No matter what calamity the world suffers, the only really important news in the United States these days is Donald Trump.

News networks feverishly report his limo leaving Trump Tower for another court appearance in downtown New York. Or, his $100 million Boeing 757 taxiing for takeoff to a criminal arraignment in Florida.

Media packs follow him in and out of courtrooms, then to election campaign stops where he boasts of being a stable genius who will be president again next year.

The current odds favour him winning the Republican nomination and beating Joe Biden for the presidency in 2024. However, the odds also favour him being convicted of criminal offences related to hush money payments in New York, mishandling of secret documents in Florida or trying to fix election results in Georgia.

If he is convicted on one of those offences and imprisoned how could he continue to run for president?Easily. Nothing in U.S. law prevents him from becoming president while doing prison time. The law says that any natural born U.S. citizen who is 35 years or older and has lived in the country at least 14 years can be president.

If convicted and jailed, Trump will not be the first person to run for president while serving time. A guy named Eugene Debs did it back in 1920 and won three per cent of the popular vote. Nearly one million people voted for him.

Conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche ran for the White House in 1992 while doing a 15-year term for fraud. He won only 0.1 per cent of the popular vote.

There’s already one declared candidate running for the 2024 presidency from prison. Joseph Maldonado-Passage, also called Joe Exotic and star of the Netflix ‘Tiger King’ series, filed his candidacy papers in February as a Libertarian. He’s doing 21 years in Texas for animal trafficking and abuse offences and for attempting to arrange the murder of a rival zoo keeper.

If Trump does become president while in a prison – say Sing Sing in Ossining, New York – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will have to visit him there to discuss Canada-U.S. trade agreements. Trump will demand that Trudeau meet him to redo trade agreements that he says are great for Canada but are “horrible, horrible deals for our country.”

The prime minister will have to dress appropriately for the meeting, ensuring that he wears clothing and jewellery that meet prison visit rules. He’ll have to show valid photo ID.

Trump will be able to dress up a bit, although not in his standard blue suit and bright red tie. He’ll have to wear the green prison issue pants but Sing Sing inmates are allowed to wear personal tops and personal footwear that doesn’t cost more than $80.

If it is a luncheon meeting, the food could be hamburger, carrots, peas and boiled potatoes – one of the standard Sing Sing meals. 

That will make Trump happy because his favourite meal is a quarter pounder, fries and diet Coke. Trudeau likely won’t be impressed because he has more elegant tastes. 

The odds of getting the Republican presidential nomination or the odds of him winning the November 2024 presidential election could change dramatically. So could the odds of him being convicted of any of the offences and of serving any prison time.

The likelihood of a Florida conviction got a boost earlier this month when Trump’s former attorney general said the charges of wilfully holding onto secret documents appear solid.

“I was shocked by the degree of sensitivity of these documents and how many there were . . . ,” said Bill Barr. “If even half of it is true, then he’s toast.”

Trump had a quick and nasty response to that for the media. He said Barr was a weak and lazy attorney general and a “gutless pig.”

The odds will not change, however, on one aspect of the Trump drama. No matter what happens in the courts or political arenas you can bet Donald Trump will be a main item on the daily news for many months, and perhaps years to come.

It’s disturbing to see how intelligent people who get close to Justin Trudeau get burned.

The latest scorched victim is David Johnston, the former governor general who Trudeau appointed his special rapporteur on claims that China has interfered in our federal elections. He resigned that position recently citing “the highly partisan atmosphere” surrounding his appointment and his work.

Johnston is a prominent Canadian with an outstanding career in public service, particularly in the field of education. He has been the dean of the University of Western Ontario law school, principal of McGill University and has held other positions in other universities.

He was appointed governor general in 2010 on the recommendation of Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and served until 2017.
He’s now another of the dedicated, intelligent people who joined the Trudeau team then found themselves cast aside or in untenable positions that left them little choice but to resign.

Jody Wilson-Raybould quit Trudeau’s cabinet in 2019 during a scandal involving SNC-Lavalin, a Quebec-based engineering firm. The firm was accused of using bribes to win contracts in Libya.

There were reports that Trudeau’s office pressured Ms. Wilson-Raybould to intervene in the case against SNC-Lavalin. She was justice minister and attorney-general at the time, but was demoted to veterans affairs minister before she quit.

Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s principal secretary and friend, resigned too, saying it was important for the prime minister’s office and its work for him to step away.

So did Jane Philpott, Trudeau’s Treasury Board president, saying she had lost confidence in the government’s handling of the Lavalin affair.

Then a year of so later Finance Minister Bill Morneau quit Trudeau during the scandal involving WE Charity, a youth empowerment movement.

Trudeau’s government gave WE a $43-million contract. Critics said Trudeau should have recused himself from the contract discussions because members of his family were close to the charity and had taken money from it for making appearances and speeches.

Moreau also was close to the family that operated WE and socialized with them.

That’s a basketful of people burned while working with Trudeau, who has a documented history of loose ethics and conflicts of interest.

Now there’s David Johnston, an honorable man who should have declined Trudeau’s request to investigate reports of Chinese political interference. He is a friend of the Trudeau family and has longstanding personal and professional connections in China.

The opposition parties were bound to jump all over his appointment. They did, saying that as Trudeau’s friend, Johnson had a conflict of interest in investigating Chinese interference and whether the Trudeau government did anything to stop it.

They also noted that a Chinese company donated $140,000 to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, a charity with which Johnston was associated. The foundation later gave the money back.

Two days before Johnston resigned, the House of Commons passed a New Democratic Party resolution calling on Trudeau to replace Johnston and urgently establish a public inquiry into Chinese political interference.

Johnston said he respected the right of MPs to express their opinion but refused to resign, then did so two days later.

You have to feel sorry for David Johnston, who did what he has always done: accepted a job in which he could fulfill a duty to serve his country. Wrong job. Wrong time. Wrong person to go to work for.

The affair has left Johnston’s sterling reputation badly tarnished. Recent polling shows that only one in four Canadians have faith in his credibility and impartiality.

Almost 70 per cent of Canadians polled said they are concerned about China’s meddling in their electoral affairs. Yet only 28 per cent of respondents said the Trudeau government’s handling of the issue has been good or very good.

Trudeau could have appointed any number of other qualified and independent individuals to report on China’s political interference and avoided what has turned into yet another Trudeau government mess. But Trudeau is an elitist who lives in a rarified world far outside the common world the rest of us occupy.

What is especially sad is the increasing number of smart, effective people who get burned when drawn into that Trudeau world.

 I don’t get out much, spending most of my time among the birds and squirrels who dance in the woods surrounding my place.

So my recent trip to the U.S., the first in several years, was a voyage into reality. A genuine eye-opening educational experience.

The main lesson learned, or perhaps just confirmed, is that America is a country of confounding contradictions. So many things are the opposite of what they are believed to be.

Shortly after arrival I find myself at a Catholic church in Orinda, California. I walk in, take a seat and see that I am surrounded by two dozen or more nuns in habits. I haven’t seen a nun in habit in decades.

A priest appears with an incense thurible and begins incensing the altar. Then he walks through the church swinging the thurible and incensing the congregation. Later he takes another pass through the church sprinkling holy water with a whisk.I haven’t seen any of this since I was a child. A church filled with praying people as a priest performs rituals not often witnessed today. It’s a trip back to the 1950s.

This is not the America I see on television and read about in newspapers and magazines. 

It is contrary to the gone crazy, violent America that likely will return an orange-haired misogynist buffoon to the presidency.  If not him, it could be a right-wing extremist who slags the legacies of Walt Disney. (I mean what kind of a person has bad things to say about good old Walt, rest his soul?)

After church I visit a bookstore in Oakland. It has thousands of books of all genres, used and new. It’s an incredible place where I could spend days soaking up the works of the world’s best writers.

The 2020 census reported there were 10,800 bookstores in the U.S. Their numbers, however, are declining, and so are the number of books that fill them.

PEN America, a writer’s organization promoting freedom of expression, reports that from July 2021 to June 2022 there were 2,532 book bannings in the U.S. affecting 1,648 separate titles.

A nation that loves bookstores, yet a nation that spends much time and effort banning books.

Wandering the streets of San Francisco I see dozens of interesting shops and eateries staffed by folks chatting in foreign languages mixed with English. 

Some Americans see these people as immigrants changing an America that needs no change. They want to choke off immigration to a country that had no immigration before 1492, then became a modern state and world power because of immigration.

There are many other contradictions here. 

The U.S. produces Nobel Prize scientists, but has more conspiracy theorists and science deniers than any other advanced nation.

It has some of the world’s best medical expertise and advanced medical facilities but people who can’t afford them get sick and die. The Commonwealth Fund, which promotes high-quality, equitable health care systems, reported in January that Americans have the worst health outcomes of any of the world’s high-income nations.

The greatest contradiction: 48 per cent of Americans see gun violence as a very big problem, while another 24 see it as a moderately big problem. So almost three-quarters of Americans see gun violence as a problem, but gun ownership and gun violence continue to increase with little efforts to control it.

These contradictions continue to exist because of widening divisions in the country’s politics. Pew Research Centre studies show that 77 per cent of Americans believe their country is more divided than it was just three years ago.

The political divide between the right and the left has become a chasm preventing bipartisan efforts to fix the country’s serious problems. The political divide now is not only just over political issues. It has generated deeper divides in culture and character.

The contradictions seen in my visit leave me with the impression of an extremely disturbed country, whose troubles could have a major impact on the rest of the world.

Americans have pulled off many comebacks from adversities. Hopefully they can pull off another. One that will restore the country as a nation of truly united states and people working together.

 I’m in California visiting my American granddog Rusty.

Rusty has had a rough year or so health wise. Breathing problems and fatigue that appeared during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pets can catch Covid, but the dog doctors don’t think that’s what Rusty has had. They prescribed him drugs and a special diet and he slowly is improving.

So I decided to give him a lift with a personal visit. You know, bring him a bag of doggie treats and scratch his ears.

But this is California and a pat on the head and a bag of milk bone treats won’t do it. If you want to make your pet feel good here, you take it to its favourite restaurant.

There are several pet restaurants here, some simply dog friendly, others that service both you and your dog and some that serve dog meals only.

So I take Rusty to the Dogue Cafe, which offers fine dining for dogs in San Francisco’s Mission District. It offers fresh, raw meals prepared by chef-owner Rahmi Massarweh, a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef.

Dogue has a tasting menu for $75. It includes bone broth and mosaic chicken, which is white meat wrapped in nori, a Japanese edible seaweed.

That’s pricey so I order a $15 rose-shaped pastry made with antelope heart. It comes on a white plate with a fork and Rusty and I take a seat at a table. After I feed him the first forkful he leans forward, snatches the rest off the plate and swallows it whole. That tells me it must be delicious and worth the fifteen bucks.  

Canine restaurants are not just another California curiosity. Their numbers are increasing across the United States. 

The Wilson, a well-known Manhattan restaurant, offers a canine menu to folks who want to dine out with their dogs. For $42 you can order your pet a 16-ounce ribeye steak with steamed vegetables. Or you can get Fido pan-roasted true north salmon with lemon ($28), or something lighter like a bowl of sliced apples and “heirloom” carrots ($11).

There also are dessert places for dogs, like the Salty Paws ice cream parlors that serve dog-friendly ice cream in cones, cups or waffle bowls. The company boasts 22 locations across the U.S.

Even some big outfits like Shake Shack and Starbucks have dog snacks for folks who feel uncomfortable enjoying a caramel cappuccino while their four-legged pal has to sit by and drool.

And for dog walkers who want to get their hound a snack while out strolling, there are dog food trucks like The WoofBowl in Los Angeles and Bow Wow Bones in Texas.

The pandemic brought a significant increase in pet ownership in both the U.S. and Canada. 

The Canadian Animal Health Institute reports that dog numbers increased to 7.9 million in 2022 from 7.7 million in 2020. The U.S. dog population is estimated at 65.1 million. 

Despite rough economic times 65 per cent of Canadian pet owners surveyed say they  are spending more on their pets. Canadian dog and cat food sales increased eight per cent last year. U.S. sales of pet products are predicted to hit $143.6 billion this year.

Places for pups to dine in or snack out are increasing, but they remain lacking in large swaths of the country. However, if you really want to treat your dog to good, genuine dog dining in a far-off place it’s becoming easier to get it there.

Transporting pets usually means using commercial airlines that have strict rules and no guarantees of a comfortable flight and safe arrival. Most airlines transport pets in wire cages placed in cargo holds. 

The U.S. Department of Transport says 200 pets, mostly dogs, died on flights during the 

last decade, an average of 20 deaths a year. Worries about bad outcomes have prompted pet owners to demand better for their pets. 

Enter private charter air services like K9 Jets in the United Kingdom and VistaJet in the U.S. that allow pets to fly in the aircraft cabin with their owners. VistaJet offers your pet a soft mat to sleep on, toys to play with and prime cuts of meat to snack on.

A dog’s life is not looking so bad after all.

You can smell hints of summer in the air and the promise of sunny, worry-free times.

A worrisome thing is present, however, but for now it’s something requiring our close attention so we won’t have to start worrying.

We are into the fire season and there are indications it could be a bad one.

Haliburton fire chiefs, citing an extreme fire risk, issued a total fire ban for Haliburton County last week. All burn permits are cancelled.

The ban covers any open flame that cannot be turned off by a valve or switch. That includes fireworks and charcoal barbecues. 

Fire seasons and fire bans are nothing new. There are indications, however, that devastating wildfires are more frequent and becoming a serious worldwide concern. Folks in Alberta and parts of B.C. and Saskatchewan can attest to that this spring.

Already this spring there have been more than 1,400 wildfires in Canada. That’s well above the 10-year annual average of 1,061 fires for this time of year. 

A United Nations report concluded recently that the risk of deadly blazes will surge in coming years as the result of climate change. Produced by more than 50 researchers on six continents, the report estimates the global risk of devastating fires will increase by more than 50 per cent over the coming decades.

“The heating of the planet is turning landscapes into tinderboxes,” said the report, which forecast that we are heading for a “global wildfire crisis.”

The good news is that people are becoming more aware and concerned about the increasing threats of wildfires. A recent survey of 1,500 Canadians found that 46 per cent worry about damage caused by wildfires.

Increased awareness will help make us all think more deeply about what we can do individually to help prevent fires.

The National Forestry Database indicates that 8,000 wildfires occur every year in Canada, roughly one-half of them caused by lightning.  There is little we can do to prevent that but we can do much to prevent the 50 per cent caused by humans.

Most of us know better than to leave a fire unattended. However, how diligent are we in extinguishing fires we have set for cooking, warmth or burning debris? Do we take the time to drown fires, then stir the ashes to ensure they are cold?

Also, how many of us think about the possibility of our vehicles starting a wildfire? Catalytic converter surfaces under a vehicle can reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit under certain conditions, so driving or parking over dry grass should be avoided.

ATV exhaust systems also get hot enough to ignite tinder dry grass, leaves and brush.  Grass can build up around the exhaust pipe and engine. It may heat up, fall to the ground and ignite a fire.

ATVs have a small mesh screen inside the muffler to stop sparks from shooting out onto the ground. Some people remove these spark arresters to gain more horsepower, and that definitely is not a good idea.

It is a good idea to carry a fire extinguisher in your vehicle, whether it be car, truck or ATV.

We all need to be more diligent about brush, especially after a winter of ice storms that left us with an unusual amount of downed trees and fallen branches. Dry brush is miracle food for wildfires and we need to be diligent about clearing it away.

Governments and service companies like Ontario Hydro and Bell need to be more rigorous in ensuring dry brush is cleared away. I get nervous driving along Highway 35 and seeing piles of cut brush left to dry under power lines. 

Our world is becoming warmer, drier and windier – all factors that increase wildfire risks. When risks increase so must thinking and planning on how to reduce them.

One of the most important ways of reducing wildfire risks is to strictly observe fire bans. People who think their small, attended campfire is not a risk are not thinking clearly.

We live surrounded by trees and other vegetation that becomes explosive when dried by sun, wind and lack of rain. There is no such thing as being too cautious when wildfire risks start mounting like they are now.

I have never been a Toronto Maple Leafs fan. Probably because I was born and raised in Northwestern Ontario, where most folks disliked southern Ontario and anything to do with it. 

Toronto was the centre of power and privilege, sucking up our resources while giving us little in return. The Leafs were southern Ontario’s hockey team, so most of us Northern Ontario kids ignored them while cheering and dreaming of playing for the Montreal Canadiens. 

Our hockey heroes were the masterful goaltender Jacques Plante, the left-wing legend Jean Beliveau and, of course, Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard, the greatest hockey player of all time. 

We loved the Canadiens because they played the game with pure passion. 

Many of the players, notably The Rocket, came from struggling, impoverished families. The Rocket and others of his era learned to skate, play and practice not in fancy arenas, but on frozen creeks just like we did.

I thought a lot about those great Canadiens teams while watching the hapless Maple Leafs blow another chance to win the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup. They haven’t won the cup since 1967, a full 56 years ago.

The Leafs’ barely got past Tampa Bay Lighting in Round One of the playoffs. Their four-games-to-one loss to Florida Panthers in Round Two was pathetic, especially the uninspiring play of their “Core Four” players – John Tavares, Auston Matthews, William Nylander and Mitch Marner.

Those four – paid a total of US $40.5 million this season – failed to score once in the first three games against the Panthers. The amount of passion they played with could be placed in an eyedropper. 

Passionate play drove Montreal’s Rocket Richard to become the first player in NHL history to score 50 goals in one season and the first to reach 500 career goals. He was a member of eight Stanley Cup winning Canadiens teams.

Richard played hard and rough. He was known as fire on ice for his lightning drives at the opposition net. 

“When Rocket came flying towards me with the puck on his stick, his eyes were all lit up, flashing and gleaming like a pinball machine,” Hall of Fame goalie Glenn Hall once recalled. “It was terrifying.”  

The Rocket and the Montreal Canadiens exemplified what the game of hockey is all about – the passion for scoring goals. Goals get scored when teams play with passion that lights fire in their eyes and their bellies.

It’s been a very long time, but Toronto once had teams that played with fiery spirit. They made 71 NHL playoff appearances, winning 13 Stanley Cups between 1918 and 1967

This year they had an excellent regular season record and fans expected to see them in this year’s final – something they have not seen in decades. If the team had shown the same passion as the fans, they might have been there.

When a team that should go deep into the playoffs and doesn’t, its problem is not just on the ice. There is something missing on the bench and in the executive offices.

The Leafs management was missing the ability to infect their players with the passion that wins championships. Management also seemed to lack confidence in itself, making continual lineup changes despite having one of the best regular season records in the NHL.

The Maple Leafs appeared to have had everything needed to be in the Stanley Cup final this year. Everything except passion and team spirit. They’ll have to find those two things if they want to go anywhere next season.

How and where will they find it? A good start would be to look down the street and take a few hints from that other Toronto team – baseball’s Blue Jays.

The Jays played some games on the same days the Leafs were suffering one playoff loss after the next. I did a lot of channel hopping to follow both teams. 

On the Leafs channel I saw a lot of glum faces and dispassionate play. Turning to the Jays I saw impassioned, happy faces on guys enjoying playing the game. Smiles and laughter that build the team spirit that scores points and wins games and championships.

 So here comes the heat. And, the heavy rains, big thunderstorms and the wild winds that accompany them.

That’s what the professional forecasters are telling us. Their climate models suggest that the world average temperature could reach a record high this year. 

Last year was the world’s fifth warmest year on record, they say, and this summer could see even hotter temperatures.

That might seem like good news to Ontarians who have just been through the gloomiest several months in more than 80 years. Clouded skies, rain, sleet and snow were the main weather features most days from December through April.

Now the world weather pattern is changing from La Niña to El Niño, the naturally occurring phenomena that cool or warm the central Pacific Ocean surfaces. La Niña is a cooling phase, and El Niño is a warming phase.

Both develop over the tropical Pacific Ocean region, altering weather patterns in various parts of the world. El Niño could dramatically impact Canadian weather this summer, depending on when it fully develops.

If El Niño fully matures within the next three months Canada could see a cooler-than-normal summer, some climatologists say. However, if it takes hold later we’ll see hotter temperatures and more rainfall in the back half of this year, and into 2024. 

It already has a good start. By the end of March surface waters of the tropical Pacific had reached an average 21 Celsius for the first time on record. The temperature reached 21.1C in the first five days of April, surpassing the previous record of 20.0C set in March 2016.

El Niño occurs every two to seven years. The most recent ones were in 2018-2019 and 2014-2016. That latter resulted in 2016 being recorded as the world’s hottest year on record.

“If El Niño does develop, there is a good chance 2023 will be even hotter than 2016 . . .” British climatologist Friederike Otto told the media recently.

The climate forecasters are uncertain about when El Niño will appear and therefore exactly what it will have in store for us.

One month ago the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a watch saying El Niño likely will develop over the next six months. It is expected to release an update within the next day or two.

Whatever El Niño has planned for us this year and next there is no question that our world is getter hotter. The world’s average global temperature now is 1.2C higher than in pre-industrial times.

Last year Europe experienced its hottest summer on record, while climate change-fuelled extreme rain caused disastrous flooding in Pakistan, and in February, Antarctic sea ice levels hit a record low.

According to The Farmers’ Almanac, last summer was the third warmest in Canada’s history. The summers of 2021 and 1998 were hotter. And, last year’s heat stayed around longer, giving us an unusually warm autumn and milder than usual winter.

The Farmers’ Almanac is predicting a sizzling summer with daily highs in the 30s Celsius and “feels like” temperatures of 40C when factoring in heavy humidity. It also is predicting bouts of showery weather and thunderstorms with heavy precipitation.

The average July daily high for the Haliburton region is 19.7C or 67.5 Fahrenheit. The most rain comes in June with an average of 105 millimeters, or 4.1 inches, for the month.

For those who might be wondering, there are two farmers’ almanacs. One is The Old Farmer’s Almanac established in 1792 and The Farmers’ Almanac established in 1818. Both make weather predictions a year or more in advance and both claim accuracy rates of 80-plus percent.

We’ll have to wait to see how accurate the NOAA and various almanac predictions are for the summer ahead. Whatever we get will be better than the sunlight deprived days of the last few months. Any significant amount of sun would be much appreciated.

So far, May gives us a glimmer of hope. This past week has been a sunny one with daytime temperatures in the Celsius teens and low 20s. 

The bugs certainly are enjoying it.