Seeking creativity

 But instead I thought about limericks. Next blog post I'll try my hand at the worst limericks I could think of. I promise that these will be horrible. You, my few followers, have been warned. Nice outside. The Ides of March approacheth. Oh, and mi hermana wished me Happy Mar10 day.

 Hey, have-a some pasta! Meanwhile, prices are going up. We know what's to blame. Does not even deserve a 'who'. Simming continues. Reading continues. Life continues.

BYE.

At long last

 Finally sitting down with Stacey's 'A very double life'. I've been intrigued about this book since I heard Christopher Plummer's take on Robertson Davies' take on Mackenzie King. Talk about hearsay, amirite? I have wanted to read this book for a while.

Now I have it here thanks to the WPL. I don't plan to buy a copy. This reading will be enough. Hello to Wednesday!

BYE.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier

That bio of Lester Pearson is behind me. Still my cup needeth filling. Speeches by our five-dollar face? He looks grumpy on the cover of the book. 'Canada always'. If there was anyone who believed deeply in Canada in its infancy, it was Sir Wilfrid. How would he feel about the likes of PM Deadeyes, Joe Who, John Who, PM for 5 minutes, or the PM Unnatural Disaster (and his lovely wife Mila) commenting on his great efforts? 

Perhaps he is right to look so grumpy.

Anyway, that is all for now.

BYE.

Books on the brain

        I used to gush at length about the books I've crossed paths with. This took a back seat to TS3 but I think it's time to go over some of the books I've enjoyed recently. The summer is a great time to get in a bunch of reading, so here we go with three of the best titles from the month of July.

 

 In the days of the Civil War, it was the Southern Democrats who were the racist scum while the Republicans were the good guys. I have no idea when the role reversal took place and why but I suspect it was gradual. It’s been on my mind of late thanks to Brenda Wineapple’s ‘The impeachers: the trial of Andrew Johnson and the dream of a just nation’. I couldn’t help but feel a ‘plus ça change’ vibe while I read this book. Racism to spare and Andrew Johnson ends up acquitted. Sound familiar? I wonder if Wineapple has written anything else? (4 out of 5)

 

 

 

 

 Susan Spann is my go-to for shenanigans in the time of the Shogunate with her Shinobi Mystery series.  Father Mateo and his samurai protector Hiro face potential death after vowing to bring the guilty to justice in ‘Claws of the cat’. This is just the beginning of this fantastic series starring our heroes. Currently, my library does not have the fourth book available, so I have the fifth one warming up in the bullpen. Still, this first book is fantastic and I recommend it highly. (4 out of 5)

 

 

 

 

 

In the days of Early New England, people still remembered Matthew Hopkins. Rev. Cotton Mather was New England’s take on the Witchfinder General, I believe, and he crops up a fair bit in John Demos’ ‘Entertaining Satan’. The father of lies and torment must have been greatly entertained by the goings-on to be found in this book. The scolds, the elders, the eccentrics, and the poor were the ones to come under scrutiny, but I did not find as much burning at the stake here. Just lawsuits. Gods, the lawsuits! This book was a bit dry but Demos did what he could. A meticulous study on the small-town mentality of Early New England. (5 out of 5)

 

    

 

      I hope to have the three best titles from August for you soon. Take care of each other and have a great day.

 

BYE. 

Welp, stuff went crazy

       Others have spoken and written about the shameful, pathetic, hopeless temper tantrum that happened on January 6th. The Orange Freak in the White House (not for much longer, thanks Be) has these mindless thralls who share a half dozen brain cells, and a few thousand of them decided it was time to embarrass America one more time by storming the Capitol. Their rampage brought them no closer to changing the course, and Biden is STILL going to be the president. Accept it, already! Only consolation about this whole travesty? That rampage was a perfect super-spreader event. The pandemic may yet catch up to them.

       Many others have also spoken at length of the disparity between what happened the other day and what's been happening with the BLM demonstrations. I won't get too much into this discussion as others have said much more and they said it much better than I ever could. Geez, it's been barely 48 hours since the whole thing happened. A boring president is needed to restore gladdening calm to the world. Biden has what it takes, I think. Here's to a lovely boring four years, America. 🍻

        I'm listening to chill jazz this Friday evening and getting ready to yell at my Sims. Now, more than ever, stay safe and be well. Hope you have a lovely weekend.

BYE.

Damn you, Kissinger

       And here I was thinking that the White House held the freaks and monsters these days! Believe it or not, Henry Kissinger is still alive. 97 years old according to Wikipedia. He's been the subject of hundreds - if not thousands - of historical accounts. Well, here comes Greg Grandin (history professor, writer, and looks decent in a cap) with 'Kissinger's shadow: the long reach of America's most controversial statesman' with skeletons to free and indignation to awaken. Before I took up this book, all I knew about Kissinger came from the lads of the Flying Circus (Nicer legs than Hitler and more endowed than Cher). Of course I was overdue to read summat about this guy.

        Kissinger was one of Nixon's main dudes and one of the few to escape the ravages of Watergate. I thought the current prez was desperate to make up his own reality. He's got nada on Kissinger and Nixon - not nearly as clever or as audacious as Kissinger, either. Then again, I have to wonder how Nixon and his crew of liars and con-men would have handled a pandemic. Hopefully, they would have stopped waging imaginary wars on Cambodia and Laos for a moment to do something good for a change. Imaginary war but with plenty of very real napalm - Kissinger has been called to account for this ever since he left the White House. He's never really, according to this book, acknowledged his mistake.

       Reading this book angered me. And this was the time before the Republican party worsened. Thanks to the madness that's going on down south, I've familiarized myself with 'American exceptionalism' and other such euphemisms. Oh, and Joe Biden gets a mention in this book too - well before Obama said 'You're with me' - back when he was a senator. Anyway, I'm enjoying this book despite the fact that it makes me angry. This book was published in 2015, by the way. I wonder what Kissinger thinks of the current situation - assuming politics is still important to a 97 year old devil like him.

       No sims pics today. Just a quick blurb about what I'm reading. It's wet outside and I can hear thunder in the distance. Mom is at the lake with the xtended relatives this weekend. I hope the weather's been all right out there.

BYE.

Bouchard!

     When I was growing up, Québec was a massive province in the atlas. I knew what it looked like and I knew it was the original Canadian home of the Français language but that was about it. Then 1995 - the year of the infamous Second Referendum - came around and I was introduced by Air Farce to the likes of Jacques Parizeau, the PQ, the BQ, and to Lucien Bouchard. Being 15 at the time, my first introduction was through Air Farce skits - the Lucien Bouchard Board Game, the Luba Goy parody of a well-known McDonald's advert, and the Story of Lucien Bouchard's search for Princess Sovereignty. It wasn't until later that I realized how close we, as a nation, had come to losing QC in 1995. Since then, as far as I know, the demand for sovereignty in La Belle Province has died down considerably.

     In high school, I learned about the FLQ and about the Quiet Revolution, but about the players of this Great Game I knew little to nothing. My most recent trip to the WPL (yes, it's open for business once again! 😄) netted me a biography by Lawrence Martin called 'The Antagonist'. A life of Lucien Bouchard, in other words. Around the time of the Second Referendum, it was discovered that Bouchard had gotten a visit from the even more infamous flesh-eating disease. This took away his leg - to Air Farce's dark merriment - and gave him another layer of mystery in my head. Before I happened upon this book, I considered Bouchard to be something of a boogeyman in Canada's collective consciousness. On the other hand, I am gladdened to know that he (as of this post) is still very much alive.

      I was thrilled by the synopsis and deeply hoped that Martin was not going to let me down. So far, he has not. Currently in the book, Mulroney (jerk! twat! bastard Tory!) has made Bouchard Canada's ambassador to France. Good move or bad? I'll keep reading and hopefully, I remember to let you know. If you're feeling impatient and can check it out for yourself, I definitely recommend it. Meanwhile, not to count one's active cases before they grow in number, but we in Manitoba were down to 4 as of yesterday and there have been no new cases here for over a week. Yeah, I've probably just jinxed myself. Please keep the border closed, Trudeau et. al!

     And now for something completely ordinary.

BYE.

Insignificance

       I've been thinking a lot about insignificance and how it can be a good thing. Look at Manitoba's insignificance where the pandemic is concerned. Not to jinx it, but we currently hover at 9 active cases. Our selfless truckers are the ones who have been the ones diagnosed of late with coronavirus but they will recover and venture back into the monster's lair known as the U.S. again and again to keep the supply chain active and vibrant.

      I try not to get political in this blog, as so many other people are saying things much better than I ever could but today I have to doff my cap and raise my glass to the mayor of D.C. Muriel E. Bowser (love her last name!) ordered a gorgeous paint job just outside the White House recently. Yellow like the sun and awesome like a mushroom cloud; an anthem numerous nasty-minded people consider anathema. George Floyd probably never planned to be the 21st century's version of Steve Biko or MLK Jr. and yet here we are. As far as I know, he just planned to spread around a little counterfeit cash that day. You know what happened next.

     Peter Gabriel said, "You can blow out a candle but you can't blow out a fire" in his seminal 'Biko'. Thanks to the heartless actions of one fiend in Minnesota, Tsar Bomba touched down and the firestorm is growing to encompass a fair bit of the world. All I can do is watch and pray for the protesters; that they do not end up at the hands of other heartless fiends. Meanwhile, the man with the power to do the most good in America is doing anything but. The generals, the seniors, and even his own party begin to turn against him. Perhaps it is only a matter of time before something good finally happens in America.

    What does this have to do with insignificance? Well, I take comfort in my insignificance enough to know that nobody's going to consider me worth the effort to read. Oh, and here are some Sims to make this entry at least worth the while.

BYE.

It's time for a truth

I don't get political on this blog but...

Thank you and have a good day.

Pepys' prose

I haven't had much of a literary challenge lately, so I decided to attack 'The shorter Pepys'. The highlights from his 9 vol. diary, to be brief. That would have to be a blogger's dream - getting their ramblings enshrined in leather-bound luxury for future generations to prize and cherish. I've been scribbling in various journals for almost 20 years now, but I doubt I'll reach 9 volumes (or even 3 volumes) anytime soon. Samuel Pepys, meanwhile, held a powerful vantage point from his esteemed place in the royal court of the 17th century, and enjoyed much of the perks of upper-class British life. It isn't so much that his writing crackles with depth and poignancy, but that he was around during a time we can only read and wonder about, and that his scribbles call us back to a time when the human species was much more innocent (or ignorant, depending on whom you ask).
Some might actually find his writing a little dry. He wasn't much for soul-searching (like what I do when I put ink to paper), and each entry is more an account of the day's events before he went to bed. I did notice he liked to party a lot and then complained bitterly about his hangovers the next day. There are several entries were he swears he'll never touch a drop and then a few entries later he's out partying with colleagues till all hours of the night. Probably one of the few flaws I've noticed in his character, and that's pretty normal for anyone. Spirit willing but the flesh is weak.... There is some male chauvinism in his character, but for his time, that's totally acceptable. I'd know better to go after a man for being a sexist pig in the 17th century, since that's just the way it was, and it wasn't going to change for a long while yet.
So that's Pepys so far. It's a thick book and I've only a few days left before I have to either turn it in or renew it. I'm not yet halfway, so I should get a move on. BYE.

Rushdie in Central America

I'm feeling my years (strange thing to say for a 28 year old). I took out Salman Rushdie's 'The jaguar smile' the other day, and am nearly finished reading it. The book is an account of a trip Rushdie made to Nicaragua during the Contra-Sandinista battles of the mid-80s and of the people he met and the things he learned. He paints a vibrant picture of the turmoil and conflict of this tormented yet unabashedly proud country. I was only six or seven when the whole mess came to light, so I've had to rely on the history books for more information about it (hence my feeling my years so keenly). I had heard about the Iran-Contra scandal, with Oliver North, the CIA, and the late prez. Reagan from MAD magazine and other reliable media sources, so I had a clear enough picture of what had gone on, but Rushdie was actually there during the worst of it, so his picture is a little clearer than mine.
The locals were usually more on the Sandinista side, as the tons of anti-Contra graffiti proclaimed. Reagan and the CIA were reviled from every side and by every voice. There was (and probably still is) an insiduous thread of Americanism slithering in through the radio and on some signs (Coca-Cola's presence was everywhere). Whatever corruption there was, it was all blamed on the Contras and on America. Such is the way things are. Hypocrisy knows no borders, neither does corruption. All countries have them, and they reside in every soul, so I'm not singling anyone out here. Politics is not my bag (and I'm glad for it), and now I'm going to blast politics and its vicious circles and games. I could apply this to any country, but Nicaragua provided Rushdie the spark, so I'll use it as the example.
I recently discussed multinationals in one of my posts, and it looks like I'm back to the topic again. For starters, multinationals, no matter how they're reviled at home, are loved by other countries. They give people good, well-paying jobs. For the regular dude walking down a street in Nicaragua, the local multinational is a godsend. Perhaps the only way this dude can feed his family. He does the job well, likes what he's doing, and gets paid better for it than anywhere else in the country. Then someone back home starts screaming that the government out there is corrupt, the US imposes heavy sanctions, and the multinational has no choice but to close up shop and move on, thus depriving that dude of his livelihood. Poverty is on the rise, and the screamers back home howl that these countries need food, but the US won't send it because of the sanctions.
All governments have some level of corruption. How long would it take the US to howl if someone successfully imposed sanctions on it? It's just as corrupt as the next country, but its hands seemingly stay clean. If folks in the US are complaining about the economy now, imagine how much people would complain if what happens everyday to Nicaragua happened in the US? Frightening thing to consider, but it could happen someday. Okay, I'm done with my soapbox. BYE.

Locke, stock, and barrel

Okay, I know that's a pretty corny and well-used title, but I couldn't resist. I finished reading a biography on John Locke and started reading about David Hume's 'philosophical politics', and decided I had something to say. The division of church and state is something that's been taking a few hits these days, what with people trying to bring back morning prayers and prayer in general to the school system. There was a time when church and state were not on either sides of a wide gulf. One has only to look to Ireland to see the whole Catholic vs. Protestant ordeal and know that church and state intermingle better than most would think. It was like this in England as well during Locke's day (and even before), what with Popish plots and Protestant plots against whichever king or queen was in power back then. Look back far enough, and the ghosts of QE1 and Queen Mary rise up. Queen Mary had tons of Protestants killed, while QE1 did the exact same thing to as many Catholics.
By Locke's day, the rampant bloodshed had calmed down, but loyalty to a specific religion was still a huge factor in advancement in the British world. 'Popery' was wrong when a Protestant ruler was in charge, and when a Catholic ruler was in charge, the Protestants were in the wrong. People still spent time in the Tower of London based on what they believed or who they followed. Locke himself had to escape to Holland for a while following one of these famous plots. Not a bad thing, considering he suffered from asthma and the smog in London was brutal in those days. (It wasn't really that good during the early 1900's either, but moving on...)
Things were not nailed down and set in stone like they are now. QE2 is of the Anglican (Protestant) Church, and nobody in their right mind would dream of trying to bring her down. Then again, her power is severely limited by the British Government, and government is no longer based on religion, like it was in the days of Whigs vs. Tories. The Middle East is now the only place where groups go at each other based on religion, but I can discuss Muslim vs. Israeli another time. Still, things are more or less nailed down, and I have to wonder what would happen if this was not the case.
There's a lot to be said for religious tolerance, which is what Locke was calling for, and I am grateful that he and many others called and continue to call for it. Still, life would be a little more interesting if things weren't so set in stone, I think.