknesses and faults. Some things are uplifting and inspiring, pushing me to be a better person. Other things are funny, creative and even whimsical. But I always assume that the lessons I learn are the truth, for the lessons come from friends, and I trust them.

Recently, I polled my friends on facebook on the issue of climate change. The question I posed was a simple one. I asked them if they thought the issue of climate change was real and serious. I now realize, thanks to one of my respondents, that I should've phrased the question better, and framed the issue around "anthrogenic", or human caused, climate change. I assumed, however, that most people, when they consider climate change in the modern context, would understand that we were talking about human caused climate change. I freely admit that I had a certain expectation as to the answers I would get.

I was pleasantly surprised at the response. More than 40 of my facebook friends took the time to respond. I was thinking of a possible response of around a dozen or so: this was a nice surprise. Forty of my friends represents about 10% of my total facebook friend count: of course, many of the 400+ people who are classified as friends are not frequent users of facebook, or are constant correspondents with me. Several of them are in foreign countries, and therefore may not understand the question. So the response was nice. The second thing that surprised me was the overwhelming answer of "yes" to my question. I expected "yes" would be the majority response, but the extent of the "yes" side was amazing. Only one person said "no", which is a fair and honourable response, and two others said "yes" with caveats. The rest said "yes" plainly, sometimes in capital letters, with exclamation marks, or other equally emphatic phrases. It was an education for sure.

The question phrased by one of my respondents was "where are you going with this?" Good question. Initially, I intended it for my own curiousity, to see if my views are consistent with other people's, and yes they are. But then I decided to blog this to try to put it all into some kind of perspective. No reader should be surprised by this.

Doug Ford has recently gone on a high-spirited campaign against the "carbon tax" that Ontario has originally planned to implement. The tax was to be part of an initiative that included cap and trade, which Ford earlier cancelled. Ford claims that a tax will be a strain on those who already "pay too much tax" or who are low-income earners. Ford also claims that a carbon tax would be a "job killer", scaring investors and companies out of Ontario. Ford also intends to challenge the federal government, which is about to implement a national "carbon price" across the nation, specifically targeting the provinces which do not have their own carbon price or tax: Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick. "Coincidentally", those provinces have Conservative or conservative-leaning governments. Ford intends to make this a hot-button issue in all upcoming elections, specifically aiming at Justin Trudeau's Liberal federal government, with the hope of defeating Trudeau and placing Conservative Andrew Scheer as the new Prime Minister. It's a long game Ford is playing, and there are some personal ambitions of his own on view for all to see.

Ford's gambit flies in the face of empirical evidence on the benefits of a price on carbon. When cap and trade was in effect in Ontario ( in a partnership with Quebec and California ), it seemed to work and some 3 billion dollars of revenue was earned by the provincial government which was supposed to be put toward implementing other solutions to the carbon problem. International studies have shown that carbon "taxes" have significantly reduced emissions in certain places, have not "killed jobs", and have, in fact, created a new economic sector, the sustainable environmental economy. Nobel prizes in economics were awarded to those who studied and supported this thesis.

And, finally, opinion polls have indicated that the majority of Canadians support some type of carbon price. Here's where my little poll comes in. In my little corner of the cyber world, more than 40 people, to varying degrees, agree that climate change is real and serious. I did not ask them if they supported a carbon price. But if a problem is that significant and serious, obviously some solution must be sought.

To be fair, there may be other solutions to the issue of climate change. Nobody has "THE ANSWER". But it seems to me that what we have in front of us is a start. If polluters are forced to pay, and if polluting by all of us ( private citizens and large corporations ) is no longer free or convenient, we will be forced into more positive initiatives.

Taxes are, generally, regressive. It's money out of someone's pocket. Nobody likes them, me included. But they are necessary. We all know that. And so, we pay them, grumbling all the while. Fair enough.

Sooner or later, the international studies show, we have to stop talking and debating about climate change, and start to take action. There are those who refuse to accept this, but most of us realize that it's true: the time for climate action is now. We have no choice. It really is a matter of survival for us as a species and for the earth as a planet.

I hope the 40+ of you who answered my little poll agree with me on this. Grumble all you want. But pay the damned tax. And insist our leaders stop turning this into an election issue. It isn't. It's well past that. It's survival.

A MOST UNCIVIL WAR

In past years, I used to enjoy going on a long weekend with several good buddies to Brookline Michigan to watch NASCAR races. The weekend was largely an excuse to camp out with really good friends, drink far too much beer, eat delicious barbequed food ( expertly prepared and cooked by my buddy Rob, who missed his calling as a professional bbq pit master ), look at pretty girls, listen to good music, and … oh yes … watch some good racing. One of the strange activities for me was to watch, listen to and try to understand many of the NASCAR fans, who were, to say the least, about as different from me and my view of the world as chalk and cheese. A way to pass some time was to stroll among the myriad souvenir vendors, who hawked almost anything with a NASCAR logo on it. Actually,  NASCAR was not necessarily the most popular logo available: more items had Confederate flags and slogans on them than anything else. It became more apparent, as the years went by, that I hadn't just crossed a border into the neighbouring state of Michigan: I had actually travelled into a different universe that was based in a different time, well established in the past. Michigan is a northern state, but the denizens of this environment were as foreign to us as if we had journeyed to Mars.

Most of the t-shirts and other paraphernalia touted a belief that "the South would rise again." This usually had a Confederate flag in the background and some kind of rebel figure, often a skeleton, rising up from a desolation, brandishing a sword or a civil war-era musket. The skull would have a grim expression ( I suppose most skulls do!) and often a bandage on the forehead with faint traces of blood. The message was unmistakable: the previous civil war was merely a lost battle, and that southern grit and determination combined with courage and a will to fight into eternity would ensure complete and utter victory some day. Other t-shirts were not even as subtle as that. Some would feature slogans about how "history will be vindicated", a veiled reference to the notion that the old southern attitudes to human rights, race relations, gender relations, and faith in the old religion would some day be returned to their positions of prominence. I kept telling myself, as I walked through the vendor area, that I was reading too much into it, that this was just harmless redneck fun. But as I listened closely, and conversed with these rednecks during the Obama presidency, and the rise of equality in race, gender, age and ethnicity, I was hearing the true beliefs of many of these people: that the current model of society was unacceptable to them, that there would be a type of semi-biblical reckoning, and that, indeed, the "south would rise again."

It is difficult to say for sure when society became so polarized and disunited: some would suggest it's a phenomenon of the Trump era; others would say it goes further back to the formation of the Tea Party as a more radical branch of the Republicans; others might even suggest it goes further back into the 90's, with the advent of the so-called "Common Sense Revolution" that began in middle America and found its strongest voice in Mike Harris' Ontario; still others can trace the origins of this polarization to the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the prime ministership of Margaret Thatcher. It may go even further back to the creation of the "welfare state" in 1930's America under FDR or the implementation of the Beveridge Report in post-war Britain.

Regardless, we find ourselves today mired in a type of tribalism that features the strange aspect of "identity politics", where people now find themselves in one camp or another, with no chance or even no willingness to see the other side or to hear the other ways of doing things. We hear phrases on social media that urge us to "share this" if you agree that so-and-so is an idiot hell-bent in destroying the world as we know it. We are told that we live in "bubbles", which suggest some kind of artificial existence that acknowledges only things we like or want to hear. We are confronted with the phrase "tone-deaf" when opponents refuse to hear our own arguments, but cling to a belief that we ourselves are open to all ideas and thought. One side wants to "lock her up", while the other side claims an association of victimhood by saying "me too" or "black lives matter."

The rhetoric is so intense, so vitriolic, so loud and so unaccepting that there is only one conclusion to be reached about the current state of society: we are at war with our fellow citizens, and the war is getting ugly and so entrenched that an end is not in sight. Consider the following random examples of current trends:

1) Britain is still mired in an almost existential tussle over Brexit. The vote is now two years behind us. Yet the negotiations to bring about the separation proceed at a snail's pace, with the uncertainty weighing down both economies. British people are still unsure what they actually did two years ago and many are hoping somehow that they could get a "do over" because they are so overwhelmed at the enormity of it all. The original vote pitted Briton against Briton and it split down largely rural vs urban, London vs the rest of the country, old vs young, England vs Scotland lines. And, make no mistake, the key issue was not trade or general economics: it was immigration, and who is "let in" and who is "kept out." In modern times, Britain has never been more divided.

2) The Trump era in the United States, from his campaign for president to the present day. There is so much to unpack here, it would take too much time to recap. The most recent battle, the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court of the United States, is a good example of the divide the nation is in. But it is in the President himself, his words, his actions, his style, his policies and his complete disregard for civil behavior that endears him to so many Americans who would probably be right at home wandering through the NASCAR vendors' area with me and my equally shocked friends. Much more could be said here.

3) The rise of modern Conservatism in Canada. Since the 1990's, Canada has seen its own variety of Tea Party populism rise to power. Modern Canadian Conservatism, embodied by such people as Stephen Harper, Preston Manning, Ralph Klein, Mike Harris, Jason Kenney, Rob and Doug Ford, Tony Clement, Andrew Scheer and many others, has its roots in evangelical Christianity, rural conservatism, a pro-business agenda, and skepticism in anything scientific, progressive, multicultural or inclusive, which is seen by the right as threatening to their simple, honest and time-tested belief system. The efforts of Doug Ford, current premier of Ontario, and Jason Kenney, possible premier of Alberta, is a naked attempt to undermine the federal government of Justin Trudeau, which they see as a complete and utter failure, despite the public record of some accomplishments by Trudeau. Jurisdiction and propriety do not seem to matter to these right wing leaders and their words and actions, fanned by populist media such as the Sun newspapers and screed-laced on-line sources like Rebel Media, are red meat to their followers.

4) The rise of right-wing, extreme populism in Europe, specifically in Turkey, Poland, Italy, Russia and most interestingly in Ukraine shows a willingness of people to accept simple, phrase-based slogans as truth. In Ukraine, the aftermath of the Maidan Revolution has given rise to groups like Svoboda and s14, which are thinly disguised neo-Nazi groups that challenge the authority of the central government and its efforts to settle the nation down and wage a sensible struggle against pro-Russian aggression in the east of the country and in the Crimean Peninsula. These situations bear watching.

It has always been a truism that "we live in challenging times." No era in history has been without its difficulties and upheavals. But the current situation and all the attendant issues ( climate change, environmental management,  economic disparity, mental health, rampant technology, and relationships between genders, races, ethnicities, belief systems etc. ) can never be solved until we have declared a truce between the factions that are fighting this civil war of ideology.

There is little hope of such a truce ever happening. Instead, we are locked into an ideological war of attrition comparable to the idiocy of trench warfare in World War One. We hope to out-shout the other side, come up with more clever and biting memes on social media, and rally the vote against the hordes on the other side. Our disagreements are evolving into visceral hatred. Peace will only come, it seems, with the utter destruction of the other side.

The south will not rise again. There will only be a ghastly unacceptance of anyone who is against your way of thinking. God help us all.

THE POLITICS OF CHAOS

Doug Ford has been Premier of Ontario for less than four months, but in that time, he has succeeded in turning the political climate in the province from the usual turbulent back and forth of partisan politics into an absolute maelstrom of uncertainty and brinksmanship. His plan to gut the City Council of Toronto has ruffled more than a few feathers, has inspired a court petition which won in Ontario Superior Court, only to be overturned by Ford's use of Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the so-called "Notwithstanding Clause".

Since then, Ontario and indeed all of Canada has been plunged into a type of chaos not seen in recent years. Ford's heavy-handed move has forced a re-examination of the powers set out in various sections of the Constitution. Many former leaders, both liberal and conservative have weighed in and stated that the use of Section 33 was inappropriate, although completely legal.

Now, there is mounting pressure on Justin Trudeau to invoke the seldom used Sections 55 and 56 of the Constitution Act to disallow any provincial legislation Ford may pass regarding the size and format of the Toronto City Council. Others are crying foul, that Trudeau has no such power, or would be unwise to use it. In point of fact, the power to disallow provincial legislation is real and has been used several times in Canada's history. Most famously, the governments of R.B. Bennett and Mackenzie King invoked the power to disallow several attempts by William Aberhardt, the premier of Alberta, to reform the banking and other economic institutions during the 1930's. Since then, most political thinkers have come to the conclusion that the power of disallowance is dormant: perhaps that is true, but it not extinct. It has not been used since. It is still there in black and white, ready to be dusted off to plunge us even further into political chaos.

Whether Ford or Trudeau go ahead with their political "nuclear" options is impossible to predict at this time. Whether they even should attempt these things is a discussion for water coolers, coffee shops, bars and dinner tables. The big question should be this: why are they doing this in the first place?

The answer lies in the time tested Conservative practice of "creating a crisis." I say it's a Conservative practice because I honestly cannot think of an equivalent Liberal or NDP practice. Creating a Crisis is used by Conservatives to try to get the citizenry angry at the established ways of doing things in order to be given tacit permission to change the ways of doing things in their favour. In this case, Ford's personal vendetta against Toronto City Council is motivating him to act this way. Don't like City Council? Declare it to be "dysfunctional" and then throw a huge wrench into the scheduled electoral process, throwing everything and everyone into confusion, and stand back and say that he is the only one to fix "the problem." The only flaw in that reasoning is this: most people know that there was no problem in the first place and the confusion is only flowing from the Ford government.

There is a precedent. In the 1990's in Ontario, the Conservative government was led by a failed teacher named Mike Harris. Whatever the reasons for him leaving the profession, he developed a severe animus towards it. When he achieved power, he decided to try to break teacher unions, radically change the way teachers did their jobs, curtail the power of school boards, and, generally, throw everything into a boiling soup of controversy. His Ministers of Education, John Snobelin and Dave Johnson, knew nothing about teaching, but certainly knew how to turn public opinion against teachers and launched a series of bills and regulations against the profession. What followed was the "political protest" of teachers in the late 90's. The government eventually won the battle, but the antagonism and bad feelings THEY created have lasted to this day. And, ultimately, teachers won the war. Harris and his successor, Ernie Eves, were turfed out of power and a prolonged period of relative peace returned under Liberal governments.

Now, the Conservatives are back and they are loaded for bear. They have, in their short time in office, thrown everything into chaos. They are picking fights. They are creating chaos. They are making it up as they go along, with no clear mandate from the electorate to do these things.  They despise the federal Liberals simply because the Liberals have been governing largely successfully with a relatively progressive agenda and approach. The provincial Tories hate this and want the same fate to befall the Trudeau Liberals as befell the Kathleen Wynne Liberals . Make no mistake, this whole sorry incident is a veiled challenge to Trudeau to intervene and deploy his own version of a political "nuclear bomb." Deep down, Ford must realize that his Conservatives were put in power simply because people no longer liked the Liberals: Wynne's government was tired and out of ideas. Fair enough. But the voters weren't actually voting in favour of anything Ford's Conservatives offered, because there was no platform to examine. Voters were simply in the mood for change. Ford hopes that, if Trudeau intervenes, he can successfully battle a "bully" federal government which is trying to tell Ontario what to do. He hopes it will make him look good and Trudeau, an outsider from Quebec, look bad. It's a terrible gamble on Ford's part and it will only ruin any chance of federal-provincial co-operation. And it might work.

But, as with Harris and Eves, Ford would be well advised to remember that these chaos-induced successes of his are to be short-lived and will backfire on him.

Chaos, like karma, is a bitch.

WORLD WAR TRUMP, PART 2

A year ago, on June 2, 2017, I wrote a piece I called "World War Trump." In it, I tried to give voice to my disgust and outrage at President Trump's decision to pull the United States from the Paris Environmental Accord, which pledged the world to attempt to meet certain targets of reduced emissions in an effort to combat the phenomenon of climate change. Trump's belligerent repudiation of the Paris Accord signaled to me that the US had begun a process of withdrawing from the rest of the world.

In this June of 2018, the spiral continues. Today, June 19, 2018, the United States announced that it was withdrawing from the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. This announcement followed hard on the heels of the obscene Trump policy of separating children from their parents as they are detained at US border crossings. In some cases, it has been reported that the border authorities cannot account for some 1,500 of these seized children: where they have gone is completely unknown. The border fiasco has been widely condemned by everyone with a conscience. Former First Ladies have spoken out. Lawmakers have spoken out. Private citizens have spoken out. Despite all this, the Trump administration carries on with its barbaric practices.

That these items, plus others I wrote about a year ago, have been criticized comes as no surprise. But the strange and almost serene way that Trump and his supporters try to fight back must be understood. Using logic, or morality, or even history as weapons against Trump have been ineffective. Nothing seems to deter them from their path. Why is that ?

The answer lies in the events and words Trump uttered during the presidential campaign in 2016. In that odious campaign, he railed against the entire world, including elements within his own country. He raised the specter of hordes of illegal aliens swamping American cities, raping, forcing drugs onto gullible American youth, and embarking on a weapons-aided crime spree the like of which the nation had never seen. He constantly told his supporters that the US had been duped on every trade deal, every treaty, every multilateral initiative since the Second World War. The US had had its generosity and its ideals trampeled on, he insisted, by conniving and rapacious countries the world over. The only way to reverse this was his "America First" initiative, poorly articulated during the campaign, but now in full view for all of us to see.

This is red meat for his supporters. They believe every falsehood, every frightening image, every suspicion of their enemies. And Trump capitalized on all of it. Not only were foreigners suspects: Americans who hold international views, who are liberal in their thinking, who work in or consume main-stream media are also considered enemies. For the majority of Americans, who don't own passports, who have little or rudimentary education, who don't or can't read legitimate newspapers or watch legitimate news on television, who have lost their jobs to globalization and can't or won't upgrade their skills, the enemy is both without and within.

And therein lies the battle. Trump and his supporters are not only at war with the entire world, they are involved in an emotional and ideological civil war. The civil war pits rural against urban, southern or western against the two coasts, old against young, white males against everyone else, evangelical Christians against atheist and agnostics and Jews and Muslims and Hindus and …..  you get the point.

The stakes are high, for not only are asylum-seekers having their rights trampled and families torn apart. The world is now being forced to "circle the wagons" against the wild policies and actions of the US. And the states which did not widely support Trump in the election, or are going to be victimized by the impending death of NAFTA and the tariff war just now ramping up, are  being challenged like those states in the dark days before the actual Civil War who attempted to stand up for the concept of a strong and successful Union and who put an end to one of the worst human rights abuses in US history.

The end result will not only be the total isolation of the United States from the family of nations. It will also tear the country apart, socially, morally, financially and politically. And when the United States no longer exists, what then? What replaces it ? And what unspeakable horrors will a fractured and deformed American entity force upon the world?

Evangelical Christians are among Trump's greatest and most influential supporters. They believe in the "end of days", the impending end of the world. They believe that the final days will be violent, destructive and all-consuming. Only the elect, the righteous, the true believers will be received into the new order. For them, this is the beginning of the Rapture. And, because of this belief, they can blithely accept what Trump does, and defend all the horrible, insane, obscene, ridiculous things he does. The rest of us are just along for the ride.

God help us all.

INTO THE DARKNESS

I became a fan of Anthony Bourdain the first time I saw him on tv. It was an early episode of "Parts Unknown", his travel show on CNN. I think what attracted me to his persona was the irreverent and brash character. He was unafraid to use profanity when the situation called for it. He was honest about what he was experiencing. He seemed to jump into the situation fully and without reservation. He reminded me of …. well, in many ways … me.

Bourdain's show was a mish-mash of several things. Obviously, it was a travel show. He and his crew visited several locations, some familiar and comfortable, others rare and even dangerous. He was utterly fearless about travel. Secondly, it was ( also obviously ) a show about food. Bourdain was one of those strange creatures that have emerged from the primeval mass of modern television known as a "celebrity chef". To be honest, I never watched Bourdain cook very often on tv. He was more of a "foodie", although he hated that term. He loved food, but didn't fall into the trap of trying to find new, elaborate or poetic ways to describe it: it was either bad or good … if you got an "oh yeah, this is good" from him, you knew you'd done very well. Thirdly, and for me, most importantly, his show was a form of creative journalism. In many episodes, he tackled issues that were serious, deep-rooted, and often divisive. Again, he was utterly fearless in this. Some of his most memorable episodes were filmed in Iran, Israel/Palestine, Vietnam, Cuba, and the Congo …. not exactly on most Americans' bucket lists. He didn't care. He went there because they were difficult places and shone a light on the things that Americans had done to them, and to show that these people were, after everything was said and done, human.

I read his book "Kitchen Confidential" and thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it. Friends of mine who were chefs assured me that Bourdain had nailed their craft perfectly. The book showed the rough underbelly of the world of cuisine, all its dark secrets, all its vulgar characters, all its passions and all its dangers. It remains, for me, one of the best books I've read in recent years, and I encourage all to pick it up and read it.

Bourdain committed suicide yesterday in France at the age of 61. When I read this, I was initially shocked, then saddened, then vaguely understanding. Bourdain always projected an image of slight darkness, a feeling that it wouldn't take much to push him over the edge. He admitted to having demons: his battles with drugs and alcohol were well known. But he seemed to, at least on the surface, be happy. He had success, a family ( although he'd gone through a recent divorce ), and had gotten himself fit and healthy with strenuous martial arts work-outs. He had much to live for. But like Robin Williams, several musicians, Wade Belak and several hockey players, the pain became too much and the suffering had to end.

Years ago, I lost a friend and respected colleague to suicide. Although I hadn't seen him in quite some time, I and the rest of us who knew him had no idea what he was struggling with. The reality was hidden by a smile and a sense of humour as big as the world.

If you are struggling, don't feel as though you have to endure this alone. Reach out and talk to someone. Do it now. You are not alone, nobody ever is. Do not go into the darkness.

SCORCHED EARTH, ONTARIO

One of our favourite road trips is to drive out west, usually to visit good friends of ours in Winnipeg. We've been doing this drive for a number of years now, and visiting Don and Joy is a great pleasure. Another pleasure is the drive itself, through the massive province of Ontario, taking in the constantly inspiring and changing landscape. Lakes, hills, forests, bogs and farmland and the spectacular shore of Lake Superior have created a lasting impression on us.

Many years ago, perhaps as much as twenty years, we were dismayed to drive along the stretch of the TransCanada highway west of Dryden to behold a huge scene of utter devastation. A forest fire had recently burned a massive swath of destruction. Blackened trees and burned land stretched as far as the eye could see, and for many, many kilometers along the road. We were heartbroken to see this and felt that some angry god had vent his wrath on the creatures of this land: and we knew that, in all probability, humans were responsible in some way for this destruction. It was sad to see.

Unlike the old Smokey the Bear ads we used to see when we were kids ( "forest fires are forever" ), the subsequent years of travel revealed something quite remarkable. Every time we did the drive, we were heartened to see evidence of rebirth and renewal: initially, small grasses and shrubs poked up out of the black soil. Then, saplings reached for the sun. Our most recent drive, in 2016, gave us new hope. Trees were in evidence along the road: the trees were now so tall that one had to really look hard to see the charred remains of their long-dead ancestors. We believe that, in a couple of more years, when we make the drive again, we will no longer see the remains of the original forest fire. To be accurate, the trees we saw a couple of years ago are hardly a forest, but they will become one in due course. New life is a constant.

In a similar way, the Ontario Liberal Party is engaged in a type of scorched earth situation. After many years of, frankly, bad or at least inconsistent government, the Liberals under Kathleen Wynne must go to the people for a renewed mandate to govern. They won't get one. Ontarians are completely fed up with Wynne, the other long-time cabinet ministers, and anyone and anything else associated with the Liberals. They are completely justified in doing so. This government is old, tired and completely out of ideas. When one sees them on television or read their messages on-line, one gets the sense that they would dearly love to be put out of their misery and go on to other things. They will get their wish soon.

As a long-time Liberal supporter, I am in a tough spot. I cannot support the Conservatives for a variety of reasons, and I never will. I am not NDP, although I have voted for them in the past, and remain uncertain of them and their policies. And supporting the Liberals this time is going to be difficult: I will not blindly cast a vote for a bad government just because I usually vote Liberal. I will have a tough choice, but that's not why I am thinking of the forest fire.

No matter what I do, the Liberals will lose badly. In the short term, this is bad news for people like me. We will wail and gnash our teeth and wring our hands. We will see a political apocalypse the like of which Ontario has rarely seen. It will be horrible, chaotic and destructive. The Conservatives will have the next four years to run roughshod over the things that Liberals and NDP's hold dear. The Conservatives will govern according to their conscience, and God help the rest of us.

But those four years will give the Liberals a wonderful opportunity to rebuild. The old leadership must be cast aside. Old policies must be abandoned or at least re-thought. Younger people must be encouraged to assume positions of leadership. New money must be raised to re-generate the war chest. And voters must be shown that the new Liberals are serious about mounting a new challenge to the Conservatives, who, let's face it, are not really good at things like renewal and offering paradigm shifts in the way things are done. Instead of wailing and weeping, Liberals need to get busy immediately after the election to grow into something new, vital and attractive.

Like the forest fire, it will take a scorched earth to bring about the necessary change. So, let's allow Doug Ford and his gang four years to hang themselves, which they will do. But let's encourage the Liberals not to stand pat and simply be "not Conservatives": in other words, the Liberals must not always be the charred and ruined remains of a forest. They must become new, young and vital. As in nature, it can be done, and it must be done.

THE LONG HANGOVER

A few weeks ago, a friend commented in passing that I hadn't blogged in quite a while. He wondered if I'd packed it in, or was suffering from "writer's block." I responded that I hadn't actually thought about it for quite a while, and that, no, I wasn't aware of any block or other impediment to my writing. We drifted into other areas of conversation, but, as I returned home, I began to think of his comments further. No, I hadn't blogged in quite some time: in fact, I checked my blog's archive and discovered, to my amazement, that I had only blogged twice all of last year, not including my Kilimanjaro journal.

Hmmm, I thought. Maybe I am blocked. But there are certainly still many things I'm interested in, and care about. I know that I've thought about a great many things over the year. My opinions are as firm as they ever were. And God knows there's no shortage of things to write about: Trump, North Korea, the Leafs, family and friends, the economy, the future, hell even the return of Thug Ford. No, I wasn't blocked. Something else was at work here.

I began to look back over the past year as coldly and as dispassionately as I could. And, as did so, I came to a very startling conclusion: I was hung-over ! Not in the traditional sense, however .... more in a state of mind, state of life sense. Allow me to explain.

It's been exactly a year since my Kilimanjaro expedition with my brother. Everything before that was geared to that event. My mind was constantly thinking about the climb, researching it, planning what was needed to prepare, what gear to get, how much it would all cost, what kind of toll it would take on me .... total focus on the climb. This was several months' worth of thought. I also became more physically active, trying to improve my fitness levels, get into shape and get my aged body used to the demands the climb would undoubtedly have on me. The focus, the excitement, the commitment were all real and all-consuming.

We had two trips to the Caribbean before the Kili climb: our family trip to Mexico right at New Year's and our annual trip to Cuba in mid January. Both were fun and very active. When I returned from Cuba in early February, I had only a month to ramp up my training for Kili and lose the extra pounds I'd put back on at Christmas, in Mexico and Cuba. And I was successful: I stopped drinking, ate better, and managed to lose 15 pounds. I swam, ran, hiked with full backpack, hit the weights and got back into good shape. And then, the big day arrived: on March 6, 2017, we were off. The trip was the stuff of legend and I blogged all about it, complete with photos. We returned home, exhausted and triumphant, on March 19, 2017.

And that's when the hang-over began.

It's hard to explain what happened and why. Kili was such a high, such a major life event for me. I spent weeks back home trying to re-live it in my mind and soul. I tried to make sense of what we'd done. I could scarcely believe it had actually happened. In fact, one year later, I still think of it as some crazed dream that I had. And physically, the trip took a huge toll. I spent the next three months trying to heal. My feet were terrible and I lost all but two toenails on both feet: it took weeks for the angry blisters to go away. To this day, my feet still hurt and probably always will: there's some arthritis to deal with too, but the damage from the descent is the main culprit. My knees needed three months of physiotherapy to get range of movement and strength back, and to reduce the pain. They're mostly better now: I am back to slow jogging again and that, to me, feels good. But every once in a while, when I zig when I should've zagged, my right knee will buckle and remind me that I put it through a terrible ordeal a year ago.

Because of all this, I've spent a fairly quiet year. We were able to get into our garden this past spring and summer and enjoy all the benefits of gardening. We've socialized with our friends and family as much as we  have ever done. We've done some small trips here and there. All the nice, pleasant things that being retired brings, they've all been there and I've enjoyed them all.

But I'm still not all the way back yet. I think I left a good chunk of myself on those wind-swept, scree and ice covered, cold and stark rocks. I feel proud of the climb, but I am constantly aware that I have paid, and continue to pay a price for it.

I feel good. I feel happy. I'm looking forward to the future as I've always done: with optimism and confidence.

I just hope the hang-over is done with me ..... as in a real hang-over, time will tell.