Author: wdfyfe

Before WD called himself a writer, he worked at a number of different jobs from stacking lumber to interior design. He studied English at UBC and creative writing at ASU where one of his teachers, Rita Dove, taught him the importance of the tale. He has written for radio, magazines and newspapers, but never television. He’s published both fiction and nonfiction in Great Britain and the US. He reads French passably and speaks enough Spanish to get from A to B and find the toilet. He has interviewed John Cleese, Peter Ustinov, Margaret Drabble, Kenneth Branagh and enough other famous people to make him a hopeless name dropper. His not-so-secret passions are history and trivia, and he has never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit — although he did come 4th one drunken Quiz Night at the Uxbridge in Notting Hill. He lives on the Pacific Ocean, although, not close enough to see, so he spends his days looking at a computer screen. It’s a wonderful life and he has only one regret: he can’t type faster.

China: Money for Nothing

chinaI’ve taken a lot of flak over the years for my abhorrence of government programs and/or government intervention in anything beyond the bare necessities – education, health, security etc.  I have argued (sometimes successfully) that my government should keep its fingers off most of the stuff it’s currently up to its elbows in, and should never — under any circumstances — even look at new programs.  My point is, since the only people keeping an eye on the government are the government, they aren’t in the best position to assess the damage they’re doing–and they’re doing plenty.  This is because not only is every politico in all directions wasting money as fast as they can tax it, but while they’re playing Daddy Warbucks on extracurricular activities, they’re neglecting the essentials.  Governments should confine themselves to things like minimum standards for clean water (which BTW, my country does not have) national standards of education (oops, don’t have that one either) or perhaps overhauling our antiquated Catch-and-Release justice system (I’m not even going to go there.)  If my government would quit dickin’ around and do what they’re supposed to, between the money they’d save and the money they’d never spend in the first place, my country would be a veritable paradise.  The problem is the government is the problem not the solution — and now, I can prove it.

This week, austerity budget week in Canada, buried on page 352, my government has declared it’s about to save me 30 million dollars a year because it’s going to stop sending aid to China.  Wow!  Good on ya, folks!  That’s 30 million I didn’t have yesterday.  [Incredulous Pause]  Hey, wait a minute!  We’re sending foreign aid to China?  WTF?

Anyway, one quick Google later and you betcha, folks, not only does Canada send piles of money to China, we’ve been doing it for decades.  This is insanity on such a biblical scale it’s impossible to discuss it rationally.  My only option is to use the infamous rhetorical question.

First of all, somebody had to think this up in the first place.  Who in their right mind would even conceive of giving – GIVING! —china1 the second largest economy in living history financial assistance?  That’s like me sending a cheque to Bill Gates. (“Here, Bill. I thought you could use the extra cash.”)  Were the politicos all sitting around Parliament Hill, blasted on peyote?  China has more US currency in its banks than America does.  It has launched a guy into space and an aircraft carrier into the Pacific. It hosted the Olympics and won them.   It has factories bigger than most of our towns and could, if it so chose, swallow our economy whole and spit out the GST.  What Carlos Castaneda dream do we think we’re living in?

Secondly, who approved it?  What committee came to the incredible conclusion that giving China buckets of money was the very best allocation of my nation’s wealth?  What overwhelming argument convinced them?  Whatever it was, it must have been smack-bottom good.  After all, it obviously beat out spending that money to feed the hungry, house the homeless or even educate the stupid – which might have helped us out, in this case.

Thirdly, what good did it do us?  What was the cost-to-benefit ratio for those ordinary Canadians the politicos are always yipping about?  Is there one Canadian out there who can lift his Molson and say, “I’ve had a better life since we starting sending millions of dollars to China.  Salud!”  Perhaps, but I doubt it.

Fourthly, this squander has been going on for decades. Why didn’t somebody – somewhere — put a stop to it?  Why didn’t at least china2one of the several successive governments we elected in the last 40 years ever eyeball the cancelled cheques and say, “What the hell is this?  We’re cutting EI benefits to send money to China?  That’s just wrong.  We should discontinue this waste.”  Oddly, nobody did.

Finally (there’s more, but I have to stop this somewhere) who possibly ever thought this was a good idea?  I don’t think anybody.  I think everybody from Trudeau (not Justin, the real one) to Stephen Harper thought it was unbelievably stupid to give – GIVE — millions to China, but they just kept doing it anyway — government inertia at its absolute finest.

There is one good thing that’s come out of this monumental cock-up, though.  I’m waiting in the weeds for the next person to tell me what a utopia government programs could create if they were just given the chance.  It will be an interesting conversation.

Hivemind: It’s No Coincidence

hivemind1I don’t believe in coincidences.  They are the transparent devices of CSI (in its many incarnations) and bad mystery novels.  Over the years, I’ve found that when random acts are connected for no apparent reason, there’s usually a reason.  That’s not to say that I think our lives are preplanned by three beautiful maidens casually spinning and snipping yarn.  However, I do believe that there are way more patterns to life than we’re willing to admit.  Coincidences are just those patterns boiling to the surface.  Let me demonstrate.

In the last 24 hours, I’ve had three different techno conversations with three distinctly different people.  (FYI, two of them were with people less cyber-savvy than me.)  I did not initiate these conversations nor were they planned in any way.  Yet, all three, although totally unrelated, somehow ended up scolding social media for discouraging dissidence and promoting groupthink and behaviour.  No big deal, right?  Social media is a popular topic, and these days, it’s catching the blame for everything from childhood obesity to the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi.  However, think about it.  What are the chances?  Three unconnected conversations come up with a consensus — the straightjacket of groupthink — when that very consensus is an unwitting demonstration of groupthink itself.  Irony, yes; coincidence, no — because here’s the hot fudge on that ice cream sundae.  In each of the conversations, the person I was talking to (texting, in one case) used the term “hivemind.”  I realize “hivemind” is a perfectly acceptable internetism, but again, what are the chances?  Especially when two of the three conversationalists shouldn’t  even know the word, let alone what it means.  The laws of anti-chance simply don’t allow for this kind of randomness.

So if this isn’t just a coincidence (which it isn’t) what pattern are we seeing?  The obvious one is that people are concerned that social media promotes groupthink or the “hivemind.”  D’uh!  Take a look!  After you’ve been “awesome” and “amazing” on Facebook, the only other thing you can do is “Like” or “Share.”  There’s no icon for “Bugger off!”  The mere fact that people are mentioning “hivemind” in conversation tells us that, beyond the constant hype that social media is an eclectic gathering of all ideas — a virtual Classical Athens, if you will — there’s an uncomfortable awareness that this might not be strictly true.  People are beginning to worry that our cyber-social world is actually just an assortment of techno rich primitive tribes.  The concern is we are simply digital Cro-Magnons gathered around our backlit campfires with other members of our own group, who, by selection, share our values, opinions and ideas: no others need apply.

This is not a problem in itself.  Generally, like our heavy-browed ancestors, we prefer the security of the clan.  People have alwayshivemind been willing to adhere to the restrictive nature of a group (even a virtual one) in exchange for its safety.  Unfortunately, the by product of this adherence is a suspension of our individual egos to conform to the socio-ego of the tribe.  People are uneasy about this kind of subordination, even if they don’t fully understand it.  That’s why it’s coming up in unrelated conversations.

It’s no coincidence that I was told by three different people, in rapid succession, that social media is not all it’s cracked up to be.  Nor is it happenstance that they all agreed that the monolithic socio-ego of things like Facebook and Twitter are overpowering mere individuals.  The problem is they all used the same terminology – “hivemind.”  And that was no coincidence, either.

Animal Rights: So Very Wrong

dog2Where the hell is PETA when you need them?  Nowhere to be seen!  They’re probably going celebrity naked in the parking lot of some KFC in beautiful downtown New Zealand, protecting the chicken parts from the Colonel’s 11 secret herbs and spices.  I’m not saying these folks are useless (they’re so close nobody has to say it) but it strikes me that they’re pretty picky/choosy about which animal’s right they want to defend.  While they’re jet setting around the world, taking their clothes off, I’m walking through a park in North America, seeing dogs (yes, more than one, and on more than one occasion) with nail polish!  The kicker is these aren’t perpetually abused Paris Hilton purse puppies; they’re regular dogs who stay, fetch and pee on trees.  I’m not heavily into anthropomorphism, but I don’t care how you slice it: forcing a trusting companion to look like an idiot in public is a violation of its right to a modicum of dignity.  If PETA isn’t going to do its job, what good are they?

In general, I agree with the Animal Rights people.  We’re sharing this planet with all manner of other creatures, and just because we’re the dominant species, that doesn’t mean we have carte blanche to kick them.  We’re civilized people, for God sake.  Our basic tenet should be “Do unto others…etc. etc.” and that includes no chasing them with guns, harpoons or pointy sticks and cutting off their body parts for tacky trophies, trendy lunches or hocus-pocus medicine.  It’s been a number of centuries since we’ve had to beat our food over the head just to eat it, and it’s time we realized that.

By the same token, I’m really tired of has-been celebrities making headline out of high profile attempts to deny what can only be called food’s natural destiny.  Now hear this!  The stated purpose of billions of chickens on this earth is to be extra crispy.  It’s the truth.  To all the vegetarians out there, good on ya.  However, millions of us are not of the faith; therefore, that chicken has to die for our culinary sins.  What the Animal Rights crowd doesn’t understand is the relationship between we humans and that chicken is not much different from our relationship to the cabbage in the coleslaw or the disodium ginaphinate (or whatever?) in the buttermilk biscuits.  We’re not friends, and we haven’t betrayed a trust.  Trying to square peg this into a moral round hole is a substantial waste of time, energy and resources.

This ultimately brings us back to my encounter in the park with the oddly-decorated Canis Lupus Famillaris.  While the Animaldogs7 Rights crew have been prancing around the world in God’s underwear, reading the ethical riot act to anyone with a camera, all over North America, canines are being treated like crap.  It might not be SPCA-worthy, physical cruelty – but so what?  If you believe, as I do, that dogs are smarter than we give them credit for, it can`t be anything short of psychological abuse.  Dogs are not supposed to wear nail polish.  Nor are they supposed to wear jewelry, hats, coats, scarves, those stupid little socks or idiot reindeer antlers at Christmas.  (Okay, if you and your Chihuahua live at the South Pole, bundle him up for walkies, but otherwise it’s none of the above.)  Doing any of these things to an unsuspecting dog is breaking an ancient, sacred trust.

I’m not going to revisit tens of thousands of years of canine/human coexistence — there’s no need.  Over the centuries, dogs have given their masters unqualified trust, but in recent history, many of them are being repaid by being forced to look ridiculous for a few gratuitous grins or a funny Pinterest image.  I don’t know what these dogs are thinking, but you don’t have to be Cesar Millan to know it’s unethical to take advantage of a subordinate when you are in a position of power.  Yet, PETA (People for the ETHICAL Treatment of Animals) could give a rat’s bum for these designer dogs because it’s not sexy and it’s not trendy and it’s not oh-so-sensitive.  It’s just a mutt with a pirate hat and an eye patch.  PETA, you need to change your name or get out of the multinational worthy cause business!