Walking to Meadowbrook Golf Course in September 2012

I took these photographs twelve years ago and there have been changes to this short walk to the golf course; trees adjacent to the road have been cut down (I don't see any newly planted trees as they claimed they were going to do). More people are playing golf here than ever. There are more dog walkers and a dog run for people with dogs. Some people on bicycles, but not many. And the rest of us are walkers, walking because we like it and for health reasons. Compare these photographs from 2012 to previous August 2023 walk to Meadowbrook Golf Course.

The carelessness of the rich

 

Some of the many disguises worn by Justin Trudeau

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is not the "great American novel" but it is a great short novel, and Fitzgerald's writing is flawless. His insights into human nature are brilliant; he knows of what he writes, he knows the class of wealthy, careless, selfish people. One of the themes of The Great Gatsby is the carelessness of the rich, they are depicted as being entitled and privileged people who really don't care about anyone but themselves, they leave behind them a trail of broken promises, disappointment, and death. These are people who inherited their wealth, they didn't work for it. 

    Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative opposition in parliament, was not born to wealth like Justin Trudeau; Pierre Poilievre can be abrasive, he is too abrasive for the liberal white middle class of the GTA, Ottawa bureaucrats, CBC administrators and announcers, and other city folk who are progressive; they don't like abrasive people who disagree with them. Justin is suave and handsome and comes from a dynastic family, the son of a former prime minister and on his mother's side other prominent politicians; he was identified as a future prime minister by the Liberal Party of Canada from when he eulogized his father. I watched Pierre Elliott Trudeau's funeral on television, it was in 2000, and when Justin stood beside his father's casket and was introduced to the public I knew this was a future prime minister, he was to the manor born. But I also knew that Justin hadn't written his own speech and I doubt he knows the Robert Frost poem from which he quoted, "The woodshed are lovely, dark and deep, / But I have promises to keep, /And miles to go before I sleep, /And miles to go before I sleep." Even then you could see that he is a man without depth, a man who lives on the surface of life; and he still lives on the surface of life, recently at the Pride parade in Charlottetown, there he was, running along the sidewalk and shaking people's hands, taking selfies; there is no gravitas about him, there is only the occasional appearance of faux gravitas.

    Despite the negative way Poilievre is depicted on the CBC he is a man of possible depth and thoughtfulness, but maybe this is wishful thinking on my part; there was no silver spoon in his mouth when he was born; good people nurtured him and he seems to have good values. But he is not totally to be believed or followed, he is still a politician and full of ambition; neither Justin Trudeau nor Pierre Poilievre are particularly popular among average Canadians. Poilievre has already sold out the English-speaking people in Quebec as he lusts after the French Quebec vote, and the Liberals did the same. The progressive CBC and the liberal media condemn Poilievre and everything he stands for. Meanwhile, Justin maintains his progressive message despite the country being in the mess that he created; he doesn't care about the middle class who are experiencing what he has done to Canada, a country that is now woke and progressive and poor. "Go woke, go broke", as they say . . .

    Today, many Canadians can't find affordable housing; their children will never own their own homes; more people than ever are homeless; food banks are being used by people who used to donate to food banks, not use them; food has never been more expensive than it is now; our medical system is collapsing; crime rates are increasing; in sum, the country is on a downward slide. The rich are getting richer and the rest of us are getting poorer, and the gap between rich and poor is widening. Canada has never been in as bad shape as it is now, and Justin took us here in only eight years. I believe that Justin's emphasis on progressive woke ideology is inconsistent with Canadian values; woke values displaced a more practical management of the economy. But Justin is solidly committed to woke ideology and only tenuously committed to balancing the books, good administration, and serving the Canadian people, and he has failed the country because of this.

    Justin has also alienated the few cabinet ministers who were serious and decent people, not just ambitious politicians; I refer to Judy Wilson-Raybould and Marc Garneau, they cringe when they hear his voice, they regret ever having known him, and the politicians that remain, for instance Freeland, Mendocino, Joly, and Lametti, will do anything to remain in power. As well, Justin has been kept in power by the leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh, who doesn't see the contempt in which Justin holds him, or the contempt many voters now feel for Jagmeet because of this. 

    Despite the costumes he wears, the rich boy antics, the inconsistencies, the profligate spending, Justin does have a core personality, it is made up of two things: the promotion of woke and progressive values and a narcissistic hunger for power. To this end he has spent us into hundreds of billions of dollars of debt. He is used to a life of wealth and comfort, never any worries about money, and a subsequent carelessness in his behaviour. I don't know if the country can survive Justin's years as prime minister, years of carelessness, years of waste, years of progressive ideology; Canadians know that the values that will sustain a person--and a nation--are conservative values, these include decency, respect, and trust; meanwhile, Justin promotes diversity, equity, and gender fluidity, values that are not primary to Canadian values and history.

Justinius, Emperor of Canada

Our leader, Justin Trudeau

It will be decades before the country recovers

from Justin Trudeau's years in office, before the debt accrued

is behind us, over 500 billion dollars debt in seven years,

and his woke values—diversity, equity, and gender fluidity—

aiming to destroy values like decency, respect, and trust,

values that sustained the country during Depression and wars;

we have been weakened & betrayed by a man with no moral center,                                                                    a man entitled and privileged by his birth,

a man with no adherence to truth.

               

1

Justinius, he is the Emperor! His refrain and legacy

is that he kept us safe! He insists what citizens want is to be safe

and his government will make us safe, but always under more government

control; he has a cure for aches, pains, arthritis, the common cold,

and unwanted pregnancies: his compassion is great, he will end people's

suffering with medical assistance in dying for all, for the sick, the old, the military,

the mentally ill, even sick children may one day be euthanized; David Lametti,

the Justice Minister: "Extending medical assistance to people with mental illness

'remains a top priority for our government'." (17 December 2022).

A woman who had been in an apparently pro-euthanasia ad (on TV),

in fact she "couldn't find healthcare, applied for medically assisted death

out of desperation after failed attempts to seek appropriate care" (6 December 2022);  

And: "Recent years have seen a growing number of institutions treating

medical assistance in dying as a normal component of the country's

medical system" (22 December 2022). The public have been deceived, 

"One third of Canadians are apparently fine with prescribing assisted suicide 

for no other reason than the fact that the patient is homeless" and "51%

endorsed 'inability to receive medical treatment' as sufficient reason

for assisted death" (18 May 2023); what has our country become?

It's Canada under Justinius's rule. you can't make up how diabolical

the country has become . . .

 

2

There is no complexity to Justinius, human complexity has been replaced

by his single desire: to be a celebrity. He's Justinius, son of Pierre,

heir to the Dynasty. He's the Selfie King, dressing up in costumes,

wearing black face, dancing the wild fandango from Mississauga to Mumbai,

from Surrey to Delhi. Pierre the Elder pirouetted behind Queen Elizabeth

(nothing is extemporaneous with these people, nothing is honest; integrity

does not exist for these people); in London for the Queen's funeral, Justinius

left the hotel's piano lounge door open, and loudly sang "Bohemian Rhapsody",

it was all see me see me see me, look at me look at me look at me; and there he was,

smiling in T-shirt, shallow and vacuous, in whom gravitas never existed,

it's all phony with Justinius; not a word spoken by this man is true.

His hotel room cost taxpayers $6,000. a night, while Canadians

economized, lived on the cheap, worried about job security, some ending up homeless and

unemployed, and we all saw the country decline. He will spend us into Third World status,

money means nothing to Justinius, he is the profligate son of money and entitlement.

 

3

You can't make up what Justinius has done to destroy the country:

increasing numbers of Canadians are homeless, living on the streets, in parks,

back alleys, bus shelters, and sleeping under tarps in winter; drug addiction

is an epidemic; rents have doubled; home ownership impossible for most Canadians,

they can't even afford an apartment in any major city (so what does Justin do?

he lets in to the country 500K immigrants, push the population passed 40M);

the medical system is broken, doctors and nurses are fleeing, hospitals are collapsing;

massive debt and out of control inflation; the cost of groceries prohibitive;

the mismanagement of the everyday running of government; thousands of people

camped out overnight in long lines to get a passport; three out of ten worst airports

in the world are in Canada; out of control government spending and out of control

national debt; an entitled and privileged prime minister selling out minorities;

he'd be El Generalissimo with epaulets and phony medals if he could,

if he wanted, maybe he does.And this is just the beginning of the list . . .

            Justinius doesn't care about anybody: consider his Covid mandates, 

his love of Communist China, his admiration for Fidel Castro. 

As part of the Emergencies Act, bank accounts of the Freedom Convoy members 

were frozen—but then how to pay rent? Buy groceries? Medication?—it was petty 

and punitive and unnecessary; it was the authoritarian act of an authoritarian bully. 

At every chance he repeats his lies about the Freedom Convoy; he has no love of freedom 

and to hell with our Constitution, for what the Constitution is worth.

            It's all psychology with Justinius, he's the narcissistic son copying and one-upping his famous 

father; while Pierre stood up to the thugs who threw bottles at him at a St. Jean Baptiste parade, 

Justinius hid during the Freedom Convoy; Pierre had the War Measure's Act

so Justinius had to have the Emergencies Act.

            Re. the inquiry into the Emergencies Act:

"The Ontario Provincial Police intelligence unit never found evidence demonstrating that the Freedom Convoy posed a direct threat to national security before the unprecedented use of the Emergencies Act was invoked by the federal government" and they "saw no direct threat in the convoy" (21 October 2022), and neither did CSIS;  there was no right wing American money funding the Convoy; the Freedom Convoy was never Canada's January 6th insurrection; there was no desecration of monuments, this was made up by the CBC and used to convince people that the Convoy was dangerous; it was a peaceful if inconvenient demonstration; it was a festival of freedom.

 

4

You can smell the decomp in Ottawa from sea to sea to sea, but you won't hear about it

on the CBC; Justinius has friends at the CBC, he pays their way, $1.5B a year

(visualize a beached dead whale, bloated double in size with decaying matter and gas, decomposing on 

a deserted beach). The CBC's mandate betrayed, now they're full-time

social justice warriors; climate change, gender fluidity, and diversity—no wonder they fail in both 

ratings and entertainment—, but who needs a large audience when they have an unlimited subsidy from 

taxpayers? If no one watched the CBC would the CBC care? They don't care,

they have Justinius on their side; Justinius who is destroying what it took Canadians

150 years to build; he's working on destroying our history, our freedom, our values, our culture;                                                                                                 the country

                                                                                                made over

                                                                                                in his image;

                                                                                                it will be decades

                                                                                                before the damage

                                                                                                caused by this man

                                                                                                is behind us. 

"August" by Helen Hunt Jackson

 

August 2016

• 
• 
• 

Silence again. The glorious symphony
Hath need of pause and interval of peace.
Some subtle signal bids all sweet sounds cease,
Save hum of insects’ aimless industry.
Pathetic summer seeks by blazonry
Of color to conceal her swift decrease.
Weak subterfuge! Each mocking day doth fleece
A blossom, and lay bare her poverty.
Poor middle-agèd summer! Vain this show!
Whole fields of golden-rod cannot offset
One meadow with a single violet;
And well the singing thrush and lily know,
Spite of all artifice which her regret
Can deck in splendid guise, their time to go!

Trudeau International Airport in 2012 and 2013 (3)

Before de-icing a plane in winter

This is the back road to the airport, through Montreal West and parallel to the highway,
it is rue Norman but Norman pronounced as in English

Dropping off passengers

 

Trudeau International Airport in 2012 and 2013 (2)

 

The Canadian Cottage Garden, end of July 2023

 

It is just as I wanted it to be. To sit in the garden, surrounded by flowers, and on a hot summer day to have insects, wild bees, and butterflies going from flower to flower, busy with their work of pollination and collecting pollen and nectar. 

Poets' Web Sites

www.stephenmorrissey.ca

Even fairly recently I was asked about the importance of poets having webs sites. A poet's site is a business card. A site won't make you famous and it probably won't sell your books, it probably won't get many visitors, but it will PR you to some extent. And you can make the site more interesting by adding content that would otherwise not reach a wider audience. You don't need a large audience for your site, but you need the right audience. A site will help you make connections and increase your involvement with other poets.

    People buy books online from companies like Amazon.com. I doubt many poet's sites actually sell any books. Some poets PR their latest books on their sites, but how effective is this for selling books? As someone said to me, "if a million spam E-mails can bring in a few hundred orders, you will need maybe a thousand visitors a day to your site to sell only a few books, if any." Sixty or seventy visitors a day to a poetry site is pretty good, but it won't sell books. Poetry isn't a big seller at the best of times and your site isn't likely to change this. 

    Until I'm proved wrong, I'll continue believing that poets' sites aren't an effective means to sell poetry books. Some poets have beautiful web sites, they are beautiful business cards but still worth the effort; maybe that online business card will put you into contact with someone who interests you or who is interested in your work, or that you are interested in. A poet's website is also a portal into a poet's work; either the beautiful business card model or a comprehensive portal to a poet's body of work, a poet's website might generate some interest in a poet's work but I doubt it will sell many books if that's what you want. Why does a poet's website not sell books? Because you are trying to sell something that has very limited or no interest to most people.

    This leaves a poet's site as both PR and educational outreach. What is effective, or interesting content, for a poet's site? My own feeling is that I want to put everything I've written regarding poetry online. Most of what we write reaches a small audience at best, so why not recycle this content onto our sites? The internet is a voracious publisher of content. I think of Allen Ginsberg's Deliberate Prose, Selected Essays 1952 - 1995 (New York, Perennial, 2000) as a model for what can be put online. Ginsberg's book is a collection of essays, short prose pieces, letters, odds and ends, and notes. Put some money aside in your will to keep your site online for as long as possible, sometimes a poet's work will become popular post mortem, but don't count on it.

    I recommend Bill Knott's blog which is apparently the complete Bill Knott body of work, or something approaching it. Artie Gold gave me Knott's Nights of Naomi (Plus 2 Songs) (The Barn Dream Press, Massachusetts, 1971) back in the mid-1970s. It wasn't until the 1990s that I found Knott's Other Strangers Than Our Own, Selected Love Poems. Now, online, you can find Bill Knott's body of work. Of course, Knott retains his copyright, but anyone can access the work online. He's even presented his work so it can be printed in book form. Good for Bill Knott!

Note written in July 2023: I found this 2008 post that I had taken offline, I don't remember why I took it offline. But now I see there is a comment (below) from Bill Knott, a poet whose work I like and respect. So, here it is, restored to the site. BTW, Artie gave me Bill Knott's book and then told me he was selling it to me, there you go. It was $5.00 and I'm glad I still have it. Thank you, Artie!

Bill Knott died on 12 March 2014.

The hidden trail

 The joy of being in nature.