It’s been a while since my last Cathi’s Comment and oh, what can I say? We’re in an election that is the 3rd longest in history (beaten by 1867 and 1872). We are hearing stories of an impending El Nino, which may or may not be a good thing. We are in a technical recession which is bafflegab for what was previously known as a recession and the sad image of a little boy face down on a beach is the shame of Canada and the world.
Canada used to be a haven for refugees, a bright light in a dark world. Instead, like the boatload of Jews from Europe that were turned away during WWII (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27373131), we have any number of reasons why these thousand of refugees around the world have to live in camps for years rather than be brought to our faraway shores. At the same time, we now have a temporary worker program that allowed companies to bring in temporarily workers from around the world because we don’t have the number of (often) low-skilled workers to fill our need. But they can’t stay here. And now, because of abuses, it’s much less – approximately 25% of the number from Jul-Sep 2014 than there were in Jan-Mar 2014. These by the way are the latest numbers I could find published at time of writing this so I can’t vouch for accuracy there and I have no idea what the 2015 figures are.
So. There we have it. I can’t discuss politics or show favouritism for a particular party or denigrate any party, which is probably a good thing because from where I stand at the moment, I think politics ruins everything. I am forever ending my posts here saying something to the effect of please people, show compassion. This is what the world needs.
I find a lot of election campaigning to be a turnoff; and to have a really long campaign (although for some parties it seems non-stop campaigning) means endless opponent-bashing ads on t.v., and the eternal search in the media for the perfect sound bite, the perfect line or picture that can be skewed or stopped at just the right moment to make a candidate appear foolish. I don’t care which parties do this, I hate those ads. I mean it. If the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Party was created and did that, I would it hate it just as much.
There are buzzwords that drive me crazy. War-chest is one of them. A war-chest, for the uninformed, is the money donated to political parties to fund their election campaigns. I find this expression particularly offensive because that means that I, as a voter, am the enemy. I am here to be swayed and conquered by these marvellous war-chests of theirs. The bigger chest the tighter the sweater…wait, that’s another expression. But it makes as much sense. I, as a voter, do not want to be considered as something to be conquered or wooed or even slightly swayed. I want honesty. I want facts. And by facts I mean real facts. I want options. Not long lists of what political party experts have decided that they think I’d like to hear. I want humility, but more than that, I really want at least a glimmer of the truth.
On a grander scale, we live in a world of my way or the highway thinking, and that’s something else I truly hate. I don’t know exactly when it became fashionable to engage in black and white rhetoric though I’d personally blame it on the 1980s and the Thatcher years. I want all politicians and people in power, including those in big corporations to know that there is rarely if ever anything that can be answered with a black and white answer. Life is a myriad of greys, pick the appropriate shade for that particular situation. That’s when fairness begins. But that is too complicated, too expensive. It all comes down to the almighty dollar, and if it means suspending any rational thought to save a dollar and believe an ideology so be it. It shouldn’t be like this. I ask all those people thinking of entering politics right now to consider the human side first and go from there. Please. Somebody has to.
I won’t presume to know what political menu would be best for you, the reader, but I will say this: please take the time to find out a little of what is being said, a little of what has happened recently that is affecting now (and please don’t dig up memories of old bones of politicians whose actions and policies have no bearing on today’s issues whether they are alive or not); think about how you’d like to see things change or stay the same and go from there. Most important of all, vote. Just vote. Follow your heart, follow your mind, whatever it takes, vote. What we don’t need is a country run by the results of only 61% of votes actually being cast because that really isn’t representational of who we are is it? Please don’t say your vote doesn’t matter. It does.
In other matters, though I’m not posting as many Comments as I used to, favoring instead other means of social media like my WordPress blog (https://mrssauga.wordpress.com), Facebook and Twitter I will at some point soon update this web site as perhaps a convergance of my other sites with links to my historical web pages. It’s been a while since I’ve done any programming to speak of and I miss it so yeah, it’ll happen. Right now though I’m concentrating on writing and artwork.
Off-Air and I Ching Jukebox by Genève Blue are now available both as paperbacks and on Amazon Kindle; my Polariods Get Yellow poetry book is also now available as a paperback and Amazon Kindle, and on Tablo (https://tablo.io/) there’s a novel from when I was in my teens that is up and can be read there for free (I don’t plan to do more with that one), as well, there is a book of my short stories in progress there that can be read. For Genève Blue, there are two other novels in progress: The Late Night Cleaner’s Club, and the novel Cassandra which is a novel I wrote between 1988-1990 and I’m pleased to say is seeing the light of day. So far I like it and will most probably be publishing that on Amazon as a Kindle edition and possibly as a paperback.
I’m pleased to say that I’ve finally started painting again; my newest painting is a view of Carleton Park at dusk and I have donated it to a local Fredericton former school turned Community Centre (www.TheVille.ca). More paintings to come, I promise.
So that’s it for now, à la prochaine,
Cathi
Cathi's Place ~ Writing and Creativity Blog! 