Grand Theft Auto as Saviour

 Grand Theft Auto as Saviour

I’m not necessarily the most gregarious person in the world but I do have the habit of talking to cashiers and saying hello to people I pass on the sidewalk, if I ever rode public transit I’d probably be that guy to give up his seat to a senior citizen even though I’m now 72; so I guess I may also lack some self awareness.

Being predisposed to a certain personality type makes me somewhat captive to these types of behaviours and then I make the false assumption that everyone else is of the same mind and manner and, well that’s just not a truth. Today, for example, I was in German Park, behind enemy lines, going for a lone walk looking at the beautiful mansions trying to peak into the windows. I even had a fantasy conversation worked out in case someone stopped me in this up scale neighbourhood and wanted to know what I was doing there.

My first response would be silence and then I would look left then right, slowly like I was panning with a cinematic camera and gearing up for a shoot of a final scene. I would say in a low voice “I’m actually casing the neighbourhood for an auto theft ring but I see by your 2012 BMW X3 that you are in no immediate danger.” I would wish him a good day and walk on before asking, “By the way do you know where the entrance to German Park is?”

I know that may not be friendly but it is engaging. As I enter the park a jogger passes me. I say my hello and he nods a greeting in my direction. He, soon followed by a younger man just walking, looking very serious, ignores my salutation. That gives me an immediate flashback to Woodstock where I lived a few years earlier and where my wife and I walked on similar trails and soon realized that this small southern Ontario town was likely one of the most unfriendly places on the planet perhaps secondly only to the anonymity of walking sidewalks on busy New York streets where one could streak and not be noticed.

In reclusive Woodstock we would make a point of saying very loud hellos to every single person who walked by us on a sidewalk or path and make a mental tally of how many responses we got back. Those tallies were easy as it was usually a zero sum game, as nobody or very, very few people ever, ever said hi, hello, nice evening, morning, afternoon whatever the case may be. It was a barren social wasteland of unfriendly walkers. They could all be stars on a Seinfeld episode along with the soup nazi. It was sadly demoralizing. We eventually had to move out of that city and find social connections elsewhere.

I mentioned I liked talking to cashiers and now I’m forever frustrated as there are more and more automated checkout cashiers with these brash, irritating, metallic, artificial, computerized voices. I don’t even like talking to them. I never greet them or say hello. They pretend to be friendly they may even be programmed to be friendly but I’m not buying it. I know real friendly when I see it and you know, sadly it’s getting harder and

harder to find. Certainly, it can’t be found on social media. That’s like going back to the New York sidewalk I just mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Social media is the biggest misnomer going. It uses the word social and by all accounts it has the potential to be social, statistically it has the number count to be social but in reality its like the guy on the path not saying hello or worse saying a sarcastic hello which is even worse. People on social media say and do all sorts of mean things because there are no laws, meaningful guidelines, ethics, controls or realistic restraints to stop those who are basically insane who walk amongst us. I mean I at least feel bad about thinking about saying to a complete stranger I work for a auto theft ring, but that was just a sad private joke in bad taste. People troll and politic on Facebook and elsewhere and there is no respect for opinion, opinion is void of factual basis and tolerance is a virtue long dead as all the vices one can imagine seem to populate the net.

Now that I no longer find enjoyment in life on pathways, sidewalks, with cashiers or on social media the world has become much smaller. Something in me has been pushed to the limit as our society oddly looks for truckers to solve our problems, lacks a belief in science but looks to televangelism to save them and seems fearful of any type of diversity. Maybe I’m just at loose ends because the Queen died this week and we grew up together so to speak. I just don’t know any more.

I have made the only logical decision and joined an auto theft ring in Scarborough and am now cruising a neighbourhood near you.

Definition of Liberal

The Great Divide at the Neolithic Village

There is an obvious divide between conservative and liberal thinkers that began when man had the first stirring of thoughts concerning communal living and related ideas of individualism versus the greater good.  These early musings came into being out of necessity and a need for survival at a very primal level.  It seems in the age of Neanderthal who eventually was eclipsed by the superior homo sapiens version, or us, when there was a great need for co-operation as a means for survival.  This was also at a time when the first division of labour transformed and separated those who were hunters from and those who were gathers and to the women who could do both as multi-tasking was something they excelled at from a very early time period.

Those people who saw the need for communal co-operation in terms of survival and hunting, sharing shelter and food, protection against wild animals and other homo-sapien groups were in fact the survivors.  The idea of a solitary life style with a “me” attitude hadn’t really taken off. In an evolutionary sense it was a very reactionary direction. To be isolationists in a true sense society needed affluence and of course that had to wait for the Industrial Revolution to create that class of entitlement, selfishness along with the associated great divide in wealth.

Society had not yet reached the point of the Have’s and Have Not’s.  This would be one of the culminating achievements of modern man.  Capitalism brought us these social and technical achievements and eventually managed to rip apart, in the process, the entire social fabric of the greater good, community and co-operation for survival.

However, one step before the Industrial Revolution came the Agriculture Revolution that pretty well made the hunter gathers obsolete, under employed and eventually unemployed.  It was like someone had brought in automated cashiers and they didn’t even see it coming.  The Agricultural Revolution stripped the once proud Hunter Gatherers of their noble nomadic existence, not to mention decimating their dietary variety to shreds with the advance of specialized crops leaving them in a new peasant like existence with bad diets, bad health and bad teeth.  

In this new agricultural stay at home world they had lost heir skills both as individuals and in group survival.  Now they depended on brutal toil of small plots of land owned by a small nobility who used power and religion to control their every move.  The Agricultural Revolution made for an easy transition to the brutal system we affectionately know as capitalism.

In capitalism we have basically an enslaved group of powerless people who work for  the “company store” having sold their souls and lost their last vestiges of humanity, sometimes caught staring into the distance no doubt dreaming of their savannah legacy and the freedom their ancestors once enjoyed. Human History has always been working towards an imbalance; so unlike natural history, in a biological sense, which tries, sometimes fails, to balance itself.  Humanity and modern society, it seems, has a natural tendency to create the Haves and the Have Not’s with a quantum and a colossal divide between the two.  The tranquil good ole days of the Neolithic village long gone.

Fast forward to American politics today in which the divide is very apparent as it is in terms of religion to the point there is a blurred line between church and church  The divide has been there for a long time, after all they did have a civil war and killed off a million off their own people over issues of enslaving millions of people in economic systems that were vastly different in a cultural climate that never wanted to change.

To use the American example, it is not built so much on hope but on crisis starting with the American Revolution and has grown with great help from the industrial military complex to become not the beacon of democracy, but probably the most violent society to walk the face of the Earth, making spartans look like school boys.  I mean how many guns are in America? How many schools kids get shot every day?  In a reasonable civilization these problems would be solved but in America they serve as a catalyst for division and a profit for the few.  A democracy, somewhat of a joke by now.

Historically, under the presidential leadership of Lincoln, the two Roosevelt's and yes, Johnston  the two warring parties, Republicans and Democrats came together to resolve issues like war, depression, slavery, labour issues and civil rights. Otherwise always a bipolar society, a two sided world of those who see and work towards common good, rights and progress and those who retard the process at every juncture.

It started with the end of Neolithic group survival and continues and flourishes today.  I think Covid helped illuminate the diversity of thought toward issues such as the veracity and credibility of scientific thought versus the power of social media, freedom convoys and selfish entitled thinking of individual rights. I think it was the attitudes towards Covid and how it was made political on many levels that finally opened my eyes to just how messed up we really are from issues concerning vaccines to the environment and how knowledge, facts and truth are mocked.

My thesis is this:  The divide, the division, the hate of the greater good, of helping society, people, your neighbour comes out of ignorance and fear.  People who fear and make up their facts or use facts of convenience do not seek change, in fact they avoid it at all costs.  These people not only adore the status quo they are reactionary and would have us go backwards in time and say repeal abortion laws or civil rights legislation.

If you are a person that thinks the worst of other people in most contexts then with this negative outlook you fear your neighbour, you see welfare abuse, you would wage war rather than peace, you would support open carry guns, you would do everything in your power to isolate yourself from the wider troubled world.  Change would be a threat and therefore any party you support would never spearhead a social program to help people, you would work to secure your power base and reduce that of others.  To save your world you would without admitting it, eagerly and willingly sacrifice democracy and use fascist tactics to fight the liberal/socialist threat that clearly seeks to destroy your little cloister shell.  You would storm Capital Hill or applaud those who did.

Psychologists have found that conservatives are fundamentally more anxious than are liberals, which explains their need for stability, structures and clear and simple answers to even the most complicated of questions.  The fact of the matter is we do not live in a completely safe world, ask the students in Parkland, Florida.  Things can and do go wrong.  But when conservatives impose their worldview on chaos they can manage their anxiety. It may explain in part why so many American have a love affair with guns as it is a simplistic “solution” to security in a reckless world.  However, anxiety, like fear can wax and wane and as it does so do political views.  When people feel safe and secure, they become more liberal in their outlook, when threatened, they become more conservative. After a terrorist attack people in general become far more conservative. “There is some range within which people can be moved.”


The others, are the opposite and are the survivors from the Neolithic think tanks and strive to help each other not out of love necessarily, but with a sense of justice, progress, survival, truth and with a sense of legacy.  This group of people, lets call them liberals are generally but not always more educated, but specifically see the good in the world and are working to enhance it and save it from destruction.  The liberals think with actual facts and when presented with new data can actually change their course and redirect their programming to new goals and initiatives.  Liberals have created the bulk of what is good in the world and it is their legacy that moves civilization forward.

Historically, liberalism of the past ages has been around so long it is now part of a legacy and therefore has been “cleansed” of its radical nature, that is why conservatives in the past would naturally criticize liberal ideas of the past but are more likely to accept those same ideas today as it is now part of set doctrine. This is why contemporary Conservatives can hold classical liberal beliefs and not see it as a contradiction.  Progressive policies were liberal when first proposed, but over time become part of tradition and so conservatives of today will serve to conserve them and as a result perpetually be out of step with current liberal policy.

Liberalism of the day is constantly changing, constantly expanding boundaries, constantly trying new things, and as such liberalism is not a set ideology or a single set of beliefs and policies.  It is a way of thinking.  When conservatives reach the stage of accepting classical liberalism, liberals are already on to a new concept, or system that by nature conservatives will oppose.  “Liberals adapt to present circumstances seeking to go in new directions, while conservatives generally do not.”

Conservatives within our society are not the builders of society, not the risk takers not the ones fighting for the underdog.  They are the ones that generally surround themselves with religious and political dogma, think in sound bites, are reactionary and will sooner deny themselves of any element of societal benefits if at the same time it will give a minority group any form of an advantage.  They are the isolationists, the self righteous and the judgemental who can cling to what the founding fathers deemed practical but can not cope in a modern world of globalism and co-operation.  They are too small minded and lack any capacity for humanity if in their mind people don’t earn the advantage they seek.  There are no free rides only rugged individualism, true grit and the american way in true frontier spirit. They are the wall builders, the racists, the anti-immigration crowd, the gay bashers, the anti-vaxers.  They do not stand for progress.

Conservatives have little to offer society moving forward and would have gone the way of the Neanderthal in any Neolithic setting because they were in it for themselves.

Gender pronouns.

Gender Pronouns

 

Recently, I was at a family gathering at my sister’s apartment.  Usually in family discussions after we have covered the small talk and usually during coffee and after dinner we systematically solve the majority of the world’s problems.  If my brother is present, a hard core right winger, we seldom solve anything and only go on to create more family animosity.  However, on this evening, my brother away we were poised to solve the seventh of the world issues, mainly the Made in China issue and off-shoring.  Somehow we never got there as out of nowhere like a Chinook wind we landed on the topic of gender pronouns.

 

My nephew who somehow introduced this topic seemed to have some level of expertise which baffled and astounded the rest of the family.  I believe the reason for entry into this realm of topic was an experience or discussion, maybe it was an out of body experience I was never clear on the origin; but he was passionate and animated on this topic as much as he was perplexed frustrated and confused concerning the ever growing number of gender pronouns and their associated political correctness.  I soon realized this was far more interesting than off shoring manufacturing to China and quickly encouraged and directed the family discussion on this dangerous wayward route.

 

I can recall fairly recently in my home town of Waterloo a professor, I think in the music department at one of our three universities got into difficulty over the incorrect use of gender pronouns.  I also remember thinking how is this even possible as I was aware of, at the time of the he/she combo that I grew up with and all the anxiety through puberty of dealing with the social permutations and combinations of what could go wrong with two genders.  I was silly and naive as their is a vast continuum of gender possibilities that change over space and time undulate over the curvature of human experience and impact every permeable indentation of the social walls we construct on life’s journey.  That professor I reference was screwed the moment he/she said he/she in a class situation to a non-binary audience many of whom were likely in various stages of gender transitioning.

 

We know the universe is expanding outward at incredible speed with great forces from its origins commencing with the Big Bang and in the process changing the face of physics as we know it.  The same can be said for the world of pronouns.  That sad professor did not realize, and I would be in this same category  that using  the wrong pronoun in these times can be offensive and potentially harmful.  One, if I may be so liberal as to use that term, can run the risk by ignoring  a person’s pronouns can also imply that people are perhaps under the transgender umbrella for example those who are transgender, non-binary, or even gender non-conforming.  It is if in fact they do not exist.  The professor was busted   These are dangerous times in which we live.

 

I think I still know what a pronoun is. I have taught English. I am an english teacher, but now in the face of new possibilitiesI find I tremble in the face of these parts of speech that theoretically replace an antecedent noun, but in a social sense do so much more.  I am aware of personal pronounssuch as  I, we, you, he, she, it and they. There are your over bearing demonstrative pronouns ( this, that, these, those), relative pronouns (who, which, that, as), indefinite pronouns (each, all, everyone, either, somebody), interrogative pronouns (who, which, that), reflexive pronouns (myself, herself) and possessive (his, her, our, their my, your).  But there seems to be now a whole set of pronouns that quite frankly don’t even sound like English.  Try co, cos cosself?  In a sentence Ze laughed with zir friends enjoying zirself.  

 

Recently, I attended a classical concert, a quintet was performing a selection of Schubert and Brahms compositions.  In the introduction the speaker first thanked all the sponsors, also as is now the custom thanked the native ancestors on whose land we were sitting and listening to the concert, then he proceeded to tell about himself briefly including his pronouns.  I was alert.  I had never heard that in an introduction or anywhere else before.  The speaker was a he/him which sounded, dare I say with the realm of social acceptability and in a flash he was on to some trivia about Schubert.  So I wondered did Schubert or Brahms have this problem with learning new pronouns.  I was thinking about this through the whole concert.

 

There is an entire etiquette built up around the correct use of pronouns, what if you get the pronouns wrong, do you apologize, can you over apologize, can you traumatize a person with the wrong pronoun.  I was told or maybe I read it somewhere, to be safe just memorize everyone’s pronouns and never assume their pronouns, never use masculine or feminine, if you can do all that you will likely stay in pronoun Switzerland. 

 

I just think at my age I stand at the brink of confusion and bewilderment and If I change it will be a slow reluctant change.  I do recognize a gender identity spectrum, but I really want no part of it.  However, I’m not oblivious to changing mores and keeping up with social change and adaptability.  If I have to I personally could identify with several pronouns even if it sounds like a foreign language, but is that really enough?

 

My personal arsenal of identification is much stronger, much deeper and far more meaningful because I know that how, as a person I identify internally in a modern society like ours I must clearly but not necessary succinctly express that externally.  I therefore have come to use an elaborate array of specific adjectives, at least 67 at last count, and the list is growing, adverbs approximately 43, also growing. I also utilize verbs, in all tenses, including gerunds.  I have discovered that in my quest for gender expression clarity and my place in the sun, the use of nouns, prepositions, conjunctions and articles both definite and indefinite are arguable highly beneficial.  I may be a cis-male and although I recognize that maybe a mere social construct perpetuated by my family doctor at the time of my birth I am pretty sure that I am on a single spot on the gender spectrum and hope to stay there unless removed for insubordination by a committee of my non-binary peers.

 

 

Domestic Sunrise/Alberta

 

Domestic Sunrise

The little boy slowly walked along

The darkened hall to his parent’s bedroom

And stood at the doorway, contemplating his

Next move and hoping to be noticed.

Quietly, 

Tentative,

Then more

Urgently

He called, “Daddy have to go pee.”

Father stumbled for his slippers and housecoat,

Walked over to the door and

Scooped up his waiting son who instinctively

Cuddled his little body close.

Together, they walked the darkened hallway

To the washroom.

The sun illuminated the low level morning clouds

With a fiery glow as father and son sat down at the

Long pine kitchen table. Neither making a sound 

As they sat in silent communion, one drinking dark

Coffee, the other warm milk. Ashley, their Cocker Spaniel

Lay wide awake at their feet in anticipation of any handout

That might reach the kitchen floor.

A tiny cry broke the stillness as his daughter awoke…

The morning shuffle began once again.

Brainstorming While Writing A Children’s Storybook

Brain-Storming While Writing a Children’s Storybook

 

Unicorns are stereotypes,

Gnomes, fairies and dwarves have

all been done,

dinosaurs are passe

tales of social responsibility have merit,

but getting tiresome, how much global

warming, bullying, environmental  teaching

can we absorb?

Should I use lyrical text with colourful illustrations?

Fiction or Non-Fiction?

 

Science, numeracy, oral language teaching

with scaffold learning and cultural values 

using frogs, bears eagles and ravens, 

a possibility but...

 

How about surreal, whimsical and verging

on the bizarre or fantastical

Just for fun!

 

Is my main character a child in an adult world

an animal as parable or metaphor?

Then do I cast pigeon, crow, seagulls

or squirrels, if my squirrels wish to migrant 

South do they travel by Greyhound bus, 

with other animals?  What luggage do they take?

Can they text?

 

Will a racoon family live in a Ford Pinto,

in a remote forest with a social media presence, or 

a Canada Goose who suffers learning disabilities,

a navigational impairment tragically

loses his way to Mexico only to connect

with a flock of swallows heading for Capistrano

meeting the love of his life sadly to be rejected 

by their families living a life of obscurity,

but happiness, in suburban San Diego. 

 

The swallow and the goose escaped the stereotype,

so it seems there is always a lesson to learn.

 

Undercover in a Cafe

Undercover in a Cafe

 

The three sat at their table

like an elderly summit meeting

running a play by play

of clandestine activities:

“Look, Joe at the door, stooped

hard to believe

he used to teach phys ed.”

 

“You know he

shouldn’t be driving now

his hands are so numb, doubt

if he can even feel the steering 

wheel, he picked up his coffee,

couldn’t feel it either, spilt all over,

there he goes shouldn’t be

driving, damn fool!”

 

I looked around me, in the cafe,

at 70 something, with my cane

parked at my side, probably the

youngest one there, I stared at

my book, The Gentleman from Moscow,

listening to every word like a Soviet

Cold War spy.

 

Cafes now are extensions of

Senior’s homes.

Popular hubs of intrigue, 

subterfuge and sharing 

of the everyday aches and pains

“My arthritis was flaring this morning,

couldn’t get my socks on 

too far to the floor these days”

 

“I come here because they have

free refills”

 

“Just makes me pee too much “

 

“I hit the John before I need to,

its an avoidance thing”

 

“Doesn’t seem to be working!”

 

There are hubs like the one near me

each a sleeper cell of secret activity.

Information is passed, stories exchanged

medical histories shared,

Behind enemy lines, who will ever know.

 

Marty

 

Learning Styles

Learning Styles 

 

Tom Wayman is a Canadian poet who wrote about what he called the “central experience of everyday life which is what people do for a living, their work.” His poems are often humorous and ironic.  In his poem entitled Students (1993)he writes about the learning styles of students.  These styles although now some 25 years old are still in vogue.  In my own teaching career spanning 40 years, I have encountered all of these strategies and many more.

 

The first of these styles he describes as, The Vaccination Theory of Education. Once you have studied a subject you are immune and never have to consider it again.  these students tend to be oblivious to the world, truth, knowledge, enlightenment and could likely grow up to be Trump supporters as they will only read fake news on social media sources and yet feel fully aware and act as if they know it all.

 

Other students entertain the Dipstick Theory of Education: as with a car engine, where as long as the oil level is above the add line there is no need to put in more oil, so if you receive a pass or higher, why put in any more learning?  These students are true minimalists and experience actually physical and emotional pain if they are forced to perform outside the narrow parameters of their comfort zone which is the size of a small closed box. 

 

The Kung Fu Theory of Education has to do with learning as self-defense. The more you understand about what’s occurring around you the better prepared you are to deal with difficulties.  This theory is the only one that seems to have a morsel of potential, yet it is one that does not engage the world.  It is the opposite of life long learning as it is isolationist by nature.  These students remain with the status quo and do not grow intellectually, emotionally or morally.

 

The fourth theory called the Easy Listening Theory of Learning has been almost universally adopted by students today, in which time spent in class is far more enjoyable with ear phones or ear buds implanted in their ears allowing for silent enjoyment in a pleasurable world of music.

 

When Wayman wrote he referred to: “her tape recorder earphones on”...my how the technology has changed.  This approach has been so alarmingly and overwhelmingly embraced that the tsunami of its advance is virtually unstoppable in the classroom.  Teachers are nearly paralyzed as many administrators and parents enable and promote the continued use of cell phones in a learning environment.

 

When it comes to the use of cell phones in class I have been physically attacked when separating a highly anxious student from his most valuable possession in life.  He went at me with fists flying like an Argentinian cowboy swinging bolo balls.  If viewed only from a slapstick perspective, from an out of body experience, the whole thing would probably appear quite comical even surreal.

 

I guess what I learned out of the attack experience,

that is trying to separate a student from cell phone...

as an educator, is that the Smart Phone is not a simile

for life.

 

It is not like life.  It is a metaphor. 

It is in fact life itself in all its multi media forms. 

 

I have witnessed a student sit and listen, text, email 

engage in social media activities during an hour of class time.

 

As I watched this phenomena unfold I bit my lip, said nothing, 

as oblivious to her surroundings she remained absolutely off task 

for the entire class.  

After class, as she slowly re-entered orbit and gained consciousness

she began gathering her effects. 

 

I then quickly asked if her Smart Phone was a distraction.  

She picked up her things, left in a huff, “I don’t want to talk about it.” 

Clearly I had crossed a line. 

Understandably many addicts can not face their addictions.