The germ that ate their brains

Perhaps because of our northern latitude, or perhaps because we thought we had been vaccinated, we expected Canada to escape the epidemic.

Alas, we haven’t. It is here, perhaps swept in on wind shifts created by climate change. Or, maybe it came with the same cough or sneeze that started this winter’s measles outbreak.

Whatever, sadly its arrival has been confirmed by observers on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill.

P-BED, the clinical abbreviation for Political Brain Eating Disease, has been raging in much of the western world, notably the United States and Britain. Canada, however, appeared to be immune.

The Canadian economy was burbling along with a relatively stable employment rate. Its politics were calm compared with the Mad King disaster in the U.S, or the Brexit lunacy in the U.K.

Canada’s prime minister, the boy in long pants and rolled up shirt sleeves, was saying good things and gaining attention and respect in a world gone increasingly mad. All appeared to be . . . well, sensibly Canadian.

Then P-BED struck in the form of the SNC-Lavalin affair.

First came the humiliating demotion of Jody Wilson-Raybould from justice minister and attorney-general to veteran’s affairs minister. The prime minister said it was not a demotion. He had to move her because someone had resigned from cabinet, making a shuffle necessary.

Let me pause this narrative to say that as someone who did two journalistic tours of duty on Silly Hill, being removed from almost any other cabinet post and being sent to veterans affairs is a massive demotion. Anyone who has worked on the Hill knows that.

Not long after that, Wilson-Raybould resigned from cabinet. The prime minister said he could not understand why.

Then Gerald Butts, the prime minister’s principal secretary and close adviser and friend, resigned. There were allegations that senior officials in the prime minister’s office pressured Wilson-Raybould as attorney-general to shelve criminal charges against SNC-Lavalin, a leading global engineering firm from Quebec.

Butts said in his resignation letter that he did not pressure Wilson-Raybould. He did not give a reason for his resignation but tossed in this non sequitur: Our kids and grandkids will judge us all on one issue above all others – climate change.

That’s probably true, but what climate change has to do with his and Wilson-Raybould’s resignations, SNC-Lavalin and the prime minister’s odd statements on the whole mess is anyone’s guess. My guess is P-BED.

The most obvious manifestation of brain eating disease occurred last week when Michael Wernick, who as Clerk of the Privy Council is the country’s top bureaucrat, testified before the House of Commons justice committee.

Wernick admitted there was pressure put on Wilson-Raybould in the SNC-Lavalin affair but none of it was unlawful or inappropriate. He left the impression that she is to blame for much of the muddled controversy.

Sounding more like a politician than a bureaucrat he also said – completely off topic - that violent language is being used in public discourse and he fears someone will be shot during this fall’s federal election campaign.

Hopefully that bit of hysterics will not prompt some deranged person to go to an election rally with a gun. And, hopefully his comments on SNC-Lavalin will not encourage other bureaucrats to think t hey can get involved in partisan politics

Wernick’s delirium about a shooting was a political shot at Senator David Tkachuk, a Conservative, who earlier told the United We Roll protest caravan in Ottawa “to roll over every Liberal left in the country.”

That was a figure of speech made in the context of this fall’s federal election, Tkachuk said later.

The prime minister then jumped in to say that Wernick is brilliant and people should heed carefully what he says. Perhaps he wants Wernick to run for a seat in the election.

What people really need to heed is how to halt the spread of  the brain eating disease raging in Ottawa. It will continue to spread as the SNC-Lavalin scandal develops and will worsen as the federal election campaign approaches.

All that we poor voters can do is watch election candidates closely and make sure they know how negative partisanship can eat their brains. Question them closely and confirm that they have been vaccinated.

Hooray for Hollywood!

Movies are welcome comfort during a nasty winter like the one we are experiencing. January and February are prime times to catch up on the newest and best movies, which will be celebrated Sunday at the annual Academy Awards.

I’ve got to see many of this year’s nominated movies: The Wife, A Star is Born, Green Book, Vice, Bohemian Rhapsody, Roma.

This year’s film crop has left me with the feeling that movies no longer are simply entertainment. Most of the movies I have seen this winter have had strong messages, or themes, delivered by an impressive line-up of film talent that seems to get stronger every year.

They are movies that don’t leave you just feeling entertained. They are movies that leave you with thoughts and ideas worth thinking about.

For instance, Green Book shows readers how spending time with people unlike ourselves can help us overcome our prejudices. Bohemian Rhapsody delivers the message that we all need to learn who we are, accept it and get on with life. Vice shows how political corruption hurts the world, while Roma displays the hurts of class divisions.

Both A Star Is Born and The Wife are about troubled relationships held together by remarkable feminist strength.

I was thinking about all this when I walked past our television set yesterday and noticed that a rerun of the 1958 musical South Pacific was playing. It has always been a favourite, so I sat down, became engrossed and watched it right through.

Now that’s real cool entertainment without the deep messages or themes, I thought as I listened to some of Rogers and Hammerstein’s greatest songs. Then I reached the part in which the three main characters unexpectedly confront the issue of racism.

Some background for those who don’t know, or remember, the movie: American military forces are gathered on an island in the South Pacific during the Second World War against Japan. Nellie Forbush (Mitzi Gaynor) is a navy nurse who has fallen in love with Emile de Becque (Rossano Brazzi), a French plantation owner. Joe Cable (John Kerr) is a Marine lieutenant who has fallen in love with a young Tonkinese woman.

Cable has decided he can’t marry the girl because she is of a different race. Nellie has decided she can’t marry de Becque because she has learned that he was married to a  Polynesian woman who died and left him with two interacial children.

The three are together in a scene in which Nellie says she can’t marry de Becque because of her feelings about him having married a Polynesian. She can’t help herself because racism born into her, she says.

Cable feels the same but bursts into the song You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught, one stanza of which goes:

“You've got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made, And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade, You've got to be carefully taught.”

People are not born racists, they learn to be, is a strong message delivered through music.

Cable and de Becque, convinced their lives are over because their loves cannot be fulfilled, go off together on a dangerous reconnaissance mission. Cable is killed but de Becque survives.

The movie ends with de Becque walking up the hill to his plantation and sees Nellie serving lunch to his two children. She has overcome her racist feelings and all ends well.

South Pacific was nominated for 10 awards in 1959 but won only one – for best sound.

It was not just an entertaining movie featuring classic musical numbers such as Some Enchanted Evening and Bali Hai, but a movie that delivers an important message without beating viewers over the head.

 

It will be interesting to see what movies walk off with the golden statuettes Sunday evening. It is a safe bet that the winners not  only will have been entertaining but will have delivered messages that are important to receive and ponder during these troubled times.

That’s the wonderful thing about the movies. Not only are they a good place to go when the weather is snowy and cold. They tell us something about who we are and how we should conduct our lives.

Good work Hollywood! Keep them coming.

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Understanding plants and animals

Tree branches whisper in a summer breeze, or creak in an icy winter wind, and I wonder if they are talking to each other.

A wolf howls from a far-off hill and I wonder if it is mourning a loss. Perhaps a mate is sick, or a member of the pack has gone missing.

It might seem far-fetched, but there is growing belief that plants and animals have feelings and are capable of expressing them. It is a belief found in a number of recent books.

In his bestselling The Hidden Life of Trees, German forester Peter Wohlleben writes that forests are social networks in which trees communicate with each other. They share food, help members that are struggling and warn of dangers such as invasive insects.

He supports that view with scientific data showing that trees exchange information, nutrients and support through their large and intricate root systems.

In The Wisdom of Wolves, filmmakers Jim and Jamie Dutcher share their observations from living among a partially domesticated wolf pack. Their observations told them that wolves, the world’s most despised and feared animals, are social beings with emotions. They show concern and compassion for other pack members, and even demonstrate grief at the loss of a pack member.

The 400 people attending the annual Forests Ontario conference in Alliston last week heard similar views about plants and animals having feelings. A most interesting view came from Tom Longboat, director of Indigenous studies at Trent University.

Longboat, a Mohawk, said science is beginning to understand that trees and plants are living beings that have spirit and feelings. That’s an understanding that Indigenous people have had for centuries.

“Look at them as creations not just natural resources,” he said in the conference keynote address. “Think of them as relatives. We need them.”

“We live in the most complex time in human history,” he said. It is a time that demands collective efforts to achieve a balance between our lifestyles and the environment.

Combining science and cross-cultural dialogue is one way to achieve that balance. In other words, combine what we learn from science and technology with Indigenous knowledge gathered over centuries.

I take that as a call for more diversity to achieve the balance needed to save our planet. More diversity in forests, animal populations and our own societies.

Diversity is hampered when we try to eradicate species we don’t like or fear, such as  mosquitos and wolves. It is hampered when we reforest with single tree species or when we try to wall off people from other cultures and other countries.

Trees and animals may not have the intellectual abilities of humans but somehow seem to know that diversity is critical to balance in nature. Acres of pines planted in rows do not a forest make because they discourage other plant growth. A mountain range without wolves allows overpopulations of elk and deer to wipe out plants and leafed trees.

The world’s forest area decreased from 31.8 per cent of all global land area to 30.6 per cent between 1990 and 2015. Scientists say that deforestation now is the second leading cause of climate change after burning fossil fuels.

The world needs more trees, plus a better understanding of what they are and why they are important to all forms of life.

Urban areas in particular need more trees, plants, and greenery in general. Studies have shown that not  only do trees and plants absorb urban pollution, they provide relief from the mental fatigue of living in the city.

Roughly 50 per cent of the world’s population lives in urbanized areas yet many of those urban areas have too few trees.

For instance, Myles Sergeant, a Hamilton physician, told the Forests Ontario conference that his city has only 19 per cent tree cover, far below the 30 per cent recommended for cities. He said Hamilton needs one million more trees.

There is evidence of a growing understanding of forests and their importance to all forms of life. There also is some evidence that the rate of world deforestation is slowing slightly, hopefully because of a growing understanding that trees and plants are much more than just a resource.

Positive signs, not just for plants and trees, but for humans.

Why I can’t stomach Trump

When you write, you get messages from readers. Some are complimentary. Some are not.

I have received a couple that accuse me of being anti-American, anti-Donald Trump.

Yes, I am anti-Trump. I can’t stomach the man.

But I’ve never really understood exactly why. Why should a basic Canadian nobody be concerned or have any feelings about who is president of the United States or what is happening in that distant country?

I discovered why last week when I was watching a TV news clip while doing some history research. The news clip was about the New York Times’ new publisher,  A. G. Sulzberger, meeting Trump to discuss Trump’s constant denigration of the news media.

In the meeting Trump boasted about rising out of the Jamaica, Queens neighbourhood of New York City to become president of the U.S.A. As if he is some unfortunate who overcame the disadvantages of poor living conditions and attained the country’s highest office.

That’s when I returned to the history research I had just set aside. It was research on another New York City neighbourhood and a person who was the exact opposite of Donald Trump.

That person was Deborah Moody, a strong, keenly intellectual woman who founded Gravesend, which became part of Brooklyn, the borough neighbouring Trump’s Queens.

Deborah Moody was born in 1586 to a wealthy and religious English family. She came into more wealth and power when she married Henry Moody, an estate owner and member of Parliament who was knighted, then made a baron.

Henry died young and Deborah, now Lady Moody, was left to run Gareson, their substantial estate. She immediately ran afoul of the dreaded English Star Chamber, which dictated the duties of estate owners.

Then she ran afoul of religious fanatics who were burning people at the stake for having different views. Lady Moody was an Anabaptist, a person who believes babies should not be baptised until they reach an age of reason when they can truly understand and commit to Christianity.

Fed up with restrictions on individual freedoms, she sailed to America’s Massachusetts Bay Colony to begin a new life. Puritan religious leaders there were annoyed by her Anabaptist views, labelled her a dangerous woman and excommunicated her. So she and some followers moved to New Netherland, the Dutch colony that later became New York when it was taken over by the British.

The Dutch offered her land that is now part of Brooklyn, told her she could build a town there and have total freedom of civil and religious beliefs. Lady Moody became the only known woman to establish a town in colonial North America.

She and her followers laid out streets, built houses and other buildings, including a church to be used by all faiths, including Quakers who were not appreciated by the Dutch Calvinists.

Lady Moody became the mayor of the new town of Gravesend and wrote its charter, part of which reads:

“There shall be complete social, political and religious freedom. In agriculture and cultural development, we shall open the door to wayfarers of whatever creed . . . .”

Deborah Moody was everything that Donald Trump is not. She was an intelligent visionary, a successful builder and a dynamic leader who attracted committed followers because she believed in them and in protecting their rights.

One of those followers was a guy named John Poling who helped with the others to build the town. He was an ordinary guy, not known for anything, except perhaps for being the progenitor of my Poling family lineage.

His line produced seven generations of evangelical ministers, the last of whom was my distant cousin Lieutenant Clark Vandersall Poling, a U.S. Army chaplain.

Seventy-six years ago this week, Clark Poling and three other military chaplains drowned in the torpedoing of the troop ship SS Dorchester headed to the war in Europe. They died after helping soldiers into life boats and giving their own life jackets to those who did not have them.

Deborah Moody, her followers and their ancestors were unselfish comforters, givers and builders. Donald Trump is a distempered, self-centred taker who says he prefers soldiers who don’t get captured, or presumably killed.

The comparison is why I can’t stomach the man.