ART

a painting is more than just a vase of flowers. it is art that may or may not contain a vase of flowers.

a novel is more than just a story. it is art that may or may not contain a story.

a painting is made of marks that make shapes and colors. they must be beautiful marks even in the making of an ugly painting.

a novel is made of words that make ideas into sentences. they must be beautiful sentences even in the making of an ugly novel.

IED (NOT YOUR USUAL IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE)

My sister judy and I shared a quality more or less identically, even though she was a shy quiet ‘good girl’ and I was an outspoken somewhat arrogant loner. (we were both ‘nice’ in our different ways.)  we both suffered increasingly into adolescence with Intermittent Explosive Disorder. This in spite of the fact that she was shy and quiet and obedient in church, in school, in the family, and as far as I know among her friends, and I was challenging and rebellious everywhere.

And when both of us became teenage parents in emotionally difficult circumstances this disorder was exacerbated and became very hard on our spouses and especially our children.

Neither my dad, who was mr. steady, nor my mom, who was shy and somewhat emotional and, I think, chronically slightly depressed, ever showed any signs of this disorder — neither did my shy older brother or my rather vivacious and talkative younger sister. Why, with all the genes we shared from a common gene pool, this should have so equally afflicted my sister and me and no others I have thought hard and long to understand. But still I do not. 

I do think that in some ways we haven’t developed in molecular genetics well enough, that the answer to this behavior still lies there, rather than in birth order or any other situational explanation.

SINK OR SWIM

there is a little bit of sink or swim in every aspect of the human world. at the risk of veering toward the fran liebowitz model, as harsh as it may seem, in the end it’s hard to be honest about the prospects of real people without admitting that some of them, through no fault of their own, are going to fail. they are going to fail in the usual (and unusual) ways that people do, in mundane (and spectacular) ways, and no amount of well-intentioned intervention is going to save them.

whether this profound result is unfair is beside the point. it is actual. darwin, in his infinite if accidental wisdom, explained more and broader aspects of the whole cosmic enterprise than he knew. it turns out that wherever you look, from higgs bosons to slugs to black holes, the lesson is endlessly there.

 IN PRAISE OF SUGAR

when i read the ‘information’ posted on various platforms online - even when i look at books about nutrition in a bookstore - i am struck by the lack of basic knowledge the average author has about the operation of the human body - an animal that shares the basic chemistry of life with all animals, from as small as a fruit fly to as large as a blue whale. all earth animals burn the same fuel to animate their lives and all the systems in their bodies. that fuel is glucose - grape sugar. there are supplemental needs, like protein for cell repair and production, fat for enzyme production (including cholesterol) and many trace minerals, but the basic moving and thinking and regulation of all the autonomic functions of the body, whether you are a fruit fly or a human, is fueled by sugar. so is your ability to think and read and understand these words.

i hear voices saying ‘yes, of course, but what about all the sugar added to the human diet?’ well, if the added sugar adds too many calories to an animal’s intake they will gain weight. yes! weight gain is just caused by a caloric intake from all sources greater than the expenditure to maintain daily activity. (think of a bear gorging on sugary fruit in the autumn.) but increasing sugar intake does not make a person sick by itself. sugar is not toxic to the human body (or any other body). we know this because it’s easy to get mice in controlled experiments to eat more sugar, or even only sugar. and their organs do not immediately fail, nor do they get sick.

this does not mean you should try living on pop, ice cream and candy. but people on their own will not crave that kind of diet and it is not seen outside controlled experiments. humans, like all animals, naturally know what to eat and managed to live healthy lives for millennia before the first ‘expert’ arrived to ‘save’ them. trying to make the general public forget this history is one of the prime demands of the so-called health movement. dogs and bears and fish and bugs are lucky they don’t have such a nuanced language and can’t read. and to my knowledge there are no dog or fish experts around to tell them what to do anyway.

so what should be our takeaway from all this modern industry, this wellness industry? it is corrupt and entirely self- serving and not to be trusted. ignore it all - you will only be ignoring someone else’s ignorance, not your own.

SIDES

There is something i learned early on — in my twenties — from having discovered Albert Camus and The Plague, that has remained more or less intact after a long life lived — that it is usually hard to understand what is going on in the world around you when strife is upon the land, but at the very least one should try not to be on the side of the executioners.

Suppose you walk into a mall with your daughter by your side and for no immediately apparent reason someone shoots her and she dies in your arms — what do you do? What is the most appropriate response? 

I don’t think there are many, given even a moment to consider, who would include taking an automatic weapon and shooting everyone in the mall.

WHAT CANADIAN VOICES I ENJOY HAVE IN COMMON

i hear many voices commenting on current events in my usual radio wandering and there are a few that i really always appreciate:

the already mentioned michael byers from ubc; louise arbour, a jurist who has held many important positions in canadian and international law including justice of the supreme court and chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in the hague; and bob ray, an experienced political veteran who has been premier of ontario and subsequently held many offices representing canada at the federal level. 

what these observers probably most have in common is a belief that justice is the most important element of governance at every level and so, at this time in our political evolution, that interest is best served by principles operating most effectively in states and world organizations that ascribe to a policy of social democracy with a distributive economy. the largest body with an overall framework that supports that system is the present european union, a body not often credited with the great success it should be in ultimately overcoming the less noble ambitions of many of its members.

THREE SUSPICIOUS IDEAS

There are three ideas being promoted in discussions about combating global warming that I continue to be suspicious of — green hydrogen production, carbon capture (with the exception of trees and other natural solutions) and nuclear power. I have a hard time imagining anyone really wants to pursue these ideas who isn’t propelled by some ulterior motive (ultimately our favorite motive, the profit motive.) If you are not engaged in the present energy economy in more than just a consumer role the arguments made in favor of these ideas seem thin and wishful to the point of dishonesty. 

Next time you hear or read one of these voices do a quick background check to find out who they are and who they speak for. They certainly don’t speak for me and I don’t think they speak for the honest reality of the global situation we all face together.