Cheer Like A Toddler Stripping For Bath Time!

 

Hi.

Before the world strips away much of our unicorns, rainbows, and magic, we get excited about things. We cheer for things. We jump up and down for things. Little things like being allowed to play dress up, watching a favourite show, board games.

As time passes, the list of things that make us cheer gets smaller. This is just a fact of life. As adulting becomes our norm, as life becomes about obligations and responsibilities, as things we used to enjoy just become another thing to try and cram into your calendar, as life, in all its glory kicks us in the face, we tend to find fewer things that light us up in that way. Since this virus became the ultimate buzzkill, it's gotten even harder, the list has become pretty freakin' dismal. 

So, today, as I sit here putting these ramblings to paper, I've decided to cheer again. Even if I have to make crap up to cheer about, I'm gonna cheer. 

1. Curling is on. (Ladies Canadian Championship, known as 'the Scotties") I like curling. I'm gonna cheer like my kid is about to win an Olympic medal. Woot!

2. Telemiracle is on this weekend. (A Telethon exclusive to Saskatchewan that provides resources to people in need of improving their quality of life by gifting lift systems, customized vans, etc.) This is the 45th annual. They have found a way to put it on in a safe and creative way. They spotlight local talent. I'm gonna cheer like my firstborn just took her first steps. Yay!

3. Vaccines for this buzzkill are making their way into the arms of humans all over the world. My Mom got hers today! I'm gonna cheer like my grandkid just mastered Mozart on the piano. Yahoo!

4. The air outside is no longer so cold that it hurts to breathe. Does that mean spring is here? Not where I live, not even close, but it's a reprieve for sure. I'll take it! I'm gonna cheer like a toddler stripping for bath time. Yaaaaaay!

Don't let the world strip you of your Unicorness. Don't let life's challenges rob you of your rainbows. Don't allow adulting to steal your magic.

Nurture your magic, feed your unicorn, celebrate your rainbows.

Cheer!

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May your rainbows remain bright, your magic, powerful, your unicorn strong.

May you find that pot of gold, bathe in it, for it's here that you belong. 

May you once again find your smile, the one you feel, not the one you fake.

May you find your reasons to cheer, start small, it's going to take the time it takes.

May the weight that sits upon your shoulders be lifted, even if it's only for a while.

May your tomorrow be brighter than today, keep stepping, life will get better with every passing mile. 

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Once The Icicles Melt, Hold Their Feet To The Fire...

 

Hi!

Okay, so our neighbours in the Southern US were hit with some nasty weather. On the surface, to those of us who live through much colder, and much snowier on a regular basis, it didn't, at its onset, seem so terrible. A bit of cold, a bit of snow, have a litle taste, a sample, if you will, neighbours, what do you think?

But.... oh and there is a huge but...

They have absolutely zero coping tools to deal with this. It became painfully obvious within the first 12-24 hours that this was going to be much more serious than we first thought.

Without properly upgraded or winterized energy systems, things started failing pretty quickly. 

As time went on and more information came to light, it became obvious that the bulk of the trouble stemmed from incompetence. 

It didn't take long for the people actually responsible, who, by the way, have a history of denying science, to blame wind energy. Saying, and I'm paraphrasing here, that wind turbines simply fail in the cold. Apparently, he forgot that most people have access to google and can look up how successful wind energy can be in places like Norway, Finland, and, yes, right here in good old Canada. 

They failed to mention, in that flurry of BS that 93% of their energy still comes from fossil fuels. Your oil and gas portion of keeping people warm failed too. Sooooo... 

Do you have to prep the systems for cold weather? Yup

Do you need to constantly and consistently maintain and upgrade all the systems, wind or not, on a very regular basis to assure as few failures as possible? Yup. 

You will still get some power outages, sometimes, no system is perfect, but nothing like what is going on in Texas.

Apparently, recommendations for upgrades and maintenance were made many times, for years, and for the most part, were ignored for budgetary and other pretty sketchy reasons. Hope it was worth it.

Now citizens who are still dealing with massive unemployment and a freakin' pandemic, are also having to deal with more loved ones dying without any good reason, destroyed homes, and, very likely, a monstrosity of an electric bill for the power they haven't received because their leaders did everything but lead. 

Hell, one even thought a little jaunt to a resort in Mexico to ride out the storm was completely appropriate until he got caught. His defense? My kids made me do it. 

So now, today, thankfully, the weather in most of the places hit the worst, is beginning to warm up. 

Most people, once again have power. But, they have little to no water. They are running really low on food, too.

If you only glance at the cover, it's baffling how the most energy-rich state in one of the richest countries in the world was put in this kind of situation. Once you start reading the book it becomes much clearer. This was absolutely avoidable. Preventable. It didn't have to happen. It didn't have to get this bad. How do I know? Because other people, other places, other countries, do it. All, The.Time. 

Social media has been on fire with people looking for advice from those who live where it's cold. How do I drive in this? What do I do if I don't have winter clothes? How do I keep my house warm without electricity or gas? How do I get rid my driveway of snow without a shovel?

It was heartwarming to see so many fellow cold-dwellers send tips and tricks to try and help them survive. Those of us who are more accustomed to life in the deep freeze have things ingrained in us from birth. If you live where it's warm all the time, how are you possibly going to know this stuff? 

My heart breaks for the loved ones of those who will never again feel the warmth of the sun, my heart aches for those still living in the dark, those without water, those struggling to feed their kids. My entire body hurts when I think of all of the hours of clean-up and repair that will take you through spring. 

Once the icicles melt, hold your leaders' feet to the fire. All of them. Make them explain. Make them back up their explanations with facts. Make them prove the validity of their information. Don't let them skate with,' my kids made me do it.'

Demand better. You deserve it. Don't let them put you through this again. 

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May you once again feel truly warm, safe, with plenty to feed your bodies and your souls. 

May those who put you in jeopardy be held accountable, tell the actual truth, regardless of their goals.

May those who believed you so insignificant, who put their own bougie comforts above your survival,

May their feet be held to the fire beyond the excuses, their only remorse, getting caught on arrival.

May you know you are worth so much more than anyone's political ambitions.

May you never again be pushed to survive these completely preventable conditions. 

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Courage vs. Cowardice

 

Hi!

Well, that was interesting.

Trump was practically and morally responsible for the horrors that happened in the US on Jan 6. That's the consensus. They didn't acquit on the facts. Okay then. 43 Republicans voted to acquit because they are scared of losing their jobs. They can blather on and on about procedure all they want, and I could grow a beautiful garden in the fertilizer that provides. How do we know this? Because their actions tell the truth twice as often as their words. 

The argument that the cowards too scared to go against Cheeto Biff are using to excuse their chickenshittery is that he has already been removed from office, so to vote to convict and evict is moot.

Okaaaaayyyy...

The thing is Congress impeached the bad makeup tutorial while he was still in office. They went to present the article of impeachment to the senate a few days after the insurrection, also while he was still in office, and were turned away by McTurtleTurkey Wattle because... well... he just didn't want to accept it. 

So, now he claims he had to acquit based on the very technicality he created. Okay. Hey, McTurtle Turkey Wattle is nothing if not a lying, self-serving hypocrite. So this is just him being him.

Then there is Eugene Goodman. Then there are all of the people who put their asses on the line to protect the very people who gave Biff another pass, another mulligan. 

How do you look this guy, Mr. Goodman, in the eye, give him a well-deserved standing ovation, a medal, and then kiss the ring of the very guy who put Mr. Goodman in the position to test his tremendous courage.

Thank you to all who were beaten with flags, bats, poles, riot shields, were tased, battered, and killed. Thank you so much, but by the way, we are going to let the guy who made it happen skate, k? Oh, and by the way, you need to set that all aside and put yourself on the line to keep my ass safe tomorrow too, k? We good? Oh, and because we let him skate, his cult followers might very well use Jan 6th as a dry run, a dress rehearsal, so tomorrow, there will likely be more of them, they'll very likely be better organized, oh, and, yeah, they will be carrying deadlier weapons, K? We good?

Courage.

The courage it took for Mr. Goodman and all of the others who physically put their bodies between the danger and those they were charged to protect.

The courage of those who came back to the floors of Congress and Senate that day to finalize the results of the election.

The courage of those who showed up for work the next day to clean up the aftermath, the feces, the broken glass, the blood, the portrait of disrespect. 

The courage to face the fact that he lied to you. A lot. He lost. He knew he lost by Nov. 5th. He panicked. He lied some more. He begged for your money. He took your money. He made up crazy crap about voter fraud. He got you to believe it. All of it. He got you to break the law for him. He expects you to go to jail for him. He'll keep your money as he golfs at his mansion. 

The Cowardice.

Bowing to bullies has always rubbed me the wrong way. I'm genetically incapable of doing it. 

The cowardice it takes to fear losing your job so much that you are willing to fifty shades yourself without any of the fun parts. 

The cowardice needed to perpetuate the big lie that fuelled the fire, live through the terror itself, only to walk back on to the floor, now filled with flop sweat and rage of those gullible enough to follow the Culty Conman, to walk back on to the floor only to further push the lie.

The cowardice needed to live through that terror but let the useful idiot walk anyway because he might "primary" you. 

The cowardice it takes to not face or embrace reality because it's an inconvenient truth that would require you to have some semblance of a spine. 

The chickenshittery is mind-numbing. It's baffling. 

Courage vs. Cowardice.

Courage is not about bravado or might, it's something that runs still and deep, lying in wait for when it's needed. Courage is being afraid, but doing it anyway because it's the right thing to do.

Cowardice lives in the shallows, easy to employ, requires nothing, a parasite of character. 

We all have both, courage and cowardice. Feed the one you wish to make stronger. 

So, to the jellyfish...

What exactly are you so scared of?

If you are up for re-election in 2022 voting to acquit will still be fresh in the minds of constituents. You might survive a primary, but will you actually get elected? You do know that people outside of the Beauty Queen Peeper's base vote, right? Ask Loeffler.

If you have ambitions of running for President in 2024. Well, the Pornstar Reject just lost by 7 million votes, pretended he won and terrorized the whole world with his bid for becoming king. Besides, cult followers follow the leader, not the party, or ideology. They don't historically transfer. If they did the "Christians" would have dumped Scar right after the Billy Bush bus tape or Stormy, or the whole ripping babies from parents and putting them in cages thing. If they did, Charlie Manson's 'family' would have found a new daddy. 

If you are thinking of running after 2024, what is the problem? Do you, in all actuality think this then, 80-year-old, obese, junk food scarfing, Corona survivor will still be living outside of prison or senior care home? Person, woman, man, camera, tv...

Look, even if... even if he has all of these magical powers that his delusions tell him he does, even then, are you willing to surrender what's left of your soul for a job? Who am I kidding, you already did. 

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May you find your courage as you walk toward your future, no matter what it may bring.

 No. really, assemble a search party, lift every rock, check the junk drawer, under the bed, in the stinky storage container you forgot you rented on I-95. Seriously. Find. It. 

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Climb Back To Level Ground

 

Hi.

A little colour in the middle of the cold.

I don't know about where you live, but, where I hang my toque, the windchills are consistently flirting dangerously close to the -40 mark right now. 

When it gets this cold, which we get at least a taste of every winter, the warmth that a few grocery store posies can bring into the house is always welcome.  A bit of a pick-me-up at a time when one is definitely needed.

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So, over the past few weeks, we've gotten to take a peek into the mindset of a few different people who were, but are no longer, buried so far down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories they became incapable of any kind of critical thinking. 

In watching their recent interviews it becomes obvious that fear drives all of it. In all of the cases I've seen so far, their journeys into the abyss of lies started with a little tidbit of misinformation they happened across on some form of social media. A thread. Something that, if you squint your eyes just right and dim the lights enough could be interpreted as truth. Just believable enough to meet them where they were in the moment they saw it. 

They then dug a bit deeper, consulting like-minded friends and family, who, in turn, referred them to more of the same, only worse. The more they clicked on the crazy, the more insanity the algorithms fed them. The more they were fed, the more gluttonous they became. An addiction.

At this point, they were already conditioned to mistrust legitimate news, constantly being told it was "fake." So, the only sources of information they trusted came from fringe-riding believers in everything nonsensical. 

Through these sources, they were introduced to the idea that Anderson Cooper ate babies, Jewish space lasers were the real culprits that started the wildfires in California, and that somehow, Joe Biden was going to steal all of the children, oh, and that JFK didn't really die, but if he did it was somehow the Clintons that were responsible. 

The list of utter garbage goes on and on, one thing crazier than what preceded it.

At the core of all of it is what bothers me the most. 

Over and over, when you hear the believers and ex-believers speak, the belly of this particular beast is fed by racism and the fear that drives it. The thought that somehow what was rightfully theirs was going to be, somehow, taken away. The thought of the changing demographic, the changing religious landscape, the realization that the world is changing, that intolerance is no longer going to be tolerated, that we are, with a huge amount of work, at the precipice of real equality.

The fear of no longer being among the group of people with all of the say, with all of the power. The fear of the loss of privilege. 

Those who believe the crazy, those most afraid of the evolving demographics, seem to be the first to shout from the rooftops how racism, religious discrimination, sexism, gender bias, hell, that any inequality of any kind simply doesn't exist.

My question to those who believe this. 

If it doesn't exist, what exactly are you afraid of? 

If you don't want to admit to the fear, what makes you so angry about everybody being treated the same? What upsets you so much about having people of colour, of different religions, different gender identities, and different sexual identities being elected into positions in government? If it doesn't exist, why aren't you embracing the long-overdue changes, all of them? 

In the interviews I've seen, the now ex-believers are looking back and trying to figure out how they fell for it to begin with. They are trying to sort out in their own minds how they let this happen. They are embarrassed. 

So, why bring this up? Why talk about it? 

My thought is this. They won't be the only ones. Over the next days, weeks, months, and years there is very likely going to be many more just like them. It's almost inevitable that the conspiracy fever will break for most, and when it does, they too will probably be embarrassed, wondering how they could have ever allowed themselves to buy into the whole thing. 

Does this realization mean they should be exempt from accountability for what they, themselves perpetuated while they lived in the rabbit hole? I don't think so, but are their hands as bloody as those who create this garbage, then groom and feed it to susceptible people? I don't think that either. 

This whole thing is, I believe, far from black and white. The shades of grey are plentiful, but discernible. The degrees of guilt are many. The level of damage that has been, and continues to be done will take a long time to unpack and examine.

Only thorough dissection and a true understanding of how we got here, will give us a path to the other side of this and help us to prevent it from happening again. 

At least that's the hope. But then again, we're human, sooooooo.....

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May you, if you are currently residing down that rabbit hole, climb your way back to level ground.

May you reject the garbage you're being fed, think critically, hear how crazy it really sounds.

May you, once the fever breaks, find a way to make amends to any and all hurt by your delusions.

May you create a path to repair the relationships damaged by your mistakes, your confusion.

May you let go of any residual filth, any clinging lies that may reignite your hate.

May you see that the world has equal space for all of us to shine, you'll see, just wait.

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