What Can You Do When Your City Hates Your Country?

The municipal council of the city of Victoria, BC has a collective loathing of the country of Canada. Therefore they have voted to replace Canada Day in 2022 with Hate-Canada Day. But with what seems mendacious hypocrisy, they will call it “Civic Inclusion Day”. That means it includes first nations and recent immigrants but not descendants of earlier immigrants, which raises the question: what was the cut-off date when bad multicultural colonial immigrants became good multicultural recent immigrants? (There's probably a History PhD for someone in researching it.)

https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/victoria-council-mulls-canada-day-2022-without-fireworks-4726608

Recorded council meetings indicate that Victoria Council plans to create a Welcoming City Committee to accomplish Civic Inclusion Day. They will replace fireworks, music, celebration and the red and white T-Shirts cheerfully worn for the occasion by all ages, ethnicities and occupational groups, with something they consider “modest, family-friendly, multi-cultural and anti-racist” (which is code for anti-white-settler).

There will be, in this form of celebration, a moment of silence for “reflection”. (That'll be fun.) And it will be another chance to ideologically lower the flag. Is there any other country in the world as addicted as Canada to lowering their flag? Half-mast is Canada's favourite position -- as if afraid to stand upright and be counted, as a flag-pole. Does being serially half-mast suggest half-full or half-empty? The heads of some of our decision makers seem fully empty.

There will of course be no fireworks allowed in this anti-celebration (too bright, too festive) – except the verbal fireworks in the opinion columns of course, among independently thinking patriotic types.

So what can citizens do when their city hates their country? They can hold their own Canada Day parties -- real parties -- picnics in the parks, beaches and gardens with flags flying, such as the group of friends shown below did in Victoria BC in 2021.

Senior Thoughts From Dr. Seuss

From the Notes of Dr. Seuss, Gerontologist

Now that kids who grew up with the early Dr. Seuss books are into their senior years, a new Dr. Seuss is required -- so here's a compendium of rhymes from the picture books (Oh The Places You'll Go, Horton Hears a Who, The Birthday Book, and more …! 

"The Places You'll Go" are not the places you went,

when your future was ahead and your youth mis-spent,

but with a head full of brains and shoes full of feet  

you're still too wise to walk on Foolish-folk Street

You'll walk as far as your walker will go, 

downhill's best, as I'm sure you know,

and think of all the places you'll stay,

while keeping out of other folks' way,

and the thinks you won't think

with the thoughts you've not got,

but this you recall: Sam I am not

Before you know it, you have a hunch,

it's time for another Birthday Lunch,

Well you had to be born or you wouldn't be here,

and as Doctor Seuss added, it's certainly clear

"there's no one alive who is you-er than you"

Chance was, he said, you've been in a slump,

and might even be in another one today,

"Un-slumping yourself is not easily done",

yet was done by the Grinch through his heart, they say.

But Horton's forgotten hearing a Who,

At 90 he barely hears "how do you do?"

When his carer asks him "and how are you?"

he asks her in turn, "you're Cindy Lou Who?"

"Believe me," says Horton, "I tell you sincerely,

my ears aren't so good, they don't hear clearly,

but this I will tell you, if I may be so bold,

"a person's a person no matter how old",

so don't yield your space, don't give an inch,

just try to be the Lorax, and not the Grinch.

Shakespeare For the Modern Audience

Our performance offers a medley of famous scenes from Shakespeare without any elitist non-inclusive language offensive to many diversified and marginalized communities.

We open the curtain on King Lear who is getting lost in a storm, raging against his disloyal daughters, and expressing the feelings of his Inner Child:

“Oh let me not be mad, sweet heaven” -- by which his Inner Child means “Let me not be neuro-variant, sweet safe place”

Adding that “Old fools are babes again”, he stresses that “older differently-abled adults are just as good as newborns”

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, Hamlet upon seeing the ghost of his murdered father, is wondering:

“Whether to suffer the slings and arrows of this escalatory shit-storm, or whether 'tis woker in the mind to leverage against a sea of its positionality, and by un-friending, de-platform it.”

King Richard by contrast has no doubt about how to win a battle. He on his own battlefield would give up what Hamlet's uncle wouldn't, confirming that he'd prefer a horse to a crown. “My kingdom for a horse,” he assures us, meaning “my traditional territory for an electric all-terrain-vehicle in which to roar across the landscape”

From here our medley switches to a scene in Italy where the Capulet and Montague families are having an ancestral feud. “A plague on both your high-rise low-carbon urban appropriately eco-dense condos”, responds one onlooker. Meanwhile a member of one of the families, Juliet, is trying to contact a member of the other:

“Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art though Romeo?” she texts, while muttering under her breath “why are you being such an elitist privileged misogynist?”

Miranda, after witnessing a Tempest that struck her island homeland, is having better luck with a new immigrant, Prince Ferdinand. After a life spent with only one manic-depressive father for company and one distant neighbour who was … alternative, she fell in love with this first new guy to come along. Finding he had relatives in tow plus a bunch of alcoholic mariners, she expressed wonder: "oh brave new international order," she exclaimed, "that has such multicultural intersectional identity groups in't!"

And as our play comes to an end, three omnivorous old foodies appear and stir a pot in a cooking demonstration for the benefit of Lord Macbeth who, feeling victimized by their harassment, insults them in very sexist ageist terms, even alleging they smell like filthy old people-experiencing-poverty.

Then, clearly himself a person experiencing depression (due partly to his wife tasking him with a too-actionable ask) Macbeth announces that it's time to “out out” all kinds of societal bad actors, plus the brief green-battery low-energy flashlight that lights his way to death. In an obvious fit of post traumatic stress disorder he concludes that “on the coming event-horizon (in fact, three of them) our brief green-battery flashlight will go out-out, and every poor click-baiting content-providing social media influencer too will strut but an hour of performativity upon the platform, and then be blocked".

At this the curtain falls, upon sincere pre-emptive apologies from the cast to whomever might have been offended by their speech.

The Misanthropy Sector

Funding isn't evenly distributed across the philanthropy sector, claim philanthropy spokespeople. Of course not -- it isn't even a single sector. To fund any one organization within it is to anti-fund another, for they have conflicting aims. Aims change depending on which way the attitudinal winds are blowing: whether funding is taxpayer-based or private donation-based, it all depends on the dominant and competing social prejudices of the moment.

Whatever the "philanthropy sector" is doing, it has a twin, a hidden opposite doing the opposite. Look at the word "philanthropy": love of mankind. Some people don't love mankind; they prefer other species. The bumper-sticker is not  joking which says, "the more time I spend with people the more I prefer my cat". Or someone might secretly agree with the satirical tongue-in-cheek observation of a certain poet: "We are here to help others -- but why are the others here?"

There is, then, a philanthropy sector and a misanthropy sector (a loving-mankind ideal and a hating-mankind honesty). And this is not even mentioning the powerful misogyny sector. Many groups' aims are objectionable to other groups. Humanity itself is objectionable, most of the time. How so, you ask? 

Humans are

-- argumentatively unpleasantly combative  

-- they take up too much space (eight billion on this one planet?)

-- they create huge paved conurbations, destroy landscape, cut down trees, fill the ocean with evil inventions like plastic 

-- they bury other creatures' habitat under toxic cast-off wastes

-- they are noisy (who else would invent helicopters, chainsaws and leaf blowers?)

-- they are nosey, prone to spying on and stalking each other, and inventing mindless entertainment shows inviting others to watch them doing it

-- although noisy, they tell people with other opinions to shut up; many like censorship (and really love de-platforming)

-- they're okay with torture too, being cruel to other animals -- eating, trapping, hunting and performing savage laboratory experiments on them

-- their population doubled since 1970, while wild animal numbers declined by 68%

-- they're always asking others for money through charities and foundations

Clearly then, the "philanthropy sector" is a sector at war with itself, some parts being for free speech, others against it, some for hyper-urban growth, others for nature conservation, some for animal rights, others for animal-harming ethnic traditions, some for equality, others discriminating against "colonials".

Many people, even when feeling they should donate to a charity, are actually closet misanthropists. And that's quite apart from those misogynists …  

At the Pet Shop

Here we are at the pet shop, in the parrot section:

 

Customer: Do they talk?

Manager: Some do, some don't ...

Customer:  I want to hear one speak. How about his one? 

Customer to parrot: Polly wanna platform?

Parrot:  Feathered Lives Matter.

Customer:  Of course they do, Parrot.

Parrot:  Polly "takes a deep dive". Do you feel safe?

Customer:  I beg your pardon?

Parrot:  Do you feel safe?

Customer:  Uh … sure. Does Polly feel safe?

Parrot:  Polly's thirsty.

Customer:  Ah! Polly wanna drink?

Parrot:  Yes, something medium dry, with musky undertones and a fruity finish, please.

Customer:  What am I, the bartender? Polly's a bold old bird …

Parrot:  My name's not actually Polly. That's a girly name.

Customer:  Sorry. 

Parrot:  Misgendering Is Violence.

Customer:  Aren't they the clever parrot then. … Now what are they doing, Parrot?

Parrot:  Reversing their position on the perch.It's Re-versity For Di-versity. I'm pivoting. 

Customer:  Oh.

Parrot:  I'm changing the positionality of my performativity to make it more escalatory.

Customer:  Of course. But why do you keep hopping up and down -- it looks exhausting.

Parrot:  We're doing our Formal Air Acknowledgement.

Customer: You seem so human. 

Parrot:  We're not a human. Mis-speciesing Is Violence.

Customer:  Well you sure parrot like a human. 

Parrot:  Just "reaching out".

Customer:  Shall I reach in?

Manager to Customer:  Hey! Don't open that cage! If you stick your hand in there he'll peck you.

Customer:  Me? But we're friends. Allies. We've bonded.

Manager:  Yeah? So, you wanna buy a parrot? 

Customer:  No thanks.

Manager:  Because it doesn't talk enough? Maybe that one doesn't, but they can learn, you can compel their speech if you work at it. 

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Strutting and Fretting on the BC Law Society's Stage ("compelled pronoun usage")

(See  https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/ian-mulgrew-b-c-lawyers-wont-debate-courts-new-pronouns-policy-as-hateful-resolution-fails )

Two resolutions have been presented at the Law Society of BC: one to force use of "gender inclusive" language in court, and another which alleges that this would endanger free speech and silence politically incorrect views. That's an attack on the equality of non-binary people, was the hyperbolic retort to that allegation. All this turns the courts of B.C. into "politically correct theatre", charge the supporters of Resolution number 2. 

No! Really? Law courts theatrical? They certainly provide comedy at times.

Courts of law have of course always been theatrical, filled with costumed actors playing strict roles, delivering grand soliloquy or clown-speak, strutting and fretting their hour on the stage and trying on different masks, like the defendant cited in the BC Law Society's showdown who has "already changed gender once during their case and they’re still at the bail segment". (see Vancouver Sun, above)

Of course this drama wasn't created by the Law Society, it was imported from the wider culture, where many folks remain bemused about whatever "misgendering non-binary people" through pronouns might mean. 

Many of us are just pro-noun. Here's a good noun: "farce". It means a type of drama designed "to excite laughter," and also means "an absurdly futile proceeding". No doubt we've only seen Act One of the Law Society Misgendering Comedy, and many characters still wait in the wings, still intending to demand their pound of flesh.

For more on "compelled pronoun usage", see https://quillette.com/2021/10/08/weekly-roundup-and-the-harassment-of-dorian-abbott-and-kathleen-stock/

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City Life -- What do we want in a next door neighbour?

The Ideal Neighbour

-- never whistles

-- has a dog who doesn't bark

-- has a cute kid or two who wave over the fence but never shriek 

-- grows foliage in his garden 

-- has no surveillance cameras 

-- doesn't put an officious Neighbourhood Watch sign in the window 

-- keeps to himself which lives he thinks matter

-- doesn't put election signs on the lawn

-- waters the lawn

-- hates loud music

-- thinks "hip-hop" is what robins do on the lawn after he waters it

-- possesses no leaf blower, chainsaw or drill

-- has a good high hedge

-- doesn't keep saying we should get together

-- doesn't move away

-- continues never to whistle