MOMS R US

WHERE WOULD I BE WITHOUT MY MOM?

WHERE WOULD ANY OF US BE (ASIDE FROM THE OBVIOUS -- LIFE ITSELF)?

There is nothing more precious on our planet, I believe, and more important, than a loving, giving mom, the one true constant and ever-present beacon.

A mom who sticks up for you when the school principal says you're a jerk, who guides you with wisdom, who listens when you need to talk, who holds you while you cry.

Whose constant show of compassion teaches you that most beautiful of things, caring. Who kicks you in the butt when you need it (but gently), who lets you learn a lesson the hard way.

Who spoils you sometimes and makes you believe in yourself, but who questions you enough so you don't take anyone for granted. Who helps you develop a conscience and so much more.

Thanks Mom.

Thanks for letting me climb trees whenever I wanted.

Thanks for letting me live on the wild side and allowing me to return.

Thanks for letting me run away 100 times a week -- and always come back.

Thanks for always telling me, "Oh, dry up!" And letting me laugh about it.

Thanks for reining in my bad temper.

Thanks for not disowning me when I pulled Mrs. Davey's dress down.

Thanks for forcing me to pass typing in Grade 9.

Thanks for telling me I WOULD grow...and smiling with me when it happened.

Thanks for letting me fail Grade 10 French and NOT coming to my rescue.

Thanks for helping me survive those first few lost loves...and every one since.

Thanks for 100 million other moments and things that have made me me.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, MOM.

365 DAYS A YEAR.

BEYOND THE BLUR

LIFE, UNFORTUNATELY, CAN SOMETIMES BE A BLUR.

I have felt that way, at times, in recent weeks and months during the cold, hard winter, and it has sometimes affected my interest in blogging...and occasionally still does.

And many other things.

This past week, I was e-talking to someone I really care about, and I felt a sudden need to go on a walk rather than continuing to talk.



I guess, DOH!, I wanted to walk the walk instead of talk the talk.



The thing is, usually, I'm not the kind of person to just go for a walk. There's no purpose to it, really...at least that's usually my line of thinking. What's the point? What can I see? What can I do?



Purpose. Even thinking that word got me to some contemplation.



It got me to thinking about being a kid and how I used to not need a reason to do anything in particular, I just did what my heart and my body said I wanted to do at that time.



I'd go out collecting insects in the neighborhood back lanes. I'd walk across Coronation Park to the Norwood Flood Bowl to see if anyone was there swimming in the pool or playing football or baseball.



In winter, I'd just grab my hockey stick and gloves and spongie and just head out onto the street, fully expecting -- and usually finding -- some of my friends playing street hockey.



But my life's not like that any more. It's become about hopping in my car and heading to this place or that, driving at 50 km/h (30 mph fer you Amuricans) to here, there and everywhere.



And having everything I drive past being, for all intents and purposes, nothing but a blur. Familiar, but a blur. Seen only from a car. Visited, but only if I drive there.



My need to explore has given way to my need to just get somewhere. From Point A to Point E, with none of the B,C and D between that I used to investigate and experience.



No life, no people, no meeting of strange faces or familiar faces, just life on a road map. So this past week, in sweltering 30 C (almost 90 F, for you Amuricans) temps, I changed all that.



And after recently spending $2,400 to fix up my 1996 Ford, and then having a water pump they installed start leaking, and having them fix it, and then having the &%#@ engine light come on right after that...





I decided that I was far too dependent on the vagaries of my automobile. In fact, I was a slave to it, and the luxuries it affords. But I'm also a victim of being too dependent on those lifeless luxuries.



So I went from this...





...to what I hope will be more of this: walking around my neighborhood and other areas, to get out of my four-door and into the outdoors. To get back to what my true nature is, living.




There's existing and there's living. I have been existing. I'm naturally a bit of a loner and don't need a lot of people around all the time, although I'm far from anti-social.



But a big part of what's made me be that way is my contentment in being alone and doing things on my own, or with one other person, or with my kids.



And now that my kids are older and less dependent on me, my own past is becoming more of my future and part of what I know is my nature and how I can be happiest.



And spinning my wheels driving everywhere in a blur, unless it's to a destination that I want to be heading to, is not it. I don't want the blur, I want clarity and vision and real stuff.



So this past week -- and I apologize for the length of this -- I made an effort to get back to my roots.



I left my car with the "Check Engine" light in the *&^%$# parking stall and checked "out" instead. Walking, that is. Being a bipedal creature with the senses of smell, sight, hearing and witnessing.



With my camera.



I originally set out to take a picture every 100 steps of things I've known are all around me, but which I hadn't truly "seen" for a long time, if ever. Here are some of them.


One of the courtyards in my apartment complex, the grass finally greening, the trees at long last budding...

Kids playing soccer. I used to coach baseball and football...why not now, even though my kids are no longer involved?

These are some East Indian and Asian kids, mostly, playing cricket on a basketball court between my son's future high school (next year) and my daughter's former junior high.

There's a beautiful huge green space within a few minutes' walk of my apartment. I have rarely gone there, only when I can persuade my son to throw a football around.

There are beautiful wooded areas bordering my complex. My son has explored in there, but I haven't. What happened to that sense of seeking mystery? I hope to get it back.

I walked up to the main street where all of my "services" are located: my bank, my insurance agent, my convenience store, my supermarket...just to see them in that walking context.

The saying goes, it's time to stop and smell the roses. I know those aren't roses above, they're tulips or daffodils, those spring flowers that sprout up early and then disappear as quickly as they came up.

Still, I want to smell the roses anyway. And with gas prices going through the roof, my timing couldn't be better...

Air India and other disasters

How many times have we heard it now -- that our police, our justice officials, our "intelligence," knew something was coming down or could come down -- and they did nothing about it?

We are like helpless ants, living our lives and walking on the sidewalk, oblivious to the gigantic threat above our heads that could walk on us and squish us in a nano-second.

And that's what has happened, continually, if you think about it.

This is some of the left-over debris from the 1985 Air India terrorist attack on a plane in Canada that killed 329 passengers who were headed to India.

And the Canadian "intelligence" knew it was coming.

We all know what this is -- it's 9-11.

And how many warnings did the CIA and FBI and the rest of the American "intelligence" establishment get about that before it happened, if you're to believe reports?


If I recall, how many warnings were there about Columbine that were ignored or not properly heeded?

And how many warnings did West Virginia school officials receive before a South Korean guy killed more than 30 people last month?


Hell, Bush was warned about Katrina...what did he do? F*ck all.


Our governments tax us, they tell us what to do and that we'll be all right but they don't fix our roads or our health problems or stop selling us booze and smokes or prevent us from gambling.


It's more money for them.


They get us every which way -- but they don't protect us. How do they protect us?


They spend billions on wars and military assignments that are pointless and that we don't want and need, they allow us to pay through the nose for energy and gas and give us a piss-poor education system.


They DON'T do all those things they should. And they take our taxes for all that nothingness. And then the one thing you'd expect -- for them to protect us from all the shit -- they ignore it.


They talk tough, but they've got balls the size of peas. And we accept it. When AREN'T we going to any more?


Retired diplomat not surprised by new Air-India revelations
Canadian Press
May 7, 2007 at 2:02 PM EDT

OTTAWA — A retired Canadian diplomat says he's not surprised by claims that Ottawa had hard intelligence prior to the Air India bombing indicating the airline was about to come under terrorist attack.

But William Warden, who served as high commissioner to New Delhi at the time, told a public inquiry Monday that he does wonder why former colleague James Bartleman didn't share the information more widely with senior officials.

Bartleman, now Ontario's lieutenant-governor, startled the inquiry last week by declaring that he had seen an electronic intercept, just days before the June 1985 bombing, that suggested Air India could be targeted by terrorists that very weekend.

Warden told the commission that if Bartleman was right then there must be others who were aware of the intelligence 22 years ago and who can shed light on it now.

The more important point, he said, is that "if such a piece of information existed there must have been at least a dozen people, or half a dozen people at the very least, who would have seen such a piece — and some of whom would have been scurrying to do something about it."

"I still have that feeling of frustration that the government machinery did not seem able to get its act together and to really step in at an early stage . . . It may have served to take the wind out of the sails of some of these people."

--Globe and Mail