Kanadian Kultcha for Three Whole Days

It’s almost heart warming–Canada is going to ‘Get Ready for A Love Affair With Culture This Fall’, according to the back page of the Globe and Mail Focus section. Signing on to the Culture Vulture Fest are any and all corporations you have ever heard of or done business with. Imagine for THREE WHOLE ENTIRE DAYS, from September 28, to September 30, we will officially care, love and nurture Kultchah. Wow. Which raises the obvious question: why does Canada need an officially sanctioned, corporate driven circus to ‘celebrate’ Culture in a country that, when you look closely, couldn’t care less?

That’s why. We don’t really care, don’t really support and don’t really know what to do with Kultchah writ large, a problem anyone born in older cultures, Europe et al, doesn’t know much about. Older cultures have learned that not supporting their Kultchah year round, forever and ever, results in the kind of soulless and ultimately pointless existence that most North Americans now take for granted. It wasn’t always this way; there was a time when tax cut supported people who supported the arts by collecting them and arts organizations were not reduced to begging to stay alive in this great country of ours. But no more. In Harperland, Kultchah is just one of those quaint rituals that simply refuse to die out entirely, so ….let’s support it for three days. What the hell. It can’t do any harm, can it?

We must be thankful for small mercies.

Conversations with people I have never met: Kevin O’Leary

At first, your ‘I am the great master of money’ schtick, was kind of cute: you were somewhat reminiscent of a talking billiard ball, zipping around spouting opinions. I became something of a fan, defending you as someone who was simply branding himself and in the process, going a mite overboard at times. Kind of like a loveable, slightly crazy uncle. I imagined meeting you and having a good old fashioned fight.

But then something happened. As I watched you bellow at fellow Dragons, berate your co host, Ms. Lang,and belittle guests, it became obvious that you had either ignored or not gotten the memo. That’s the one about Greenspan, the former head of the Federal Reserve, admitting that sadly, the models re the behaviour of money and humans that he had downloaded from Milton Friedman, were alas, deeply flawed.

Neither had you heard that the Nobel Prize in Economics had gone to two  Psychologists for simply proving that humans are irrational, do not listen to reason and ignore new facts when they don’t fit their worldview, as financial analysts at Lehmann Brothers ignored their findings that they were not more accurate in predicting market trends than monkeys throwing darts at a board. That relying on mathematical models of homo economicus simply doesn’t work. Since then, a host of books have suddenly sprouted, all pretty much agreeing that yes indeed, money is not the whole or even part of what drives people to do what they do. There are such things as ethics, morals and OMG, empathy.

For an intelligent guy, you were clearly not keeping up, and your schtick became increasingly out of date and annoying. You kept on insisting that the only thing that matters is money, there is nothing else anyone could possibly care about. 

Not only is this untrue; it shows that all along your schtick wasn’t even well researched; you just accepted the prevailing wisdom and ran with it. Until the prevailing wisdom changed and you ran out of steam.

And now you are nearly done; Kevin. Your brand is over-leveraged, your opinions are utterly predictable and wrong and well, who cares anyway?

You have simply become one of those people who prefer to be a zombie, and that’s too bad. I thought there was a real person under that shiny pate, but I was wrong.  Too bad for a guy who actually plays guitar. 

What I want to know is, what happened? You could have been a contender; you could have been cool. And now I don’t even want to meet you anymore. I need a new financial guru; one who actually makes sense. So goodbye Kevin, I won’t be watching your shows any more. I hate to say it, but I’ll miss all that bullheadedness. If nothing else, you were one of a kind.

 

Bus Economics

Going downtown on the bus in Vancouver; late morning, grey skies, greyer people. A man who can hardly stand up is trying to squeeze into the window seat of a guy with a backpack who is not getting up to let him in. I jump up but it’s too late, the man is at his seat looking exhausted. A woman with sad eyes in a lined face looks at me; I shrug helplessly. She doesn’t look so hot either. I sit down at the front of the bus on seniors’ row. Next to me is a very old lady; she gets up to move to the single seat facing the bench and nearly lands on top of me. Oh, sorry, sorry, she mumbles while I grab her arm to steady her.
They say no good deed goes unpunished, and sure enough, the old man on the far end of the bench suddenly says something. To me. He has long, thinning grey locks to his shoulders and intelligent eyes. What? Could you spare some change, Miss?
Are you serious? You can’t panhandle on the bus!
I get out at the next stop, feeling guilty and too rich. And I am at the bottom of the income tax ladder.
The bus has its own microeconomics, I guess, and in that world I look rich. This is Vancouver on a Monday morning in April. It’s only one day after April Fool, but I feel extremely foolish. Maybe I should have given that guy some money. I could have started something. Yeah, right. Help an old lady and you look like a mark. And I’m not so young either.
So I went and bought a raincoat. Black. From a very friendly gay guy at Joe Fresh. The quality at this chain is so high and the prices so low that I am fairly certain that I am buying stuff produced in some horrible sweat shop in Asia. I try to  not think about that. Maybe Joe Fresh is really a good company and pays a decent wage, like a dollar an hour. Sure. Why doesn’t the bloody sun ever shine in this town?
I should have stayed home.

Birthdays are for panicking and planning

It’s been  the year of Big Birthdays in my family: an uncle turned 80, a cousin and I turned 70, my oldest ‘child’ turned 50. We are all in fine fettle, looking and acting younger than these grisly numbers imply, and most important: we are not dead. Yet.

Yet is the operative word here; inevitably, I began thinking about how much time–productive time–there was left for all of us. All those things left undone; all those dreams dying a slow death due to inaction or lack of resolve. That second book I haven’t written; that half year in Europe I haven’t been able to put together; will I ever realize those dreams?

My uncle is a case in point. A famous Musicologist, his options are more varied than most people’s; and at age 80, he was still leading a team of researchers working on reviving 18th century wind and string trios. Until he fell and broke his shoulder during a holiday. His life has become a painful struggle with his new, not improved shoulder, and the daily drugs do alleviate the pain but keep him, well, drugged. No more trips and certainly no more research until next year–and the doctors are saying that the best he can hope for is to extend his arm. This might, in fact, be the end of an illustrious academic career that saw him wining every single honour except the Nobel. He is lucky; a devoted wife, a dog and a sense of humour are keeping him going.

As for my 50 year old son, he is living the life of a typical late parent; a two year old daughter, an eight year old son and two stressful jobs as a Psychologist, keep him on a treadmill that leaves very little downtime, me-time or think-about-anything-except-the-thing-at hand time. His immune system is responding; he catches every cold and flu bug there is, but he doesn’t know how to slow down. He isn’t fond of talking about turning 50; he acts and looks a decade younger. Well, good for him; I hope his fifties are more productive and fun than mine were.

Fifty was a threshold year for me bringing with it the first whiff of old age, being an old bag, being diminished. My fifties were a kind of lost decade until I started writing for local papers and snapped out of the doldrums of tutoring ESL students. Turning 60 was a breeze; by now I was used to being ‘older’. In fact, my life improved considerably during my sixties; I wrote a book, I became a market researcher, I travelled to Europe. I also got cancer, but survived.

Then 70 arrived and it was like turning 50 again: frightening, but for different reasons. At 50, the country of old age and its burdens of ill health and lack of productivity was on my horizon, but I wasn’t living there. Yet. Now, I am so close to that place that any little thing–another bout with cancer, a serious fall–could land me there permanently.  How many ‘good’ years do I have left? What is the best way to make the most of my time before, like my uncle, I fall and find myself in the country of the disabled?

There is no answer to that question. But I know that I want to wring every last drop of life from my days until I can no longer do so. I am busy planning a longer escape to Europe; maybe several months. Maybe I can just ignore my age over there; pretend I am age-less. Maybe I can settle down to writing the book that’s swirling ’round in my brain. Maybe I can have one last fling, make new friends, dance in Barcelona, or swim in the Meditteranean Sea lapping the golden sands of Sitges,

That’s why birthdays are not just for panicking; they are a reminder of the simple fact that our time here runs out. Ideally, they push us to actually get our act together before the final curtain falls.

Making a Scene in Schloss Park Tegel, Berlin

The Humboldt Schloss, sort of open for tours on some days

On the outskirts of Berlin, there is a famous old park surrounding a lovely and equally famous little Schloss, and the whole thing is called Schloss Park Tegel. I have a rather personal connection to this place in the person of one of my direct ancestors, the redoubtable and very honorable Gottlob Johann Christian Kunth, private tutor and general factotum to the von Humboldt  brothers, Alexander and Wilhelm. In honour of his lifelong devotion to the family, there was said to be a large and impressive memorial gravestone with his name somewhere in the park. Or so my father always said. He was extremely proud of this ancestor, but until this visit to Germany, I had steadfastly ignored him. But then again, this character keeps showing up in novels; most recently in Die Vermessung der Welt, by Daniel Kehlmann; a novel chronicling the exploits of Alexander von Humboldt and Gauss, their eventual meeting as old men and the activities that consumed them.

So on a recent and rare trip to reconnect with my German roots, I decided to pay my respects and off we went, my cousin Lore, her daughter Charlottte and I, on a dreary day in May, to search for my ancestral roots in the park.

To our surprise, there was a large and apparently quite new memorial stone with a shiny brass plate and the name of my great great great great grandfather engraved on it, right in front of the park, almost on the sidewalk. But finding the grave marker was not nearly as simple. We meandered through the very large estate, looking in vain for directions. All we found was a huge and very formal mass grave for several generations of the von Humboldts, who at some point turned into the von Bulows. No sign of my ancestor.

We returned in the general direction of the Schloss, where we encountered a sign strung across the wide walkway which announced: Eintritt Verboten. Hmm. The only way out of the park was past the sign, so we gingerly walked around it and kept advancing towards the Schloss. It appeared to be deserted, but just like in a bad movie, almost out of nowhere, a tall, distinguished looking older gentleman in a most ungentlemanly rage, swooped down on us.

“How dare you violate private property; begone, get out of here, now!” he shouted (in German). I almost expected him to shake a fist at me, but he actually didn’t do that. Being Canadian, I was not about to be sent packing in this ignoble manner, so I kept advancing towards him, explaining in soothing tones who I was and what I was looking for.

He became slightly, but only slightly, more affable at this point, and waving his hand in the direction from which we had just come, announced that the grave was ‘on the hillside over there’, and why hadn’t we rung the doorbell? (What doorbell?)

Somewhat perplexed, we trundled back the way we had come and after some more looking around, actually found the site in its own grove, with a large impressive looking stone engraved in Latin. My cousin and niece, both Latin scholars apparently, began arguing over the true meaning of the engraved words, while I marveled that we had actually found it. After the obligatory picture taking, we departed.

I left to visit other relatives, but my cousin Lore started sleuthing on the Internet and discovered that the angry gentleman was none other than a direct descendant of Wilhelm von Humboldt, named von Heinz, the current owner of the Schloss and as pictures proved, he even looked every bit as stern and humourless as his famous ancestor. She then turned our collision in the park into literature on her blog, imagining a polite discussion about it as it might have happened if our ancestors had been present at the scene—which indeed they might have been.

I was delighted and bemused. But then her son, my nephew Dietrich Brueggemann,  a young up and coming director in the German film industry, heard the story and realized he knew someone by the name of von Heinz. She turned out to be none other than his niece! And promised to have a little talk with her misanthropic uncle.

Next time I’m in Germany, I’ll put it all to rights and re-shoot the scene with a happy end. The question is, will I ever get back there? Given the uncomfortable and arduous journey and my advancing age, I doubt it.

The grave marker and me

The killing speed

The opening ceremonies of the Olympics have been upstaged–there’s been a death:  a young luger from Georgia died while practicing his extreme sport. To manage the damage, pundits and experts have been hastily summoned to make their pronouncements. Granted, it’s never easy to talk about death, it requires a humanitarian perspective and genuine emotion expressed with humility. These qualities, not surprisingly, are in short supply in the five ring circus of the Olympic games and the people who make a nice living talking about them.

There was fellow Olympian,  speed skater Caterina LeMay Doan in a snazzy new hairdo, intoning about the universal pain felt by the ‘community of athletes’ that would pull together in their shared pain and then carry on. She no doubt meant well, but unfortunately what came to mind was the real and unsharable agony of the young man’s family mourning for a beloved son. That kind of pain cannot and will never be ‘shared’.

Then there was the young doctor who explained the technical –and troubling–aspects of what the human body endures when it hurtles down an icy tunnel at 150 kilometres an hour. The way he explained it, nobody should be doing this, certainly not for glory and medals. It is sympotamic of a culture of extreme competition that ultimately cares more for competition than for the players. Other lugers said on camera that this course ‘is the most dangerous in the world’. But the head of the Canadian Luge team thinks otherwise; for him it’s all part of the thrill of competition. Death is an unfortunate side effect, the way he was talking.

Oddly enough, nobody recalled that another man from Georgia died in 1984 while trying to jump from the ten meter board. Dick Pound could not recall any other death during the Olympics aside from a cycling incident that had more to do with doping than anything else. It’s hard to believe that Mr. Pound is suffering from dementia; he must be suffering from selective memory.

In ancient Rome, they had Christians wrestling tigers and lions. We look down upon this as a barbaric form of public entertainment. Maybe we should ask if hurtling along at killing speeds in an icy tunnel, where a split second of inattention or bodily failure will kill you, is any different?

Shouldn’t we be asking ourselves what price glory? Why are we so hell bent on competition at any price, yes, even to the price of death?  It’s time to rethink the parameters of competition. A good place to begin is  to reflect on the original games on mount Olympus in Greece. Those games were dedicated to the Gods and to Virtue–arete– in its widest sense. Competition and pushing ever higher, ever faster was not the point

What are ours dedicated to?

When Swine Flu Flies

Now that everyone is thoroughly alarmed and confused about the Swine Flu, journalists who want to be seen as responsible, like Wendy Mesley of the CBC, are asking if they had anything to do with this situation.

So she invited two ‘experts’ and asked them. Naturally, they disagreed. One said that the media failed miserably to put the story into some larger perspective so people could actually make meaningful comparisons to the seasonal flu, it’s annual death toll etc. etc; the other felt that it was just very difficult and complicated and well, they did the best they could.

Then Wendy talked to Joanna Rumeilotis, the journalist who ‘handled’ the story on the 13year old hockey player who died. Joanna was very proud of the fact that it was that story that sent shock waves around kitchen tables in Canada and caused alarmed parents to stand in line with infants and toddlers for hours while the supply of vaccine dwindled.

That she failed utterly to put this tragic event into a larger perspective didn’t matter to her. Wendy ended the show by allowing that both experts could not agree. Duh.

It raises a profound question: what are journalists supposed to be doing in times of crisis?

I think we don’t need them if they simply tear at our heartstrings, confuse us and fail to answer the most basic of questions: for example, how commonly do children die of the swine flu? Or other types of flu? Should we all be worried sick or is this simply an aberration? Would a vaccine shot actually have prevented this tragedy?

None of those questions were asked.

Meanwhile, if you want to read a short, informed and truthful look that does what the CBC failed to do, pick up the November copy of Common Ground and go to page 9 and read What you should know about H1N1, by the Victoria based medical researcher, Alan Cassels. He asks nine pertinent questions and gives clear, informed answers. The story is now also available at www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/11/02/f-viewpoint-cassels.html as a special to the CBC.

Here is an example of his style: Is this pandemic worth worrying about?

Answer: Probably not. If we can learn from the southern hemisphere, which just had its flu season, mortality from the pandemic appeared to be relatively low and most countries had flue-related mortality rates of less than one person per 100,000. That’s tiny.

Now would it have killed Wendy to talk about this little known fact instead of pitting two tired public health officials against each other, thus enlightening no one and further undermining our ability to trust the information coming out of the mouths of so called ‘experts’.

It’s really simple, Wendy: do your job, and I will consider  coming back to the “New CBC”, which is really the same old tired format of pictures that bleed and very little perspective and research that is available freely. I already get that on CNN and BCTV.

Shame on you; you are the Canadian public broadcaster and we expect better than this self important whining about gee, did we do a good job. If you’re not sure, you clearly aren’t.

The dead cow syndrome

On June 29, 2009, a peculiar story about a dead brown cow washed up on a Victoria city beach made headlines across Canada. The reason wasn’t the carcass; it was that the city officials found themselves unable to do a thing about it. Protected by a confusing and conflicting barbed wire mess of jurisdiction and responsibility, the cow decomposed quietly though perhaps odorously, as embarassed bureaucrats tried to figure out what to do. The cow had not given any thought to the rules governing such events; for one thing, it had beached itself below the waterline, so that technically, this was a carcass on federal lands. There were other reasons why after much deliberation, it was decided to ship the cow to Calgary, there to be dismembered ‘properly’. And one surmises, at great expense.

Now in my view this isn’t just a story about Victoria city officials doing what city officials often do, which is get caught up in a thicket of conflicting laws and fall flat on their faces. I see it as a symbol of an endemic inability to solve many of our  serious problems.

Let’s take Climate Change. In spite of all the bickering, the meetings, the inconvenient truth is that we have not risen to this global threat. We’re wasting time in squabbling and only some countries, Germany et al, are doing things to mitigate the ever increasing speed at which climate change is turning our once somewhat predictable world into something extremely inconvenient. The West, which led in dumping carbon emissions into the atmosphere, is not leading in cleaning them up. Obama is making soothing noises and has said that he will implement a cap and trade system. Too little, too late. And we keep building more cars and freeways instead of investing in public transit. We’re dithering, and arguing about whose responsibility it is to clean up the planet. Sounds familiar, so let’s not blame the Victoria bureaucrats; they are in good company.

How about chemical pollution, a close cousin to climate change since it flows from the same source; oil and its by-products, plastics. It took a bunch of angry mothers with babies in strollers to focus attention on the lethal chemicals called Phthalates that leak into baby milk from bottles made with plastic. Companies did act more swiftly  than usual and that type of plastic is now banned. Chalk one up for angry moms. But what about all the other toxins that are hiding out in practically every household item, from flame retardants to pesticides? Why is it that our politicians who are elected to defend the public interest against unscrupulous companies, only do so under duress?

And then there is all that Political Correctness stuff. If one person decides to call something a ‘hate crime’ because they don’t like an opinion posted on a professional listserv, the governing body will likely pay serious attention and maybe pull the offending listserv and replace it with something else, like a forum, even though the vast majority of members weren’t consulted. This happened recently in an organization I belong to, and it caused a firestorm of protest, but only from a small bunch of rebels. There are now two listservs and a forum, all because a couple of people actually threatened to go to the police. No wonder everyone is so gunshy when it comes to taking responsibility.

As one commentator whose name I can’t recall once wrote; we are a society that doesn’t so much solve as manage its problems. We have a lot of well intentioned ‘managers’ and all too few leaders. Leading means taking responsibility, deciding what is the right course of action, and implementing it. When it comes to the cow; why couldn’t they have hired a butcher, cut up the carcass and hauled if  off the beach in pieces? We will never know and by now the cow is history.

But I fear the dead cow syndrome will be with us for much longer.

A country for flying away

The Canada Day celebration in Ottawa is a highly symbolic affair that is supposed to bring the diverse citizens of Canada together to celebrate ‘canadian-ness’. So it was strange that the very first song chosen to kick off the entertainment part was about ‘flying away’ and it was sung mostly in French. The band consisted of a carefully selected individuals standing in for ethnic minorities like the Metis, Blacks, French Canadians and if the dancing girls were any indication, Irish and Scottish. There was a man doing what looked like an athletic version of pole dancing. I was waiting for the one performance that would truly represent all of Canada, sum it up in a way that the military parade, Michaelle Jean and the PM couldn’t.

It never came. The crowd was a bit sparse and Peter Mansbridge thought that it was because the weather forecast had called for rain. But maybe there were other reasons for the tepid aura and the poor attendance. I know that if I lived in Ottawa, I wouldn’t have gone either. I no longer feel that the political entity called Canada has a lot to do with me, my opinions and values. I came here as a thirteen year old girl, in 1953, and it seemed like Canada was the perfect escape from my ravaged homeland, Germany. It was a tabula rasa where I could slip out of my old identity as the child of the evil Germans into something wholesome, peace loving and pure. In those days, Canada was still interested in integrating its immigrants, unlike today when it is sending a clear message that the country of origin–and its issues–are just as important as Canada is. I became a fervid Canadian, and every time I came back from trips to the old country, I felt nothing but relief and gratitude to be back here. This changed last year when I returned from a two week holiday in Barcelona. Vancouver, my beloved green city on the Pacific, had lost its allure. I was dismayed and I still am. When a love affair comes to an end, there is always pain and sadness. That’s how it is with me and Canada these days.

The Canada Day celebrations just reminded me of how alienated I feel. Perhaps the most disturbing trend for me is that we are no longer a peace keeping nation. At the behest of the US, we are fighting in Afghanistan though practically all Canadians are opposed to the idea. We were told that the reason we are sending our soldiers to die in this arid outpost is to save the Afghan women from the horrible conditions imposed by the Taliban. It sounds noble, but it’s a mirage: the warlords that we fight side by side with are not much better when it comes to attitudes towards women. And eight years into it, women are still being oppressed, attacked, forced to stay home, denied any real equality. We are losing that war. And by now, we know that geopolitics is the reason we are fighting there. We’re fighting for control of oil resources, not women’s equality. There are now signs that the US is going to ask us to stay on after the agreed upon date of withdrawal in 2011. My guess is that we will do their bidding. My mother and I came here to get away from war, warmongering and the misery it causes.

I need to emigrate to another country, one that doesn’t kow-tow to the US and its imperialistic agenda. But I know it will not happen: I am too old. And besides, where is the country that is like the Canada of yore?

Bus peeves

Vancouver has a deep commitment to ‘going green’; it has the awards, the international recognition and the pleasant urban neighborhoods to prove it. But somehow, the commitment doesn’t extend to one of the basic aspects of being environmentally sensitive, which is to ride the bus instead of driving the car. Because to ride on a bus in Vancouver, especially if you’re of a certain age, is fraught with literal and figurative pitfalls.

Let’s just start at the beginning: actually catching the bus. Like I was doing yesterday, on my way to a Yoga class at the Jewish Community Centre. It involves taking two buses; not bad. I was late, but the fast B-Line came almost immediately and got me to my intersection in short order. I dashed out and as I came around the corner of 41st Avenue, I saw that the second bus was idling at the curb. I was about 25 feet from that bus and started sprinting as fast as my aging legs would carry me, waving frantically. At first it looked like I was going to make it, but after letting me run for a few seconds, the driver decided that waiting for this old dame wasn’t worth his while.

He pulled away. I stopped and stared in amazement. I would have been there in less than 10 seconds; but no. Furious, I gave him the finger, much to the amusement of a student who was  right behind me, equally out of luck.

Fuming, I paced back and forth. Now I would be really late for my class. An entire herd of people showed up shortly after and we all stood waiting for about 12 minutes; then the next bus pulled up. Now for the next hurdle: not getting thrown into the lap of fellow passengers. I got lucky; a seat was empty at the front, and I managed to make it before the driver started down the road at a mad pace, pulling up at the next stop with such force that everyone was hanging on. He kept driving like this, accelerating and hitting the brakes hard, without any considerations for his passengers who were getting a lesson in bus survival.

Why of why do Vancouver bus drivers do this? I’ve been to other places where the drivers do not labour under the delusion that they are in a death defying race and all alone on the bus. And more than once, I’ve not made it to the nearest seat, once landing in the lap of another older woman. The driver in this scenario was young, female and in such a bad temper that she must have just broken up with her boyfriend. She also demanded to see my senior ID, something that is hardly ever done.

Not happy at being asked and thrown about, I cursed under my breath, whereupon she ordered me off the bus. I refused. Battle lines were drawn. People got angry. She stalked off the bus, letting us sit there to wonder what would happen next. When another bus pulled up behind us, most got off, muttering obscenities and swearing to report her. I certainly did, but this incident did nothing to encourage my ‘green’ transit choices.