A storm clod taking shape

(Author’s note, May 23, 2017: since I first wrote and published this post, U.S. President Donald Trump has fired now-former FBI director James Comey. He has offered several reasons for doing so, including to relieve the pressure he felt he was under on account of the FBI investigation into Russia’s meddling into last fall’s U.S. election to allegedly help his campaign. It’s been widely reported Trump told high-ranking Russian officials in the Oval Office the day after the firing that he felt relieved the pressure was off. Turns out it wasn’t, as subsequent events clearly showed. His firing of Comey may yet prove to have been a huge blunder for him, setting in motion fateful consequences. We’ll see. Anything, and I mean anything, can still happen. Trump will not let the investigations, finish, including the one now in the hands of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller.)

The definition of the word “terror” is easy enough: The Oxford dictionary defines it as “extreme fear.” Merriam-Webster defines it as “a state of intense fear.”

Some examples of how the word is used include, “a regime that rules by terror; bombings and other acts of terror; a campaign of terror against ethnic minority groups.”

But a suitable definition for the word “terrorism” is harder to come by. “The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims,” says Oxford.  “The systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion,” says Merriam-Webster. Continue reading →

Mirabella helped Grandpa in the potato patch last spring

Potatoes are a semi-hardy crop. You don’t have to wait until all risk of frost has passed, which is traditionally  the May 24^th long, holiday weekend here in Hope Ness on the Bruce Peninsula, and most of the rest of southern Ontario. I’ve planted my certified seed spuds as early as mid-April and ran into a frost warning at least once later that month after those two rows young plants had just started breaking through the ground. So, I covered them with a fairly thick blanket of straw and hoped for the best. The frost didn’t actually happen. I pulled the straw aside and later used it as mulch around those plants. That’s how, by chance, I happened to discover mulching your potatos with straw is a fool-proof way of avoiding the major insect pest of potato plants, the Colorado potato beetle. Those two rows remained totally bug-free, while my many other rows that weren’t straw-mulched got the usual invasion, necessitating the usual early morning inspection and, well, crushing, one bug at a time. I later found from an agricultural professor at the University of Guelph who I happened to interview on another topic, that, with the straw mulch, “you interrupted the life-cycle of the potato beetle.” So, ever since then, I’ve mulched my potatoes with straw and never had Colorado potato beetle problem, thus saving myself a lot of time and money spent over the years on the organic pesticide known as bacillus Thuringiensis.

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The whole world’s buzzing over this photo. It’s gone viral, as they say in cyberspace.

I confess I haven’t laughed so hard in, well, at least a year.  Continue reading →

Well, in a manner of speaking. He was in my head while I was in my garden.

My concerns about Donald Trump being elected President of the United States of America go back quite a while. I’ve written a fair number of blogs posted on this site over the past year. I’ve just organized them under a new category called The Trump Files.

I work a fairly large garden here at the end of Cathedral Drive, Hope Ness. I’ve often found my muse there during the growing season, as hoe in hand I hill my potatoes and spread straw to keep the potato bugs down. The hard work is good for the old brain, I guess.

The garden is now under snow now, of course, but I do what I can to stay alert, thoughtful, and well informed – like browse the on-line news, or take my good dog-friend, Buddy, out for a long walk in the crisp, cold winter air. Snowblowing the driveway with my trusty Massey-Ferguson 65 tractor in sub-zero temperatures is also pretty stimulating.

More than a year ago I started following the emergence of Donald Trump as an unlikely candidate for President of the U.S. He chose the Republican Party, sometimes referred to as the GOP (Grand Old Party). He used the populist approach, whipping up a certain small-c conservative segment of the American population by saying things he appeared to know instinctively would resonate with their fears, insecurities and prejudices. He was a proven reality-TV showman and knew how to get attention. Continue reading →

The Obamas – good people who deserve a Happy New Year and some good-old fashioned renewal time in 2017. All the best.

I happened to catch that part of Michelle Obama’s recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, when the outgoing First Lady of the United States said, “this is what not having hope looks like.” I knew right away what she meant; and so did a lot of you, I’m sure.

But there are millions of people in the U.S. who feel hopeful about the prospect of Donald Trump being formally inaugurated President on January 20 of the New Year and where that might lead. I daresay they are bound to be disappointed, perhaps terribly so. Continue reading →

(Author’s note: Kellyanne Conway cancelled her planned trip to Alberta just before President Trump’s inauguration Jan. 20)

Some memories are not faded with time.

I can still see him, with his charcoal suit, shirt and tie, close-cropped white hair and ruddy complexion, my old high-school history teacher Mr. Greason, pointing at a topographic map of North America he had pulled down over the blackboards at the front of the class. Continue reading →

This is our home. Its fate is in our hands.

The times are changing, to say the least, and how we in this and other countries, and our governments, respond to them, will make all the difference as the future unfolds.

I’m afraid as I write this two days before the U.S. election that country is about to make a terrible mistake, with consequences for the whole world.

I don’t relish the choice my American friends and family were left with; surely such a great country could have done better. But in the final analysis the decision should be, or should have been, clear enough.

At least here in Canada we listened to a message of hope and said “no” to one of hate just over a year ago and elected a “sunny ways” Liberal federal government. It remains to be seen still how our many challenges will be dealt with, but so far the spirit of good-will and, most of all, decency is still alive and well. Continue reading →