"Winning isn't Everything; it's the ONLY thing."

 

Wearing a tie makes me feel like a man who's wearing a tie. 

The party system often cited as a cornerstone of democracy is showing itself to be doing to human relationships (politics) what denominationalism has done to Christianity, to Islam, Judaism and practically every religion ever invented. The pre-election campaigning in the USA and the current “throw the bastards out” rhetoric in Canada are shameful reminders that we prefer our citizen-to-citizen relationships to echo our combative sports. Winners and losers, zero sum games, diplomacy and negotiation are for wimps, we won, we won, we won. Take that, suckers!

Have we resigned ourselves to the conviction that we’re not capable of better? I gave Christian denominationalism as an example that defies one of Jesus Christ’s primary admonitions, namely that his followers remain united. 

To abandon unity in favour of a new party to compete with the old has resulted in magnificent, but empty, cathedrals and loss of interest by many in the gospel unless it can deliver a message of unearned, eternal bliss wrapped in unconditional positive regard and flashy entertainment. Some would say, unless it can be shown to be right while others are wrong.

Are we born with an inclination to be competitive (because it’s exciting, maybe) and not cooperative (because it’s boring, maybe), or do we teach and learn the choosing of competing party systems over unity? 

Schools have competitive sports programs: team uniforms, victory celebrations and the rest. I’ve occasionally debated with other teachers what it is we’re teaching via sports. Among the defenses—including physical fitness, camaraderie, team spirit—my assertion that we’re also training them in adopting a winner/loser outlook to their place in the world was sometimes shrugged off.

But we didn’t separate into pro-hockey and anti-hockey parties; we talked about better and best Physical Education programming. Disunity in a school staff is suicidal. Less obviously in religions and politics, but certainly more evident when, for instance, an anti-gay faction leaves to start a new anti-gay church, or any modern democracy mounts an election.

Rosthern is holding a municipal election this coming week. Being a small town, I know some candidates casually and little or nothing about others. I have no idea whether any have a provincial or federal party affiliation. I do know enough to vote confidently for a few whose integrity is not in doubt. 

To apply a non-partisan election to provincial or federal politics would take substantial rethinking, considerable abandoning of old habits, but it would be worth a try, wouldn’t it? And, it might remove one reason to despise our neighbours?

If you disagree, email me at gg.epp41@gmail.com and we can start up a partisan quarrel … which I’d hope to win! I'm only human, after all. 

 Conversation with Klavier:

(This time with Brian Smith, High School English and Social Studies teacher.)

Klavier: How are you, Brian. Still eager to go to work in the morning?

Brian: Well, generally.

Klavier: Generally? What does that mean?

Brian: Well, I’m not sure. But the turmoil of the times gets to me some days. For instance, the “Israel has a right to defend itself” and the … well, the “genocide of Palestinians” arguments have crept into our school. Students who probably couldn’t find Gaza on a map are aligning themselves with one side or the other.

Klavier: And is that unusual?

Brian: Well they often have opinions that disagree, but it’s like this one has raised up some feelings that … well, that you wouldn’t particularly notice if it was about … I don’t know … say like the other day we were talking about socialism in history class and a debate about the welfare-state-encouraging-laziness broke out. Well I had to admit there are probably people who get themselves on the welfare roles so they can laze about and … and sleep in. But if that were the only argument, what would happen to the many who’ve been dealt a bad hand and simply can’t cut it in this economy without help? It’s like Truth A is competing with Truth B …

Klavier: …when smart people should be able to work out a direction that acknowledges both truths? We live in a competitive and a cooperative world, don’t we. Seems to me your students  are aiming toward winning an argument, which means the opposition argument must be shown to have lost. It’s a natural extension of how sports, the economy, education, even the arts can teach us to be … competitive.

Brian: But wait, we do all kinds of stuff cooperatively. Even most things, I’d say. Build roads, run our towns and cities, drive on the right side, etc. Our students cooperate with schedules, movement, order generally … all the time.

Klavier: That’s very true. So why have your students fallen into the my truth is better than yours mode? Are they simply echoing what they’re picking up from the news? From their parents? From their peers?

Brian: I’m sure that’s much of it. I shudder to think what my colleagues might be experiencing if they have Muslims and … and, or Jewish kids in their classes. I’m not even sure how to steer my—I don’t know … can I call them ethnic Canadians?—how I should steer them through the … the emotional rhetoric they’re exposed to, day after day.

Klavier: I don’t know your kids, but I’m led to believe that the main truths about the conflict in Israel and Gaza are buried in history. Reread Exodus and Joshua in the Bible with an enquiring mind, do what you can to gain a fair grasp of the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel as a Jewish homeland in 1948.

Brian: Well, I’ve already done that last part. Seems to me setting up a state as a homeland for a particular ethnic … well, ethnic or religious minority … was a big mistake.

Klavier: But, Brian, was it both a huge mistake and  an absolute moral necessity? Are we looking at two truths that appear contradictory, but are both … well, true?

Brian: …and how do you imagine getting sixteen-year-old “children” to grasp that?

Klavier: Maybe since you’ve done your historical basics, maybe the best approach is to encourage them to find their basics. It probably can’t be done using the Israel, Gaza war; they’ve probably come to be too committed to opposing sides already. Pick a conflict in which they don’t have any real skin and have them actively work toward a solution that honours conflicting truths. That would make sense to me.

Brian: Like how would we do that?

Klavier: Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but this might work. Pose this case of conflict: a street of old houses, all abandoned, have become occupied by “vagrants,” according to the city, let’s say. Homeless people, drug addicts and assorted anti-socials and others are squatting there. The city decides to be decisive, orders the squatters out and contracts to have the buildings bulldozed and the lots redivided for sale. Human rights advocates and social action groups protest and some of the “residents” vow to be bulldozed with the old houses rather than move to who-knows-where.

Brian: Sounds like Detroit.

Klavier: Could be, or any other metropolis experiencing the agonies of inner-city decay, homelessness and poverty.

Brian: But how do I engage their minds in this? We’re all middle-class suburbanites.

Klavier: Well I’m not a teacher and the thought of running a high school classroom fills me with existential fear, but I think this is what I might do. I’d divide them into groups of four by counting off—no cliques allowed. Then I’d rearrange the room so groups could dialogue properly. I’d give the groups this assignment: “The city has given the Human Rights lobby the task of arbitrating between the city and the squatters. Imagine your group is that arbitrator. Come up with three action points that you think could be approved by both sides. Be sure to consider cost, benefit, logistics like who will do necessary work, etc. Even cost out the items as accurately as you can.”

Brian: Some would hand in their list in five minutes.

Klavier: Of course. And the same people might possibly hope there’s a prize for being fastest. But that’s how I—a layperson—think I would have learned the basics of cooperatively finding ways to solve problems. I won’t insult your experience and training any further by suggesting methodology you understand better than I do.

Brian: Knowing my students, they’ll finish this exercise … and … and then go back to yelling their “facts” at each other in the hallways, even in History class.

Klavier: Ahh, but we have people who know how to make the basics of listening patiently and negotiating respectfully real, even when the problems seem impossible. Adults who flog opinions as if they were facts should stay out of classrooms and politics, perhaps be potato growers instead … potatoes are always the right answer.

Brian: And where are these “people who know how?”

Klavier: They’re everywhere. We call them teachers. Or parents. Or some are both.

Brian: Nice!

Klavier: You’re welcome.

P.S. Why is Israel? For a brief history, click here.

 

A Rake among Scholars

 

Great Grandparents of a host of rakes and a few scholars

COMMON RAKE

UNCOMMON SCHOLAR 

“He was a rake among scholars and a scholar among rakes.”

The sardonic description of a certain person by Thomas Babington McAuley, 19^th Century British politician, historian and essayist, could apply to nearly everyone. It’s the social equivalent of the Theory of Relativity; the esteem in which you’re held—or not—depends on what company you’re in at any given time.

We are never satisfied with better, bigger, smarter or more competent; we long to know what or who is best, biggest, smartest or most competent of all. Olympics, the Oscars, sports playoffs, etc. respond to that need. If we can’t determine who’s at the peak by measuring, we devise ways to steer public opinion to a conclusion of greatness ... or mediocrity. Fact is, this mentality not only defines who’s the “scholar” in the paradigm, but also who are the many who are clearly “rakes.”

We visited the Louvre while in Paris and stood in line to see the storied Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. She was roped off to keep viewers back and she’s only 30” X 21,” so our examination was short ... and distant. I’ve seen copies of the painting often and, trust me, it’s only as great as we make it out to be because we say it is. (I took an Art Appreciation half course at the University of Alberta long ago, so on this subject, I’m at least a scholar among rakes.)

Suppose the lead female actor in a local theatre company does a fantastic job of characterizing condescension, more nuanced and memorable than Maggie Smith (rest her soul) playing the Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey. One will win a BAFTA award and heaps of money; the other will wait on tables in a chain restaurant so she can pay the rent.

“Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen, /and waste its sweetness on the desert air.” Wrote Tomas Gray in Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Gray’s pensive ruminations in the cemetery (published in 1751) are still studied and honoured. For each of the poets we’ve declared “great,” there are probably ten thousand who have picked up a pen and sought to express their insights through that medium. Count me as one. Full many a one was born to prate unheard, /and waste their insights on the desert air.” (Pardon my faulty plagiarism, Thomas Gray.)

 
You might well imagine that there’s no mystery here; that humans can’t all be kings, not even princes, not even butlers or footmen … nor scholars; that only the village “rakery” position is freely offered to anyone who happens to land on earth unheralded, un-preordained to anything else.

 We who are neither among the rakiest of rakes, nor the scholarliest of scholars, are destined (like everybody else) for all our short lives to be who we are, content with—or chafing at—the restrictions of our time and place in the serendipity of life.

A confession: I have aspired long to master prose writing like, for instance, Herman Melville in Moby-Dick. I have friends who aspire to the extraordinary in quilting, singing, playing an instrument, wood turning, baking, etc. So far I haven’t opened a booth at the town fair for selling what I’ve laboured over, but like those who do, I will put one “wooden bowl” of a poem on display. It’s not an elegy written in a churchyard, but is an elegy written after a visit to a dying father:

THOSE WILL BE PEARLS©

 

i know my

(how do you feel, dad?

are you better today, dad?)

sounds like offer of a lozenge

to a hungry man. but forgive me if you can

my grief for you is trivialized by stammered words

 i know. i feel it.

your deep-lined face, pale bony hands

are answers to

my rote-learn’d clumsy questions

—what use are words to us?

 

no one remembers signing up for sterile halls,

and stark white walls like these

i think we know, my friends, that

somewhere in the index of what’s truly real

where truth lies ‘prisoned-like …

we all enrolled by being born.

 

“full fathom five grandfathers lie

those are pearls that were their eyes.”

 

you smile little, say less

perhaps you understand me after all these years

and what you see … amuses you?

the dying seldom make long speeches

grant you that

and that was ever you

you answer slowly, “ever is a long time, dave.”

(later I’ll think, “why, ever is no time at all.”) 

 

I have to go.
“I’m sorry,” I say, because I truly am
sorry for you, 

but were I honest like we used to be

I’d also raise a prayer of thanks:

thank god it’s me, today,
who smells the coming rain
hears children laughing just across the street
can start his car and drive to any place
and work and make and break
with these still-steady hands.
praise god

and then the sky pours down in sheets of rain and hail

I throttle down my car, my thoughts, my world

and weep.

“full fathom five my Dad will lie;/those will be pearls that once were his eyes.”^[1]

 

---

[1] Adapted from The Tempest I,ii,474-477

On Guilt, Innocence and Stuff that goes Bump in our Heads

 

Suppose a mother takes her four-year-old to the playground, that he runs ahead of her, begins to climb on the jungle gym before she catches up, falls awkwardly onto a bar and breaks his spine. And suppose the following years for her are largely consumed by the caring for a paraplegic son … and probably repeatedly blaming herself for his disability.

“It’s my fault,” she’d probably say when people she meets ask about the lad’s condition.

My grade school shop teacher repeatedly told us that, “There are no accidents; every injury has a cause!” This set the stage in our minds for thinking, whenever an injury occurred, that somebody had to accept blame. Another effect was that we began to see blameworthiness singly; to get by the problems of multiple causes, courts may execute the harshest penalty upon the last person in a position to prevent an “accident." We haven't figured out how to deal justly with multiple causes. 

Chaos theory is a mathematical construct, its description embedded in the jargon of that discipline. It’s generally illustrated with the butterfly-in-Brazil-causing-a-tornado-in-Texas paradigm. The butterfly fanning its wings sets up a small air current, which in turn alters the force and direction of a larger air stream, etc., etc., until it becomes a tornado in Texas. You wouldn’t be faulted for assuming that “that would never happen; the odds against it are far too great."

Tell me a story, GGE (copyright)

The fact is that virtually everything that happens on earth happens like that. “For lack of nail the shoe was lost; for lack of shoe the horse was lost; for lack of horse the cavalryman was lost; for lack of cavalryman the battle was lost; for lack of battle victory, the war was lost.” Who’s to blame for the loss of the war? The question seems absurd, because at any stage in the sequences that lead to outcomes of note, natural forces of earth, sea, life and sky may intervene, redirecting the air current, the battle strategy.

Just for fun, think about chaos theory and write a story tracing the sequence from an initial position (As they sped down the highway, a seagull shit an enormous blob onto the driver side windshield) to this ending: (That their son should find himself on death row was something they’d have to face.)

My shop teacher was ill-informed; there definitely are accidents because despite our wish that there always be straightforward, single answers explaining events, chaos theory warns us that “there’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip.”

So back to the woman who opened this discussion by “causing” her son to lose the use of his lower body. But let’s have her trip over a backpack that had been left on the footpath, enabling her son to get ‘way ahead of her. And let’s have the owner of the backpack be eleven-year-old Edwina Stornaway. Is she partly to blame for the accident? And what about Edwina’s mother, who has always been lackadaisical about her kids care of their …

You get the drift.

 

              

 

Olympic Dentaracing is coming

 

This year, break dancing and team break dancing have become Olympic “sports” events. They join a host of “sports” that must be juried, like gymnastics and synchronized diving where relative performance can’t be objectively timed or measured, as it can be with the hammer throw, for instance, or foot races.

Opening the Olympics to more people seems a generous and progressive move. Most certainly, we’re not bound by the illusion that they should remain true to the ancient Greek competitions at Mt. Olympus. There were no Olympics for most of the time between their inception in 776 BCE and 1894 when Pierre de Coubertin organized their revival.

What the modern Olympics retain from their ancient namesake is that they’re primarily physical tests of strength and speed, and are keenly competitive. What they’ve unfortunately added, though, is the nationalism element: posted results generally report medal winners by nation. As I write this (August 03, 2024), Canada is tenth when total medal winnings are reported. Even as an armchair Canadian, I should be very proud.

(Wealthy nations win all the medals. Most nations (153 this morning) are winning zero medals. Canada with a population of 40 million has a GDP around $45,000 per person. Yemen, also with  40 million citizens has an annual GDP per persons around $975. Canada: 12 medals; Yemen: 0 medals. Win a gold for Canada and you get a check for $20,000 Cdn. $15,000 for silver, $10,000 for bronze. In Turkey, a gold will win you $500,000 U.S. Just sayin’.)

Swimmers competing, I’ve read, shave off all body hair. Occasionally, coaches fly drones over competitors’ practices to see if they can find an edge. Performance enhancing drugs are perennially at issue. Sometimes the need to win overwhelms impulses for camaraderie and “sportsmanship.” The politics of the Olympics sometimes goes down dark rabbit holes. Very unfortunate.

For the Olympics to become inclusive enough to embrace me would take some imagination. I propose Dentaracing. It involves eating a sticky bun, removing, brushing and rinsing an upper denture, reinserting it, then eating 15 cherries and spitting the pits into a wastebasket six feet away. A kind of mini triathlon. First finished wins gold, of course, unless he/she fails to deposit at least 12 pits in the basket, which would mean disqualification, as would dropping the denture into the sink.

I could use $30,000 right now.   

 

The Taxman Cometh ... Again!

 

If you own real estate in Rosthern, you have today and tomorrow to pay your property taxes (or make a partial payment at least) before penalties set in. And if—like me—you think what’s demanded of you by the town administration is too much, you might well point out potholes or some such as evidence that your sacrificial taxes aren’t being spent well.

Tax-payer, tax-collector tension dates back thousands of years, to whenever the first taxpayer handed over a few shekels to the first tax collector … at spear-point, probably.

Strikes me there are two main considerations that go into deciding who and how to tax: 1) services demanded or desired, and 2) fairness in determining what will be each individual’s share of the cost.

Our age demands all-weather streets and walking routes, fire fighting, recreation facilities, flowers and lawns in public areas, steady supply of potable water, reliable and safe removal of sewage and waste, street cleaning, snow clearance, etc. Which of these would any of us give up in order to lower the mill rate?

The amount we’re taxed needs to pay for the services we demand. True, we could look back at how these services were delivered and fault our town with inefficiency and waste, on particulars. Generally, though, complaints are about a lack in service, not a surplus.

Property Tax is meant to be a progressive tax like income tax: someone who can afford a $500,000 house on Fifth Street is assumed to have more means to pay taxes than a family in a two-bedroom on East Railway. At present, a government adjuster places a value number on each property, our town sets a mill rate (after setting the budget) and multiplies the property value by the rate, adds a few surcharges like an amount to the hospital building fund and, voila, your and my tax obligations.

Frontage Tax used to determine the property tax amount by the number of feet of sidewalk and street fronting your property, but that was when municipalities provided almost no services beyond street and boardwalk maintenance. It wouldn’t work fairly in an age of condos and other multiple-occupancy dwellings, for instance.

Much older still would be the head tax; each adult living in the town pays $500, say, the most regressive tax system ever.

There are, of course, other considerations, like the Education portion of your tax bill. An elderly Rosthernite said to me, “I have no kids or grandkids in school. Why should I pay an education tax?” Seems logical, if you don’t consider that the kids in Rosthern will be the town council sooner than we expect, and a good education should help them be good council members.

The burst of inflation erupting after Covid and related changes have meant that many incomes haven’t kept pace with costs. The bind exists for businesses, service institutions and municipalities as well. If I had one recommendation to give our council, it would be that they remove the penalties for budgeting taxes over the length of the year. Instead, offer a 3% discount for paying the total on July 31, perhaps, but make a kind gesture of solidarity with those who are struggling.

Happy tax day, everyone!

 

A Debate that Wasn't

I watched the last half of the Trump/Biden “debate” and, of course, the reactions of pundits that followed. The Trump plan was obvious: stay away from policy questions and fill the space with so many accusations that Biden will lose his concentration in his attempt to refute the barrage of falsehoods and fabricated, denigrating claims.

I remembered occasions when so much stimulation was coming at me at once that I could no longer coolly gather and coordinate my thoughts. That’s what happened to Joe Biden. That phenomenon isn’t age specific.

On critical questions posed by the moderators, Biden made coherent policy statements. Trump, meanwhile, avoided the questions, for instance, of childcare policy, border control specifics and—most telling of all—whether he would honour the will of the people in the next presidential election, filling his allotted time with “You are the worst president in the history of the USA” and other meaningless and unsupported accusations.  

The “You’re weak and I’m strong” theme was implicit in Trump’s strategy, supported by, of course, claims rich in chutzpah and devoid of evidence, “If I’d been president, Russia would never have attacked Ukraine,” for instance.

What supporters of Trump undoubtedly saw was their man beating the s**t out of the enemy’s man. The parallels to the rise of Mussolini, Hitler, and more recently, Putin, are obvious to students of history. (Take a few minutes to ponder a short film by Yale University’s Philosophy Professor Jason Stanley at https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=youtube+fascism&mid=A7ACBFBB9835BB9E13C6A7ACBFBB9835BB9E13C6&FORM=VIRE)

In Hitler’s rise, the enemies created through propaganda were Communism, Jews, disabled and mentally challenged individuals (the Minderwertiger, those of minimum worth) and LGBTQ+ persons. Gradually, Trump and the “Oligarchy” of wealthy and powerful Americans that support him have been able to convince a massive number of what were soft-core conservatives into the belief that their neighbours who are the “Woke,” the “Leftists” are plotting to harm them, destroy the nation.

Fascism needs enemies; how else can it cast itself as people’s only protection?

It's not surprising that here in Canada, consideration of Justin Trudeau’s Prime Ministership should be reopened after many witnessed the humiliation of Joe Biden. We, too, seem to have learned that nothing succeeds as well in an election campaign as the humiliation of opposing parties’ leaders. We, too, are in danger of abandoning our ethical, moral guidelines for crass expediency and a need to be with “the winners.”  

Democracy takes work; let’s all make sure we’re engaged in its protection. 

(Feel free to copy and share with credit to G.G. Epp. Reply if you wish to gg.epp41@gmail.com)