the hits keep on comin' 6

If I turned a true story (by American writer Tom Miller) of one man's attempt to out-muscle his natural environment - and the consequences - into a dramatic film it would go something like this (link to Part 1 below) - 

Death by Misadventure: The Screenplay - Part 2

["One day to appear on big screens everywhere!"]

As B.B. King’s wailing fades into yesterday we are briefly introduced to the film’s protagonists 30 minutes before they meet on Feb. 4th, 1982 for the first and last time.

The first is a splendid 125-year-old, 3,000-pound saguaro cactus situated one or two miles east of a dirt road that passes through the Sonoran Desert. It is an hour northeast of Phoenix, Arizona, in an area governed by the Bureau of Land Management. The cactus is called Ha:san (pronounced hah-shin), the word for saguaro within the Tohono O’odham nation.

[photo from commons.wikimedia.org]

The second is David Grundman, age 25. He is slightly over six feet tall, has brown hair and blue eyes and weighs 200 pounds. 

(Note to self - Ryan Gosling, a past Oscar nominee, is perfect for the part. Give him a call.)

Grundman parks his old Ford pickup at the side of the same dirt road and leisurely collects several items from the dusty, cracked leather seat. Juggling a cold six-pack of beer, a 16-gauge shotgun and a large box of shells he exits the truck and expertly kicks the door shut with one scruffy boot. 

["More shells are under the bench seat": photo by gah]

As the noise from the truck door races across the desert we magically seem to follow (through the miracle of modern motion picture technology) and are escorted backwards in time to 1857 and to the small patch of soil where Ha:san’s birth took place.

Tom Miller, the story's author will tell the story from this point onward.

Tom will say the saguaro flowers fertilize each other under particular conditions only, that some of the resultant fruit occasionally falls to the ground, is eaten by a bird or animal and is deposited throughout the desert.

(Note to self - Has anybody got a trained coyote?) 

He’ll also say that a seed may germinate under perfect conditions and if it can survive for two full years (which is highly unlikely - one slight bump and it will be dead) the new plant will become the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

Fortunately, in our case, Ha:san did survive and by 1867 is one and a half inches tall. 

In 1887, at age 30, the saguaro is two feet tall. (Don’t worry. I’ll get Tom to read these parts in dramatic tones. It will be gripping. Especially the close-ups.)

In 1912, at age 55, our cactus is eight feet tall and weighs 800 pounds. A flower crowns its top for the first time, providing nectar for its airborne visitors. Soon seedlings from Ha:san’s own fruit will reach the desert floor, the same ground upon which Ha:san’s 39,999,999 siblings have perished. 

In 1932, at age 75, the saguaro is in peak form, with one mature arm growing nicely and another on the way. 

In 1957, in Ha:san’s centennial year, David Michael Grundman is born in New York State.

Mr. Miller will pause and we will be swept away from the base of the proud Ha:san and back to the side of the dirt road where, 25 years later, Grundman is slipping a shotgun shell into his 16-gauge and preparing to blow two empty beer cans into smithereens. 

[photo - 123rf.com]

More of Death by Misadventure to follow.

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Please click here to read the hits keep on comin' 5

2,012 Challenges in Modern Times: “Let’s flaunt our clean oil image?”

[“It’s a good start toward reversing the push by the zealous but grievously under-informed environmental lobby to stop oilsands bitumen production.” Feb. 25, London Free Press]

Word is spreading. Coal is the dirtiest fuel on the planet, and it’s so dirty that some people now want people across the globe to believe that tarsands oil is squeaky clean by comparison.

Cigarettes don’t kill people, proclaimed tobacco producers and cigarette manufacturers not too many years ago. And their bogus claims ruled for decades while lung cancer and respiratory illnesses shortened and ended lives around the globe.

DDT is great for killing weeds, proclaimed chemical producers in the 1940s and ‘50s, as post-war agriculture boomed. And their claims about DDT’s benefits and their accompanying silence concerning its ill-effects resounded for decades while the land, lakes, rivers and streams, and upper atmosphere stored its poison for future generations to deal with.

The list goes on, and today the common man must deal with headlines in local papers that read ‘(It’s) Time for Alberta to flaunt its new, ‘clean’ image’ and accompanying articles that hold out good news concerning the multi-billion dollar oil industry on the one hand, and hold out no information on the other about the industry’s ill affects upon the land water and atmosphere, as if to say ‘it’s all good, all the time’.

In other words, the truth about the oil-industry comes up half-empty, and business-as-usual becomes the order of the day. About the environmental lobby being “under-informed” (as reported by the Edmonton Sun in the Free Press article): It’s no wonder the lobby and the rest of Canada doesn’t know everything about the oil industry, especially the harm done. It is never fully reported for common consumption!

And that is but one challenge of many to deal with in modern times. (We’re really not so modern as we think, are we).

In my opinion, to combat the ‘oil is good, business-as-usual' approach to life, we must adopt the following principles:

Reduce spending

Pay down debt

Save money for tough times ahead

Replace shopping skills with social and survival skills

Consume less, commune more with others and nature.

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Please click here to read more 2,012 Challenges

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2,012 Challenges in Modern Times PT 4: "Have a senior's moment when you're 12!"

["Phasing in 70 as the new retirement age at the rate of one month per year for 60 years should give everyone plenty of time to adjust as well, especially if everybody agreed with Sonneberg's hasty editorializing. Do you?" G.Harrison, Feb. 15, 2,012 Challenges PT 3]

By now some readers are wondering, if Gord doesn't like M. Sonneberg's "hasty editorializing" in the London Free Press and ability to "grease his own rails" concerning the withholding of Old Age Security Benefits for Canadians until they're 67, what does he like?

I like clarity, for one thing.

When Finance Minister Jim Flaherty says the withholding of benefits isn't for now, "it's for 2020... maybe 2025", he doesn't seem to have much of a handle on his own plan. I mean, Jim, do you know when you're going to afflict some seniors with a longer work life or don't you?

'Flaherty's clarity' is lacking in other areas as well. He is quick to tell us that OAS will cost us a lot of money in 10 years (Oh, it will be millions.) and even more in 20 years (Oh, it will be gazillions.), but he has said nary a word about how much PM Harper's drop in the GST has lowered government revenues (Oh, it will be billions.) or how much PM Harper's corporate tax cuts have lowered revenues that could support pensions and OAS benefits (Oh, it will be gazillions.).

And if we could get a clear answer from the Conservative Government about the price of just one F - 35 stealth fighter jet it's planning to buy, we would learn two very valuable pieces of information.

One, we would learn how the cost of one jet compares to the increased cost of OAS benefits the government is railing about. Two, we would learn how much the cost of 65 jets (the government's current plan) will rip out of government coffers during the same years the Conservatives want to keep seniors at work longer.

Here's what I propose that is as clear as clear can be.

Raise corporate taxes by 2 per cent and put the additional income toward the OAS benefit program.

Raise the GST by 2 cents so that Canadians - even kids buying their first iPhone or whatever else they spend their allowance on - will be supporting their senior years when making many purchases.

I also recommend the money from these changes be put into designated accounts for pensions so that it doesn't get spent on prisons.

Thots?

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Please click here to read 2,012 Challenges in Modern Times PT 3.

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2,012 Challenges in Modern Times PT 3

[“Now that we live longer, some people do want to work longer, for various reasons, as mentioned in PT 1. But our longer life span is not a compelling reason to deny benefits longer. There are 4,367, 892 better things to do than slug it out at work for an extra two years, and that’s just in Canada.” GH, 2,012 Challenges PT 2]

I don’t buy for a minute that “Canadians have to come to terms with the idea of a higher retirement age” as expressed recently by M. Sonneberg, London Free Press (Feb. 7). Just because the title of his news article (Pension reform requires sacrifice from everyone) seems to suggests he’s offering a balanced viewpoint doesn’t make it palatable to me.


[2,012 Challenges in Modern Times - a brilliant book: photo GH]

Years ago my parents took my siblings and me to an Anglican Church pot-luck picnic in Otterville, a village in the southern part of Oxford County. As I recall, after sitting on a cannon that overlooked a bridge near the picnic area (During my turn astride the barrel, I pretended to blow up the people coming across the bridge who were not carrying large picnic baskets. “No free food for you!” Boom!! “No free food for you!” Boom!!), my ten-year old eyeballs grew as round as saucers when a saw all the desserts spread upon one particular table.

I was asked to eat a sandwich first, which didn’t sound reasonable at the time. So I ate one containing round bologna slices, very quickly, but when something got caught in my throat I began to cough and splutter.

I imagine my mother said, “Don’t eat so quickly.”

Tears streamed from my eyes. I gasped and gagged.

I imagine my siblings said, “Snot is coming out your nose. Ee-yuck.”

I turned beet red.

I imagine my father noticed and smacked me on the back.

Fortunately, though I couldn’t speak, I had enough sense to reach as far back into my throat as I could to grab onto the offending material. I’m sure the scene is one my folks remembered for some time. They likely wondered what on earth I was doing with three or four fingers in my mouth.


["I didn't make that sandwich. Maybe Gladys Cole," says Edith Harrison, circa 1959]

I almost made myself throw up. But I snagged what I knew hid deep inside. I caught the end of the thin plastic wrap that someone had forgotten to peel off the bologna slices and pulled it up from my esophagus, past my wind pipe (or out of my wind pipe) and out of my mouth.

Very few onlookers were impressed as I held it up for inspection.

And I could finally breathe. How lovely. I took several deep breaths.

If I had the mature presence of mind then that I have today I would have said, “Well, it’s time for some dessert, eh.” I likely just wiped my nose on my sleeve and finished the sandwich.

As a result of that experience, however, I no longer eat bologna without looking at it very carefully first. And in my estimation, Sonneberg’s bologna doesn’t pass the sniff test, and greasing the rails of his hasty editorializing doesn’t help matters.

Greasy Factoid 3: “As a means of helping Canada balance its books, it is not asking too much of an aging population to log two more years of work before collecting the federal pension.”

Gord says... In all the years that the government’s books have not been balanced, and there have been more than a few, how many times has a Prime Minister talked about making people “log two more years of work” in order to create a revenue stream for himself? And once the door is open, when will he ask for three, then four more years of work so that we can all work together to balance his books?

Before any senior citizens reach for their wallets they should ask, why are Conservative PM Harper’s books so out of balance that he must with-hold their long awaited benefits? What has happened to his primary revenue streams over the years? Why does this smell like bologna and social engineering all in the same sandwich?

Without answers to the above, Sonneberg and the PM may in fact be asking way too much to help Canada balance its books.

Greasy Factoid 4: “The Canadian economy is not as labour-intensive as it was 40 years ago. And workers today are in better condition in their 60s than their predecessors.”

Gord says... Just because workers are not breaking their back as often (machines are doing more of the work in some cases) doesn’t mean they have to work longer to help PM Harper balance his budget. And because people are reaching their 60s in better shape could also mean they will benefit more from the benefits they supported through taxation policies. (Thus the term OAS ‘benefits’.

Greasy Factoid 5: “Phasing in 67 as the new retirement age at the rate of one month per year for 24 years should give everyone plenty of time to adjust.”

Gord says... Phasing in 66 as the new retirement age at the rate of one month per year for 12 years should give everyone plenty of time to adjust too. Let's do some more math. Phasing in 70 as the new retirement age at the rate of one month per year for 60 years should give everyone plenty of time to adjust as well, especially if everybody agreed with Sonneberg's hasty editorializing.

Do you?

Stay tuned. More to follow.

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Please click here to read 2,012 Challenges in Modern Times PT 2

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2,012 Challenges in Modern Times PT 2

[“It may just be a coincidence, but I have created a list of 2,012 challenges we face in modern times, and here it is, the year 2012.” G.Harrison, Feb. 13, 2.012 Challenges]

Recently, a writer cleared his throat, did some hasty editorializing (aka Challenge in modern times #412) and informed readers that “Canadians have to come to terms with the idea of a higher retirement age.” (Monte Sonneberg, ‘Pension reform requires sacrifice from everyone’, Feb. 7, London Free Press)

Really? That’s the only direction we can go as a nation? Make people work longer before receiving some benefits?


["2,012 Challenges in Modern Times - a brilliant book!"]

Though Monte doesn’t impress me much with his opening gambit, he tries really hard to convince people he’s right by sharing a compilation of related facts and details, in his opinion. His facts can be called ‘greasing the rails under hasty editorializing’, or ‘Challenge in modern times #413.’

He writes the following:

Greasy Factoid 1: “Age 65 has historically been used to determine eligibility for Old Age Security. This milestone was set at a time when seniors considered themselves fortunate to live till their 70s.”

Gord says... Now that we live longer, some people do want to work longer, for various reasons, as mentioned in PT 1. But our longer life span is not a compelling reason to deny benefits longer. There are 4,367, 892 better things to do than slug it out at work for an extra two years, and that’s just in Canada.

Greasy Factoid 2: “Today, thanks to improvements in health care, seniors routinely lead active lives into their 80s.”

Gord says... Yes, health care is improved and most workers have helped pay for the improvements. Some may, as a result, wish to be active at work until they’re carried out in a pine box. Let them. But ‘better health care’ that doesn’t mean all Canadians must consider staying at work longer. Many may wish to enjoy their good health while expanding their garden, or while doing one of the other 4,367,891 other worthwhile activities.

While readers check the veracity of my figures (I.e., is it “4,367, 892 better things to do” or some other huge number?), I’ll prepare a comment about Greasy Factoid 3.

More to follow.

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Please click here to read 2,012 Challenges in Modern Times PT 1

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2,012 Challenges in Modern Times PT1

It may just be a coincidence, but I have created a list of 2,012 challenges we face in modern times, and here it is, the year 2012.

The list - a fat tome, really - is based on opinion, speculation, suspicion, the odd fact or detail, and indigestion, or the feeling I get as soon as I hear a certain type of writer, politician or prognosticator clear his/her throat.


["The tome just keeps getting fatter": photo GH]

Let me give you an example from one of the middle pages.

Challenge in modern times #412: Hasty editorializing

In Monte Sonneberg’s recent ‘point of view’ (‘Pension reform requires sacrifice from everyone’, Feb. 7, London Free Press) a few good points about pensions are shared.

He writes, for example, “Given that companies are stockpiling the proceeds of recent corporate tax reductions, perhaps pension reform could coincide with an increase in the corporate tax rate.”

If that’s how he'd started his article I’d have initially thought Monte was sticking up whole-heartedly for the little guy or at least trying to get corporate Canada to take carry a fair load.

But nope. The article starts with the following:

“Canadians have to come to terms with the idea of a higher retirement age.”

WTHeck? Really? Is ‘a higher retirement age’ for the majority of Canadians the key plank in pension reform? Did I miss the referendum, straw vote, memo or nation-wide telephone poll?

Phffft! I don’t think so. Monte is just taking a quick stab at telling us what to believe, but he misses the mark with me.

Admittedly, there are people who want to work past the age of 65 and retire when they’re more ready to hang up the old apron, or sell the old metal lunch bucket at a yard sale, so to speak. They have various reasons for doing so; e.g., they like their job, they want to be active as long as possible and make their own decisions about work and retirement, they have kids in college, they’re saving for a trip to Disneyland, they have a big mortgage, etc. But that doesn’t mean Canadians, or even the majority of Canadians, have to accept or ‘come to terms with the idea of a higher retirement age.’

Monte later tries to get more people on board re Freedom 67 by concluding that “a lot has to change before Canadians will accept (phasing in 67)”, e.g, the aforementioned change or increase to the corporate tax rate, MP pensions, etc. But before doing so he greases the rails under his hasty editorializing, which highlights, in my opinion, another challenge in modern times.

Challenge in modern times #413: Greasing the rails under hasty editorializing

Stay tuned...

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Please click here to read “Smoke and fire up your pants”

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