A Forest Fable

This week's Minden Times column

It was the beavers, those clever, industrious engineers, who had the idea: Turn house building into an industry that would create jobs and build a strong economy benefitting all forest creatures.

The industry boomed. Prefab modified beaver houses were sold to forest communities around the world. Profits flowed like the creeks in spring.

There were jobs for all. Beaver were employed as tree cutters. Moose and deer hauled sticks and mud. Foxes took charge of administration and the birds flew the marketing initiatives.

Prosperity grew throughout the forest. Every forest critter had his or her own new home and all the conveniences that make for a happy life.

Industrialization brought the financial resources to build a flourishing modern society. A council, called Parliament, was created from animals elected across the forest. There was a  justice system, managed by the owls, and police services staffed by the wolves. The rabbits set up health care and other social services.

Banks, operated by the raccoons, offered mortgages for bigger houses and loans for televisions, computer tablets and to pay monthly electricity bills.

Life in the forest, once a miserable paw-to-mouth and claw-to-beak existence, was good. Until the grumbling began.

The bears complained they were working too much to enjoy their usual winter vacations. They demanded more paid hibernation time.

The nervous squirrels called for shorter work weeks to ease the stress of modern living. Still others said they must have higher wages to offset the taxes jacked up by their new government to pay for a burgeoning bureaucracy.

The forest echoed with howls and squawks about high prices and high taxes.

Wages rose steadily to quell the workers demands. So did the prices of beaver houses and other products because businesses needed more revenue to cover rising costs. The businesses also needed to satisfy the stock market lust for higher returns.

In another land far away beyond the lake, workers toiled in wet fields just to fill their bellies and did what their government ordered them to do. They learned of the industrialization success in the forest and began producing modified beaver houses and other goods at much cheaper prices.

Soon the forest animals were importing cheaper goods, and even some of their services, from the lands beyond the lake.

The forest industries could not compete with the prices from abroad. Their factories slowed production, soon gathering moss and rust. Workers were laid off and those who could not find other work spent their days playing video games and watching streamed reality shows.

Forest jobs continued to shrink as more business shifted to the lands across the lake. The only jobs available were in the fast food industry but many of the animals found they were gaining weight and becoming depressed.

Parliament decided the government should get into the casino business to create jobs. Casinos also would provide entertainment, ease the animals’ worries and bring more money into the government coffers.

Depression, suicide and violent crime became common. The rabbits operating the health service began prescribing cannabis leaves, which they said would ease the forest society’s pain. Costs soared beyond control, so the Parliament got into the cannabis business to raise more revenue.

It was the skunks, nosing the damp forest floor, who discovered the magic mushrooms. They learned that chewing the mushrooms relaxed the body and sent the mind off into other worlds. They created underground networks for distributing the mushrooms and sold them to stressed out buyers at secret rendezvous points.

The wolves soon ran out of spaces in which to confine loopy animals they found acting crazy or passed out along the forest trails. Their patrolling packs became exhausted trying to keep up with increasing crime.

The rabbits opened more mental health clinics and rehab centres. The costs became overwhelming so they cut back the services provided for traditional illnesses.

The forest society suffered a complete breakdown for which even the loon songs on the lake did not provide comfort or relief.

Eventually the happy loon songs stopped and the only loon call heard from the lake was the ‘tremolo’, that shrill and insane loon laugh signalling danger and despair.

Email: shaman@vianet.ca
Profile: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K8FY3Y

The Age of Information 'Lite'

You might recall from school days the story of the young Greek guy who sat beside a pool, saw his image reflected in the water and fell in love with himself. He couldn’t drag himself away and sat moonstruck, staring at his reflection until he died.

His name was Narcissus and psychologists named a mental condition after him. They called it Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or narcissism, a grandiose view of oneself and a craving for the attention and admiration of others.

Medical libraries bulge with studies on narcissism, some of the most recent examining whether social media and the selfies phenomena are fertilizing the growth of narcissism.

You don’t have to visit a medical library to find evidence that narcissism is growing. Television, hijacked by reality shows, is all narcissism now. More and more, so is politics.

Two of the more obvious North American narcissists among us are Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump. Look around and you’ll see others.

I don’t know if social media is contributing to what the experts say is a frightening growth in narcissism. Certainly new media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram  and others, and omnipresent smartphones and tablets, has increased the craving for self gratification. We are a society becoming obsessed with wanting to know who is paying attention to us.

A victim of all this is informed thinking. Too much of the information needed to build sound judgment and make good decisions now comes to us in low-cal snippets. New media snippets in which clicks and views are more important than well–researched facts.

Never in world history has the need for informed thinking been so important. Our shrinking world is cluttered with issues requiring critical thinking based on information that is as solid as Haliburton rock. Yet the Age of Information contains too much information that is soft as sand, as trustworthy as shadows.

Reading is the most effective way of getting informed, but for many of us reading has become simply glancing. We glance at information ‘lite’ and make our opinions instantly.

Research shows that while our visual skills are improving significantly, our critical thinking and analytical skills are declining. This trend will continue as we play more screen games and puzzles, and allow our kids to spend more time with shoot’em up games than with books, either paper or digital.

There are plenty of statistics on our electronic game habits but too many are collected by the gaming industry to be taken as fact. However, it’s probably safe to say that more than half of adults and at least one-third of kids under 18 play personal computer games on laptops, desktops, phones and tablets. Many school teachers use video games as a classroom teaching tool.

Anyone can confirm this by spending time with today’s kids. They process visual information quickly because of time spend with television and screen games. Everything is real time.

Meanwhile, reading skills have declined. Fewer kids actually read for pleasure these days. Too little time is spent reading that develops imagination, vocabulary, critical thinking and seeing the perspectives taught by history.

Reading, whether the words are laid down in print or digitally, sets us on the road to informed, critical thinking. Informed thinking helps us to understand change – why it is often necessary and how to handle it. It also helps us develop better values, and generally become a better society.

And, it allows us to rise above rumours, superstitions and political hyperbole and speak intelligently and forcefully against dumb political decisions.

Speaking of dumb political decisions, Newfoundland, which has Canada’s lowest literacy rate, will tax books starting in July. Its provincial sales tax will rise from eight to 10 per cent and be applied to books. That will be on top of the five per cent federal GST already charged on books.

It also has announced it will close 54 of the province’s 95 libraries.

You kind of wonder how all that is going to work out for them.

I also wonder if things would have worked out better for Narcissus if, instead of just staring at his reflection, he had brought a book to the pool.

Coming from America

The Canadian customs officer feeds my passport into the scanner, then looks up and asks: “What are you bringing back with you?”

I suppress the urge to say what I always want to say after crossing the U.S.-Canada border: “Nostalgia. Just a lot of nostalgia.”

Each time I return from the U.S. I am loaded with nostalgia. I have so many good feelings about America – so many good memories – and find myself yearning for the way things used to be. Way back, when the border was barely noticeable.

There is a sense of lost freedom when crossing the border these days. Security has diluted much of the welcoming you used to feel both coming and going. The world is smaller and much too dangerous for anyone to drop their guard.

Few would argue that increased border security is not a necessity, but it has reduced the pleasure of going south.

Besides security, other factors also lessen the joy of cross border travel. Exploding health care costs make the possibility of getting injured or sick in the U.S. a serious concern.  

A slip, a fall and a broken arm can cost a visitor to the U.S. hundreds of dollars. A heart attack that leads to stents or more serious surgery can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Ontario’s health insurance pays roughly $400 a day for U.S. hospital costs but U.S. hospitals charge far beyond that. Ontario also reimburses U.S. physician costs, but only at rates it pays Ontario doctors – rates far below what U.S. physicians charge.

Supplementary is a must for most of us travelling into the U.S., even for a day or two. Then there is the worry about your insurance company trying to avoid paying your claim. Insurance is a business and the fewer payouts, the better the profit.

Anyone buying travel insurance should spend considerable time and effort learning  eligibility requirements, terms and conditions, pre-existing condition limitations, restrictions and exclusions of the policy.

On top of security and health insurance worries there also is the concern about the money exchange rate, which was relatively stable until recent times. In times long past the exchange rate was really not a factor with the Canadian dollar running at par, or even above par for long periods like in the 1950s.

Changes to security, health care costs and exchange rates are what they are and we can’t go back to the way things were. Still, it is nice to slip into nostalgia.

Years ago we never gave much thought to the border. We used to walk across the bridge at Pigeon River into Minnesota to buy ice cream with barely a wave to customs officials. Visits to Duluth to buy clothes for the new school year or to visit relatives and friends were regular with no thought of health insurance or counting days outside the country.

My grandfather used to run the Lake Superior shoreline in his small boat from Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) to Minnesota lakeshore taverns to drink beer with friends.

Little thought was given to the border, or to specific citizenship. Rules were not nearly as rigid and many families had a history of mixed citizenship. It was sometimes hard to remember who was Canadian and who was American.

My maternal grandmother was born Canadian in Alberta but died an American in Nevada. My paternal grandmother was a Canadian from the Kenora area, and lived a chunk of her life in Minnesota before moving the family to Sault Ste. Marie, then Port Arthur. I can’t even recall if she died a Canadian or an American.

My dad’s dad was born an American who became Canadianized but never changed his citizenship. My dad was an American who eventually took Canadian citizenship.

It was like that back then. Less concern about borders and citizenship. Less involvement by government.

Back then we considered ourselves North Americans with more freedom to come and go where and when we wanted. We found little need for nationalistic labels.

I would love to see a return of those days, but that will never happen. However, a little nostalgia once in while never hurt anyone.

Email: shaman@vianet.ca
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Meeting Rusty

Rusty

Minden Times Column This Week

So, here I am in California getting to know Rusty.

He was withdrawn and wary at our first meeting. That’s understandable considering he spent his earliest days in the mean neighbourhoods of Los Angeles. Now he is enjoying a stable and loving life in the San Francisco area.

Rusty is my newest granddog. He joined my daughter’s family about a year ago and this is the first opportunity I’ve had to meet him.

He is a fine looking fellow. Medium size, light reddish brown in colour with fine rusty blond leg and belly feathers. Amber eyes. He looks a bit like an Irish setter but his face is too long and pointed for that breed.

He didn’t look this good when my daughter’s family adopted him from a dog rescue organization in Palo Alto. He had a cut on his head, was missing a tooth, had kennel cough and had lost the hair around his eyes.

The rescue group believes he was an LA backyard dog - dogs left on their own by owners who do not look after them. He doesn’t like loud voices, indicating he must have been kept by people who shouted at him a lot.

He was very tentative with me, watching me out of the corner of his eye and moving away whenever I came near. He is getting to trust me now and even brings me his ball to throw.

Rusty is my third California granddog. The first was Koona, a half Huskie, half Malamute my daughter brought with her from Canada when she moved here roughly 20 years ago. Koona lived to a ripe old age – 14 – for an Arctic breed.

Then came Ozzie, a pure-bred Malamute from a breeder who lived in the mountains near the California-Nevada border. Ozzie, a gorgeous big dog, died unexpectedly at four.

Both were among the most intelligent dogs I have known. They vocalized a lot, a trait of the Malamute. They were loving guys, but fiercely independent.

Rusty doesn’t talk. He communicates with body language. He is loving but more laid back that Koona or Ozzie. He likes to be around other dogs, and people once he gets to know them.

He joins a long list of Poling granddogs who have graced our lives - Diesel, Memphis, Emma, Chase, Tasha, Molly and others whose names I might have forgotten.

The only other living granddog is Georgia, a Great Dane Harlequin who lives with another daughter in Mississauga. Georgia is so large that she rides in vehicles with her head protruding through an open sunroof.

Rusty filled a huge emotional void left when Ozzie died unexpectedly. When a cherished pet passes it is difficult to think about getting another.

The day she adopted him, my daughter took Rusty for a get acquainted walk. Not long into the walk they came across five white feathers laying in their path.

There is a belief in some parts of society that a white feather fallen from the sky is sent by the spirit of a loved one who has passed on. It is a sign that all is fine and life should be carried on without them.

I don’t know about that, but I do know that native Americans believe a white feather signifies rebirth and new beginnings.

Rusty has a new beginning here thanks to an animal rescue group and a family that has given him a loving home.

           

Email: shaman@vianet.ca
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