tony’s blog

A bad day last week. Ouch.

I emailed one son asking if he had photos of any disasters (for my website). He told me to look on the web, and said where. I said that wouldn’t work (copyright). He had an epy, said I was a lazy so-and-so, and should be doing it myself. “After all, you’re retired!”

Then I asked my revered wife if she could think of a good Bible quote showing we’re not going to hell. She had an epy and said I could perfectly well look in a Bible myself, and that I’m a lazy xxxx.

Then I went to another son’s website. I’d spent 2 hours trying to sort out a computer problem and failed, so I emailed him the files and asked him. He’d emailed an answer – yet another epy, saying I’m lazy AND stupid and should be able to sort this out for myself! (And didn’t tell me the answer.)

Tony 0, World 3.

Logic says: they can’t all be wrong. Either I’m lazy, or I ask too many questions, or I ask questions the wrong way. Or all of the above.

Difficult! I’m not lazy – tend to spend too LONG on things. Don’t know how to ask the questions differently – they look OK to me. And I don’t know how to generate less questions – there are so many things I don’t know, and want to know.

The only solution I can see is to dilute the problem. If I can find more people to answer my questions, each of them will get less questions. Right? Photos…my only camera-crazed friend is distracted at present (getting married)…must be someone around. Bible…shouldn’t be a problem, lots of Reverend friends. Computers…mm, that’s tough, must look around carefully. Graysie, possibly?  (Run, Grayzie!) Wish me luck…

Happily, I have found a slogan (thanks Roz) which is TOTALLY mood-congruent:

You must remember:  if the world didn’t suck – we would all fall off.  … Gk

The last trip oop north had an ominous portent – an email saying “the money has run out, so you can’t go up again until the fall”. OK, I know, psychiatry is not very important. And they’re increasing the use of traditional healers.

Huge snowstorm Monday, but Web check-in on Tuesday morning says “on time”. Weather in Attawapiskat looks bit nippy (-27C) so will wear carpet jeans. Arrive in Moosonee OK, but Trudy’s nice boarding-house is full (some conference) so stuck in the Polar Bear lodge. Ah well.

Busy morning Wed at the office, then smooth flight to Att … and wow! Blinding sun on snow, bright blue sky, your nose-hairs start freezing within 15 seconds – that’s cold. Fortunately no wind. Hump bags into back of hospital truck, get driven the kilometre to the hospital happily – to meet a very hostile glare at the entrance. “We’ve got no room for you!” …  “I told that women when she called, we’re full.” Stand there meekly at reception, with bags, nonplussed but immobile. There’s nowhere to go.

Wing Director Cecile arrives, flustered. “We really have no room. The apartment’s full of doctors, the nurses’ residence is full, …” Turns out some idiot brought TWO medical residents with them, and technicians are here to install a fibre-optic link (so we can do psychiatry from Kingston, cheaper). Continue to stand there, with bags.

Our mental health worker arrives at last. “Oh, you’re at the Hookimaw lodge, I booked you.” So call the truckdriver back, wait, load bags back into truck, get driven back down the road to the “lodge” (a set of portables riveted together), get bags, totter up gangway – into another very hostile glare, “We’ve got no room for you. Full.” But I’m booked in? No. Again stand there nonplussed. Large lady goes off into adjoining cubicle, shouts down phone angrily, comes back, repeats the unwelcome-message. I stand there. She softens – “You need somewhere?” – goes back into cubicle, more shouting, comes out, “You’re going to the Koostachin lodge: they’ve got room for one. And don’t let that idiot truck-driver take you to the wrong place – he took someone all the way out to the Kataquapit lodge the other day”

So call driver, wait ages, load bags into truck (good exercise this), get driven back up the road just past the hospital, we bang on door of house, old man finally appears and says … “We’ve got room in the tepee”, pointing to it. Tony starts obediently to shamble towards it, and both men roar with laughter at white stupidity. Turns out there’s another portable, spacious, warm, well-furnished, even milk in the fridge. Mind you, the door-lock was frozen solid, and when Tony grabbed the brass knob his skin froze stuck to it – shame he lost his gloves. And wifi internet! Tony heaves a prayer of thanks, drops bags, grabs computer, strolls back past beautiful huskies to the hospital (it IS cold – look at that husky curled up against a snowbank sun-bathing!), and starts his clinic as though nothing had happened.

Lots of patients. Memorable were a pretty 14-year-old with DISASTROUS acne, and a terminal but quite happy alcoholic dementia, who’s going to keep the nurses busy for the next 10 years. Good luck, ladies. Work until 9pm, trudge back (it’s got colder, the snow squeaks really loudly), discover rasperries have “bled” all over my food cooler, microwave everything in sight (long time since breakfast in Dundas), remember to hang sopping wet towel in bedroom (it’s bone-dry well before morning), sleep safe and sound, but right next to the loud furnace.

Up in more blinding freezing sunshine, marvel at row of huge trucks outside my trailer (there’s less than 2 kilometres of road in this entire town. Guess they’re for the ice road.) Patients until 2pm, then the receptionist triumphantly announces the plane is delayed 90mins … long enough to miss the connection at Timmins. So chat up the nice medical residents (one turns out to have been qualified 5 years – oops), sit in the doc’s quarters doing email for a short while – oh, truckdriver arrives to take us early “in case the plane turns around”. (It stops on its way north to Peawanuck, and on the way back. But if it’s really late it might skip that trip.) Difficult – I leap about emailing and phoning to change my next flight, booking motel in Timmins, cancelling Gerry’s ride home from the airport – and the truckdriver threatens to leave without me. And one resident chooses to sit on the back of the truck (at -25) rather than sit on my lap. Right.

So we spend 2 hours in the airport hut while the plane does go up – but the conversation is animated, and I meet the old RC priest again (he’s been here for nearly 40 years, and is still working hard) and the bishop. And the plane finally takes us to Moosonee (women’s olympic hockey match on the TV – not as accurate passing as the men, I think?) and on to Timmins. “Our” plane to Trunno is just leaving, still has its door open, but we aren’t allowed on (regulations.) Everything in the airport is closed and dark, but we talk our way into sharing someone’s taxi at the door. The resident decides not to join me for supper (beginning to see a pattern here), but nice surprise – I’ve got a private palace! The motel (seedy and huge) has 107 rooms in rows, and ONE behind on its own like a little cottage – mine! Well worth the half-mile walk from reception.

Starving again and it’s 9pm and I’m alone, don’t fancy sitting in a restaurant, so order pizza (and eat it all, oh dear). Notice with surprise that the snow I trod into the carpet isn’t melting … it’s salt! They must have salt-morons here too, just like Hamilton hospitals, who leave huge piles of salt on each doorstep. Hoover it up, feeling very virtuous, then watch “The Bourne Identity” again (love that actor). Hang up TWO huge sopping-wet towels (both dry after a few hours), and sleep in blissful quiet.

Up with the alarm, stroll over for my receipt and breakfast pastry, notice I’m in a shirt and open jacket cos it’s so MILD here (-14C – I’ve been in Canada too long). Make tea – good job I brought those extra tea-bags. Chinese taximan arrives, I explain we’re going to “Cedar Meadows” to pick up Monica (the “resident”) en route, he gets alarmed and asks repeatedly “Is dat matter?” And his radio dispatcher is asking loudly if he’s collecting Dr. Carr. Huge confusion, I can’t hear his words). Turns out some other lady, Martha, called from Cedar Meadows and then left before her taxi arrived. Pick up a happy Monica (nice new hotel, beautiful enclosed grounds with moose and elk etc), get to airport, desks are all closed! Ah yes, plane is “delayed” to 12.30pm – exactly the same time as the NEXT flight to Trunno, what a coincidence …

This time the restaurant’s open, we drink endless tea and get chatting. She’s from India and trained at Mac, and reminds me strongly of Anita (the girl whose disasster inspired me to start the anti-Dawkins website), so we talk about this. She’s intelligent and staunchly agnostic (didn’t realize one could be – I thought they were all vague), so Tony picked up some interesting ideas for the website. And who knows, maybe gave her pause for thought? She’s been an ER physician for 5 years, and hasn’t had a nervous breakdown yet. Impressive. Try in vain to call Gerry AGAIN re arrival time. And finally we’re off, at last. As last month, the plane is full but the stewardess has no less than three seats reserved for her (2A, 2C and the one by the door) as well as the servery – and she hardly sits down at all! Talk to her about this – after all, she’s the only one not paying through the nose for this flight – and she explains the union negotiated this deal after a long fight. Hastily back down – have already discovered the passenger I’m jammed up against is a union steward. Nuf said.

Trunno – stand in snow for a while, then guess Gerry is not coming – call him – yep! He didn’t check his phone messages, came 2 hours ago and left in disgust. Shame. Get ride with interesting Paki taxi-driver, who writes poems about the Bible, and tells me Pakistan is WAY superior to India in freedom of speech and lack of racism. Road is treacherous, and he breaks off to say “ooh, look!” and here is a lady FACING us on the highway coming towards us. She skids gracefully into the central median (a concrete wall) and we miss her. Traffic is sparse … maybe she panicked and jammed on the anchors?

Well, it’s been an exhausting trip, but fun. Wonder if it will be the last? Have written a stroppy email to the Band pointing out no-one is now legally responsible for the patients. Ah well, I feel it is 20 years well-spent. GK

Well, administrators are clever, eh? You visit Moosonee monthly for 20 years. Then you get a message saying “We only have funding for 10 visits per year.” You object, and are told “Nonsense, it’s always been like that.” Then you get an email “No more visits until July” … why? … oh, they counted the June30-July2 visit in BOTH financial years. Of course.

So maybe small-plane fun is coming to a close? Ah well, it was indeed fun. I did web-check-in today for Timmins, and the forecast is “Attawapiskat Wed MORNING -27C”. Wonder what the night temp was? I’m wearing my carpet jeans …

Computers are still fun. With much help from Chris, I battled for a MONTH to rescue my Linux system after it crashed (cos I let it run out of memory during a massive upgrade). Huge problems. Efforts stymied by “Your linux is incompatible with these upgrades” … hell, I’m trying to upgrade! Finally we realized: it had crashed after upgrading itself but BEFORE upgrading the boot-up. So I was booting into the old linux and thinking I was in the new. Duh.

I also like the way that my printers act just like my dog. After printing something, they sit and lick their chops loudly for a minute or two. Something to do with using up as much ink as possible, I think.

The Hebrew-Saturday-breakfast guys are great, but the Hebrew is baffling. May I quote an entire sentence from our book? “Note that the accent meteg is not to be confused with the identically-written accent silluq.” No indeed, by Jove, perish the thought.

Matt continues to have fun, too. The idiotic management erected a stop-sign in the middle of his building-site … and keep on erecting it, each time it gets “accidentally” flattened by Matt’s crew with the gigantic zoom-boom. He hadn’t realized quite how habitual this was becoming, until the z/b driver said one day “Hey Matt, I’ve got a few minutes spare, want me to take out the stop sign?”

And tidying out rooms (Vic’s bedroom) is nostalgic fun. That old ‘electric-plasma-lamp’ we bought Tim still works! I donated it to the rhythm-guitarist’s teenage son, and his dad loved it too. Thanks Vic.

And the world continues to amaze. Went to a fund-raising dinner for the church youth groups, and the teenage girls were wearing Shakespearian costume – as current fashion! (You know, skin-tight black tights and bum-freezer waisted jackets.) Shakespeare had them on men, but they do OK on the ladies.

And Australia has outlawed small breasts! I kid you not. Pix of small-breasted women “could encourage child porn”. See. What next, I wonder?

What are the pervasive mistakes that the world has made? Things that go on and on making life worse for everyone? Here are my favourites – please add your own.

The “qwerty” keyboard was invented to make typing difficult! Ladies were typing too fast on the punch-card machines. It’s made life difficult for 100 years. The ideal keyboard was invented in 1928, but is getting nowhere.

The music “staff” was developed by singing monks. They needed to know how much breath to spend on each note (hence “breve”, “semi-breve” etc), but weren’t too concerned about the pitch – they already knew the tune. So we have musical notation with notes on lines and on spaces (but no relation to black notes and white notes), no use of colour, antique “key-signatures”, and it takes a semi-genius to sight-read most music.

We can’t even write a date! When was 9.11.01? Americans simply cannot believe that anyone would write differently from them, so maybe the rest of the world will have to change?

In my childhood you picked up the phone and waited, and Auntie Connie on the local switchboard said “Number please” (and then “Hallo, dear!”). When the dial was invented, it seemed logical to put ALL the alphabet on it in order, so we have (over here) “mno 6″. Which means that no-one knows how to dial the bus company, who advertize their number as “GET-ON-GO” – are they zeroes or sixes? (The Brits have solved this one.)

A Viennese neurologist, Freud, noted that his anxious patients were neurotic about their penises being too small. Not having the internet, he didn’t realize this was normal, so he concluded that neuroses are all rooted in sexual fears! Two generations of earlier psychiatrists had noticed that demented men masturbate, and (again not realizing it’s normal) concluded that masturbation causes dementia. (We now know it’s caused by watching TV.)

Around 1600 AD a philosopher, Hobbes, rejected the mediaeval idea that man is qualitatively different from animals (men can make conscious decisions, animals can’t). He recognized that there is only a quantitative difference. So he concluded that men can’t make free decisions!!

Similarly, around 1960 Germaine Greer (et al) rejected the double-standard (it’s OK for men to be loud drunk and sexual, but not women). So she decided that women should be like men!

OK, so much for the Universe. Tony went off north again this week. He consulted the web, which said “Highs in Kashechewant: Monday (today) +1C, Tuesday -20C, Wednesday -19C, Thursday -23C” … apparently they knew I was coming? So out with the carpet jeans and woolly shirts.

Wednesday morning seeing patients in Moosonee, a worker comes in and says “Hey, we’re DRIVING to Kash, wanna come?” So up the “ice road” for the first time. I always imagined a road over the lake (the ice freezes several feet thick), but no! They cut a wide path through the trees, bulldoze snow into the cracks and crevices, and then use huge tractor-trailer water-tankers to spread water over the snow to freeze, repeatedly, like a Zamboni. Eventually you have an enormous endless “slide” of ice, varying from 10-40 feet wide, running 200 miles (up to the diamond mine). Occasionally we drove down onto and across a wide river, but mostly it was dead flat gleaming snow (blue sky and sunshine), with straggly small trees often only 6-10 feet tall. No wildlife – I guess at -20C they have better places to go? Must say I didn’t envy our driver when she got out to take a pee.

In this remoteness care is needed. A young man got his welfare cheque (high-light of the month here) on Wednesday, drank it all, cruised off along the river alone on his skidoo, and then decided to sleep, for the last time. The skidoo was fine.

The coastal communities are all less than 100km apart, all around 1000 inhabitants, but have curiously different cultures. This one is quite antinomian. Ground-floor windows get broken unless they are boarded up. The community got a new school bus (hooray for the government), which lasted a month until the kids set fire to it. It’s gone now. A family bequeathed a “jungle-gym” to the school in memory of their son – it lasted 2 weeks. Why are the other communities so much less destructive?

Home life is fun, and we’re planning ye olde familye getawaye. We liked the opening line of the British passport service: “Everyone’s unique. Let’s keep it that way!” Vic continues to slave her fingers to the bone at UoG. She had a lecture at 3pm – when Tony said he would come over for breakfast, she messaged back “Yes, but will that be before or after 3pm?”

Also amusing. Walking Ben, Tony came to a small building labelled “Dental Surgery” with a 10-foot pile of earth piled outside it. Now that’s what I CALL a root canal. Tony picked up his container and shook it to see if there were any sweeteners inside it. There weren’t, then, cos the lid came off and 3,000 tiny white pills sparkled all over the purple carpet. Pills kept appearing from nowhere over the next few days.

Tony’s ladies are mastering Bridge. The bidding last week went (NS have 90 points towards rubber, dealer is South):
1D, pass, pass, (Tony) 2C
pass, pass, 2D, 3C
pass, 4C!, (our hostess) “Wajja mean, FOUR CLUBS?? Gimme back that date square!”
To her credit, she also bid 4D and they made it.

From the Middle East: the Talmud includes the idea of Purgatory . Bad Jews may go to Gehinnom – but after a while they’ll get reprieved. There was some dissension over this. Some objected that good circumcised Jews COULDN’T go to Gehinnom. So an ingenious Rabbi announced that angels would replace the foreskin of really bad Jews (using ones from babies who had died before circumcision), to allow them to enter Gehinnom.

And Randy (who was a missionary in Pakistan) was asked by a friend to “read” the inscription woven into his beautiful expensive Persian rug. He explained that he could only read the letters, he wouldn’t know the language, but agreed to try. He slowly and laboriously sounded out “Ee-ankee – goo – hoome”. GK

[Zamboni  = machine which smooths the ice with water between hockey sessions]

Growing old and spastic has many parts. One is fashion (lack of) – Tony is now the ONLY person he knows with a handkerchief, and is viewed very oddly when he uses it (Sue is appalled – “Cough into your sleeve like everyone else!”). He saw “Avatar” and liked the *slightly* elongated humanoids – and realized they must look truly alien to modern 250-lb Americans.

Another part is of course memory. After searching his computer for ages, Tony gave up and re-wrote his favourite rice-pudding recipe for Vic. When he came to save it, he thought for a moment where it should go … and yep! There it already was from the last time he wrote it.

Yet another is spast. At Timmins airport Tony got a “random search”, and was obliged by a 6′8″ security officer (I asked him) to put ALL the contents of his pockets in a tray. Tony carries a LOT in his pockets when travelling. Then the nice security man assumed the tray was empty, whisked it into the air, and scattered all Tony’s belongings all over the airport. “Nngh-Nngh-Nngh!”

Great when it’s someone else. Tony put Vic on the bus to Long Branch (or sunnink). The driver took her money, gave her a ticket, gave her change, and she said “You do stop at Long Branch, don’t you?” He looked at her in alarm. “Oh, if you’re only going to Long Branch I’ve charged you too much!” So he took back the change, took back the ticket, printed her a new ticket, gave her new change, thought for a moment, and said “Wait – no, I don’t stop at Long Branch, this is the Express”! – took back the change and ticket, and gave her her money back, much to the joy of the impatient line of waiting passengers. (She caught the next bus, and survived.)

And sometimes very fortunate that Tony is getting slower. The inoffensive man in front of him at the food checkout paid for his fruit by credit card. The total cost was $1.23. We were in the Express lane. A younger Tony might well have caused a disturbance.

Hey, I can still do it! Roz wanted teeny batteries charged for Jake’s toy. Tony hasn’t built an electronic gadget for 10 years, and was seriously considering junking all his stuff. Whee! We now have a variable-constant-current charger (0.2 -20mA) running off an old computer power supply. And it has a “visual meter” – four identical LEDs in a row, passing 0.5mA, 2mA, 10mA, and the charging current, so by comparison you can estimate the charging rate.

Yeah, well, sounds great, and it charged Jake’s batteries OK – but the toy didn’t work! Bother.

Technology still fascinates. Roz accidentally emptied the colour cartridge on Tony’s printer. He refilled it, and the printer observed sourly “cartridge in channel one contains non-HP ink”!! Hey, if I want to run my printer on horse-piss, that’s freedom, ennit? And Chris equally sourly noted that “Ubuntu” (name of new Linux distribution) is an ancient tribal word which means “can’t install Debian”. (Sorry, it’s an in-joke, but very funny.) And Sylvia has a blog!! Whoopee.

And church continues to stimulate (partly the pleasure of seeing Roz AND Sue wearing jewellery made by Daneille!) Why did Plonker-John say “One whose sandals I am not worthy to unfasten”? Well, guess what you do immediately after you unfasten someone’s sandals? … You clean them, and carry them around until your master wishes to put them on again – cos you’re his foot-slave, aren’t you! Given the ubiquity of horse and donkey poo, and the total absence of street-sweeping machines, I guess that was a fairly lowly job. GK

Hey, someone found me a name for a new concept – “pseudo-encroachment”!

Suppose you build a house on a remote unused field, and enjoy the peaceful view for years. Then others come along and build THEIR houses, and you’ve lost your lovely isolation and quiet. Did they “take it away from you”, steal it? Do they owe you compensation? No. They just did what you did.

In various parts of Canada native people are complaining of this. White men “took away” their hunting grounds, their fishing grounds, their solitude, and should pay them. But didn’t we just do the same as they did originally – cruise in and make ourselves at home? (Yeah, I realize it gets more complicated than that.)

Tony’s still travelling to James Bay every month – but sometimes it’s hard work. November was foggy and humid – we got to Timmins, nice clear weather there but all flights north cancelled! A curious reason. You have to have TWO available destinations before an aircraft may take off. Although Timmins and Moosonee were clear, nowhere else was! So no-one was permitted to fly.

So taxi to town, stay in a motel overnight – smelt like Sue’s clients, and called the “Bon-Air. Ha! But my room did have a flatscreen TV the size of a football field, and friendly construction workers were drinking beer EVERYWHERE. Then up at 5am to be at the airport an hour in advance for the 7am flight (not difficult – all the construction workers were already running their diesel trucks just outside the window to warm up). This flight was also cancelled of course. Aargh! “Well, can you book me on the 10am flight?” – no, sorry, the clerks won’t be in for another hour …

The 10am flight is delayed to 11am, to noon, to 1pm, to 2pm … it never did take off. Another day gone … but by huge good fortune Tony heard some short guy walk through the airport cafeteria saying “Anyone want a ride to Moosonee?” He had flown his charter plane down to bring someone to Timmins, and was flying back, so Tony bought a ride on “Wabusk Air” – it means polar bear. (The pilot claimed his “alternate destination” was Toronto!) Of course no flights north from Moosonee (fog). The charter co-pilot (who was AT LEAST 17 years old) kindly drove me to the Mental Health office back door. It’s locked. They’re on the 2nd floor. There’s no bell. You can’t walk round the building (fences). I thought of throwing stones at the windows, was sure they’d break, and could see the headlines “Maverick Shrink Destroys Government Property – Deprives Natives of Service”. Happily I saw a police cruiser passing, flagged them down (one recognized me), got them to radio base to phone upstairs, and Karen came down to open the door.

So work, sleep in Moosonee, work. Still no snow, in December! And no email: there is wifi here but nobody (cross my heart it’s true, nobody, not even the Director) is allowed access to it, because of the “security risk”. There’s also plug-in internet, but with such strong firewalls that you have to phone for “permission” before you can get anywhere. Aren’t hospitals wonderful?

Finally get onto the evening plane home … and it sits on the tarmac for half an hour “because another plane is coming in”! thereby missing the last connection from Timmins to Tronna. Bollocks. So Tony rushes through the empty airport ahead of a whole planefull of angry people, grabs the check-in desk phone, and calls Air Canada to book himself on the morning flight before it fills up. Sits there for 30 minutes waiting, “PLEASE hold -your call is important to us …”, hoping they won’t lock him in and close the airport. Finally nice lady answers, consults her computer, and says “Sorry sir, I CAN’T rebook your flight, because it was booked on-line!” Tony has violent desire to strangle her, chokes it back, explains he’s sitting in a deserted airport for half-an-hour desperate for her help. Impasse.

Finally Tony has to BUY another ticket. She says it’s $980 one-way, Tony has another epy, she finds a cheaper flight $250, relief, buy it. Then call Gerry to say don’t meet the plane – too late, he’s gone, and forgotten his cell-phone, will spend an hour waiting fruitlessly at Tronna. Call hotel and book in. Call taxi. Stagger outside into freezing dark, find taxi waiting and get in, but it’s waiting for 2 passengers who are STILL on hold to Air Canada! Wait 20 mins, get other taxi, collapse in hotel at 10pm, take a brief supper as they close the restaurant, yuk, totter to bed.

Up at 8am (I thoughtfully DIDN’T book myself on the early flight), and no breakfast – I’ll have all day in the airport, betcha. Back to the dreaded airport, line up, nice lady looks at me with concern – “did you book?” Tony feels neck muscles tighten. “No, sorry, you’re not on this flight. And it’s full!” Tony clutches counter in desperation, tells of half-hour phone spast … and realizes he’s at the wrong desk, trying to fly back to Moosonee! Phew. Ground steadies under his feet. The airport caff lady says “Wow – you look like you had a bad night!”, and is appalled that Tony’s eating apple-pie and tea for breakfast – “I’ll tell your wife!” – apparently sausage, egg, fries and french toast are much healthier. Eat at a table next to a young native mum with a 3-DAY-old baby lying peacefully on the breakfast-table wrapped in a “moss-bag” – it looks exactly like what English old ladies used to keep their knitting in, but a little larger. Adoring family members visit in relays and take photos.

Finally all is well. Lots of apologies to Gerry, fetch Ben from Rozzie’s, and life gets back on track. But do I really want to do all this again?  Especially now you’re not allowed to wear underwear on the plane …

I shouldn’t complain. Another passenger, Shelley, explained that her husband’s helicopter hit an electric cable and crashed. He couldn’t make the emergency transmitter work, couldn’t get reception on his cell-phone, dragged his mangled body 100′ to a rise but phone still wouldn’t work, dragged himself 300′ to the railway line and waved frantically at the daily train – which sailed straight past – dragged himself to the hydro pylon and found it had a phone (a few do). She was lucky – the survival rate from ‘copter crashes is 15%.

Also, the long trip allowed me to solve my first Sudoku at “fiendish” level.

Home is so nice! I walk Ben and he leaps ahead for joy – and I remember how Vic chuckles with glee when he does this. We put up Christmas trees – bit quiet with NO children to enjoy it, but very cosy and pretty. And looks like I will be enjoying home for a while. Despite 4 months of intensive emails and expensive phone calls, Guyana did not get its act together and make space for us to teach there in the Spring. Maybe we’ll try again in September. Didja ever read about the Jonestown massacre on the Wiki? Wow.

Am still pursuing the moon’s brightness cpw billiard balls, with Sexulin my physics friend. Watch this space. Meanwhile, on very cold days why is there a BRONZE shade around part of the horizon? Also, have established contact with Sylvia in darkest Devon, and am persuading her to read the family blogs *and start one herself*. All together now …

And Happy Nude Year to all of you.  GK

Everyone is eventually left behind by technology – partly through ignorance and partly distaste. Bertha and Jean never got to computers. For Tony it’s going to be the cell-phone. Once you lose touch, new developments slip past you – texting, sending photos, chat, tethering, etc. Ah well. At stag bridge this week my Luddite resistance was strengthened: Art responded to half-a-dozen phone calls during the evening, and it was a bit like playing bridge on a bus.

But I was a bit shattered when Vic picked up my iTunes gift card, pressed a few buttons on her phone, and bingo – I have the track I’ve been wanting since 1957! The title, “Bamboo Tamboo”, turns out to have a really interesting meaning (see Wikipedia, if it hasn’t gone broke by now. What is all that about?)

Then I got reassured again. Walking Ben along the rail trail I met a man who used to train-hop along it to school, in the ‘good old days’! (I’ve always wanted to ride a freight train.)

Stupidity continues to rule. A huge poster in Hamilton depicts a thoughtful coffee-coloured man saying “When I train – I am FREE”. Oh yeah? Duh. So today’s contest is: how to advertise your stupidity. Entries must be short, and have a “rider” cementing the low IQ. So far we have:
Vote for George Bush … twice! (Tony)
Buy a Hummer … and run your kid one city block to school in it. (Chris)
Buy unsalted butter … then notice margarine tastes just as good. (Tony)
Male Canadian labourer with university degree asks “Which are bigger, the 640 forms or the 700s?” [Matt explains they're millimetres, metric measure.] … “What’s ‘metric’ mean?” (Matt)

Mind you, Tony has his moments. He drove to the city centre, parked the car, and asked the car-park attendant where the nearest pawn shop was. “I really couldn’t say, sir” the man asnwered quickly, and turned away. Tony shrugged, walked on, and asked two passing policemen – who gazed at him in delight! “Oooh, you wanna porn shop! Wow! Well now …” Embarrassed Tony had to correct the pronunciation, and they directed him (still laughing) to the “pahn shop”.

Returning to the car-park, the attendant was suddenly interested and muttered discreetly “Did you find what you wanted, Sir?” Tony assured him that all had gone very well …

And my German dictionary notes “matt: weak, weary, dull, dim”. Bad luck Roz!

The Greek NT continues to provoke thought. Ever wondered where the camel-and-eye-of-needle thing comes from? Turns out it’s the same verb. “… as easy for a camel to [push-through-into] the eye of a needle, as a rich man into Heaven”.

And I realized why Jesus gave such a strange response to the desperate plea of “Kyrie eleison” from the blind men, asking them “What do you want me to do for you?”  They were asking everyone else for MONEY! They’d done so for years. There was never any hope of anything else – blind, you can do nothing at all. Unbelievably, they met Him and suddenly dared imagine something far better.

The Talmud also yields insights. The Rabbis declared that “An eye for an eye” clearly meant money compensation! The reasoning? “Suppose a blind man puts out someone’s eye. Clearly he cannot give an eye for an eye. So obviously Moses meant an eye’s-worth-of-money for an eye.” … One is delighted that they stopped people gouging out eyes for revenge, but their reasoning would be at home on Capitol Hill.

And it turns out the Christian Horizons case did NOT establish that charities can’t choose Christian staff. The fired lady was a Christian! For the moment, the legal message is: you can’t quibble about the *quality* of the Christians you hire.

Hats off to Sharon Geimer. She was 13 and had sex with Roman Polanski while he took photos of her semi-nude (with her mother’s permission but not presence) nearly 40 years ago. She went on public TV last year in California and asked the Crown to STOP pursuing Roman for his past action, saying “you’ve ruined his life for 30 years – doesn’t anyone forgive anybody any more?”

When you think about it, no, they don’t. One of the less fortunate messages of the feminist movement was “never forgive any man ANYTHING” – pursue it for ever. Sad, eh?

Listened to an address on “Restorative Justice” – sort of mixture of naivete, Freudian “unconditional love”, and humanist faith that people are nice really. You put victim and perp together in a “healing circle” and they work it all out of their systems. Er – let’s not close the jails just yet?

I’m reminded of another story in the Talmud. Nearly 2000 years ago two eminent Rabbis announced that, if they were elected to a Sanhedrin, they would NEVER pronounce the death penalty. “In that case”, remarked a wiser Rabbi, “they will fill Jerusalem with murderers.”

Which made me think. Where does the Bible mention “unconditional love”? How does it square with “IF you will obey my commandments, I will be your God”? Or with “IF you do not forgive your debtors, your Father in Heaven will not forgive you”?

Another thought: “Don’t go to bed angry” is wrong? You don’t have to thrash it all out before you sleep. No, it should be “Don’t wake up angry”. (Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof – let’s not bother with yesterday’s, forget it.)

Incidentally, the fledgeling anti-Dawkins website has begun – http://www.GodOrNot.org – ALL comments welcome, however rude.

In case you’re interested …

2500 BC:
World’s first written languages appear, in the “fertile crescent” (SE Europe, N Africa), called “Semitic” (descendants of Shem). Characters are pictographs (sketches, e.g. of a ram)

2000 BC:
Characters are cuneate (little wedges), and syllabic – each char stands for a whole syllable, so Pah, Pee, Paw, Poo all look different (as in Cree script today).
Three groups of dialects appear:
(east) Assyrian, Babylonian (will form the Babylonian Talmud)
(south) Ugaritic etc
(northwest = Syria, Palestine) Canaanite

1000 BC:
Characters are of wiggly lines, and are “alphabetic” – each stands for a sound (consonant), so P looks same in any word. Vowels are omitted or vestigial.
Ugaritic develops into Arabic and Aramaic (spoken by Jesus)
Canaanite develops into Phoenecian (earliest) and Hebrew.

500 BC:
Jews return from exile in Babylon, abandon old scripts, adopt today’s square script.

100 BC:
Dead Sea scrolls written.

100 AD:
Jews adopt Babylonian Talmud as most accurate Old Testament.

300 AD:
Hebrew dies out as spoken language of Palestine, Aramaic is used for additions (“Gemara”) to the Mishnah.

900 AD:
Masoretes (“tradition-preservers”) add vowels etc to preserve spoken form of Hebrew OT – as dots, because the actual characters are considered too sacred to alter.

1900 AD:
Hebrew is gradually resurrected as spoken language of Palestine by Zionist enthusiasts, from various sources with much debate about pronunciation etc. Israel’s official languages today are modern Hebrew and Arabic.

What would you do without me? GK

PS: Dilbert defines “Happiness is the happy feeling you get between the time you achieve something and the time you tell your wife what you did”

After 20 years new things still happen. Tony arrived in Attawapiskat, got the key, installed himself in the 2nd bedroom in the docs’ apartment (someone was using the other), put all his food in the fridge, freshened up, and started his clinic. Then a VERY flustered native receptionist interrupted him – and explained he had to move house, NOW. The young blonde family doctor in the other bedroom had refused to share the apartment with a man!

So at the end of the clinic (7pm) he packed up his stuff tiredly, emptied the fridge, waited half an hour for the idiot who’d gone off with the hospital truck key to return it, and got driven through the mud to the “Kataquapit Inn”. This was primitive (10+ men, one shower) but friendly. … But they were construction workers, and they all got up loudly at 5am! (and it’s still pitch dark up here at 7.30am.) Aargh. Ah well, it’s only for one night.

So, up, repack everything, morning clinic … and fog. Snow on the ground, warm weather, fog, planes can’t land, marooned! No no, not back there again?  Please!

At this point Tony got rescued by the sympathetic Wing Director. She explained the old Nurses Home was closed for mould removal, which had been done, but they were awaiting air retesting to prove it was habitable. Ah! Tony kindly volunteered to test it for them, and slept FINE. No hot water, but who cares? And next day at the last moment the pilot braved the fog, and we ESCAPED! (Blonde and all. Wonder if she will be there next month?)

Interesting take on “residential schools” from my landlord in Moosonee, who survived one. He feels they were very bad for PARENTS – who lost their daily routine with their children, found life empty, and gravitated to drink.

Tony thinks that US news media are so unbelievably biassed because there aren’t enough foreigners in that country to expose false reports (e.g. that Iraq has been a wonderful success).  This idea received some support – a website notes that the percentage of passport holders in the US is about the lowest in the world, way less than 20%! They don’t go abroad. So it’s easy to tell them lies.

Progress! An elderly man spoke at our church for Remembrance Day (showing photos and shell cases) and presented the wars as a tragedy, a waste of life, a “war to end all wars” that failed. Amen. And Tony realized the other day how nice it is that we DON’T know who’s died! All those kids you were at school with, at uni, at work, the girls you dated, the neighbours’ kids – isn’t it nice that you can still imagine them alive? Thanks Lord for not making us omniscient.

While we’re on philosophy, have you noticed how humans DECIDE to dislike things? When the dog drinks loudly, or your partner farts, or the truck ahead moves into your lane, or you rest half an hour waiting for sleep, none of these things are painful in themselves. We can CHOOSE to make them important, to “acquire a distaste” for them. I remember my mother-out-law working herself into a frenzy over the planes flying over Richmond – but I hardly noticed them, except when their radios operated the remote-controlled curtain-drawing mechanism! And how sad that so many widows really miss their late husband’s snores – having complained about them bitterly for decades. (Anti-snoring operations are now big business here. So are sleeping pills – cures for impatience.) C.S.Lewis notes somewhere that he learnt from a friend to delight in the strangeness of new and foreign experiences … instead of insisting on a cheeseburger and fries in Bangkok.

Insanity continues to rule. The bed next to Ruth was occupied by a girl just 18. She had gone down to the basement at a friend’s house on her birthday, and as she reached the bottom step all her friends leapt out of the darkness shouting “Surprise!” It worked so well that she fell off the last step and broke various bones in her foot. Ouch.

A group of west-coast women decided to sue the Olympic Games committe because women ski-jumping is not included – and it’s NOT FAIR. (The Canadian judge agreed!) The Engineering Department at McMaster built a new block and decided that THEY didn’t need planning engineers … and the $8m block has had to be left unfinished, after spending $82m already to rectify their errors.

And German continues to please. The verb for shouting really loudly is “belten”! And our numerous non-accented prefixes come from German (e.g beHOld, beHAve, beGOTten, beLITtle, beHInd). And better still, Tony has resolved a 30-year mystery about “ph” – why does English have weird words like “telePHone”, while every other language has “telefon” or similar? Well, it’s from Hebrew (or its predecessors): “Pe” can be hard or soft, in which case it makes the “f” sound – they didn’t have a letter F. Maybe Tony can solve the other mystery – why our letter “i” has a meaningless dot over it? GK

Wow! It’s fall. The rail trail looks like a Disney fairy path, and the tree at the corner is a ball of fire. Yes it will be gone soon, but it’s amazing! Being back in Canada was a bit of a shock – but got less so when I remembered that my car lies (it says the a/c is off when it’s on) – no wonder I was cold. My hair was too long, I broke a tooth the day I got back (thank goodness it wasn’t before), my finger got infected, my computer corrupted my diary file…but I survived. Having no furnace encourages one to keep moving, and also sit near the electric heater … which was OK until Chuck arrived for our Eco Energy inspection, and pumped ALL the warm air out of our house with a huge fan. This was supposed to prove something.

German is still fun, and explains a lot. “Hassle” comes from hasslich [nasty], and I love spass ["your thing"]. Schichte means layers, and Geschichte means history – work that one out. And we started Hebrew lessons last week, which looks like being great fun. Meanwhile my English is in decline – I couldn’t remember how to spell ‘embarrass’, and what the hell is the opposite of viscous? And Greek is still thought-provoking. Ever wondered why Jesus said “in order that they may see and not perceive, that they may hear and not understand”? I’m not sure, but in at least one gospel it sounds like He’s saying “in order that the scripture may be fulfilled [Isaiah], that they may see and not perceive …” etc (Matt 13:13).

Memories of Der Schweiz still please. Apparently house-moving is nationally coordinated: you HAVE to move to your new house in a certain calendar month, so no-one can hold up the chain. The feeling when the gondola coming down the mountain moved over a precipice and you were suddenly looking down a 600′ drop to very small cows below. Public toilets consisting of a huge shiny stainless-steel funnel, big enough to hide in (so your aim doesn’t matter), with a pull-down seat suspended from the ceiling! (All spotless, of course.) “Straightening” Tim’s bike bracket – we went along to a friendly shop-front car-mender, borrowed his hammer, Tony gave it the first bash … and Tim yelps “No, no, STOP!” Turns out the bracket was aluminum, not iron, and Tony had almost flattened it. And airports: how can there have been TWO separate flights to “Hurghada” within one hour? I’ve never even heard of the place. But the malteser milk-shake was ace.

Matt continues to spice my life with nice stories. Like Zidane (black french footballer). In a Euro cup match in Italy, the Itie goalie boasted before the match (on TV) that he could easily stop any penalty shots by Zidane, because “he always shoots at the same place”. So Zidane commented gruffly (onTV) “This time I shoot at his face, and score off the rebound.” And he did! Jacob Jervis continues to lead a charmed life in the army – the guy next to him managed to load two bullets into the gun at once, and it exploded, giving Jacob a nasty BRUISE on his neck. Wow! And a nice sequel: his ma wrote him a letter and put hearts and kisses on it – and Jake received it while out on safari, with MUCH ragging from the men (who thought it was from his sweetheart). So he showed them – and there was interest over his ma’s bible quotes, and the CO ended up asking him to speak to the men about his religion! Boggle. God really can work everywhere.

And Canada still blows my mind. A notice in the Christian bookshop over the Bible shelves says “Incredibly, people have been stealing bibles, so we have been obliged to install video surveillance”. The incidence of obesity (BMI 25+) is now 60%, and diabetes is rampant. Tony bought aerosol cans of “expanding-foam” goo to fill air leaks in the house – and found on the label “Product will set and permanently seal the can 2 hours after first use: expect single use only.” (Now that’s REAL built-in obsolescence.) Tony called Sue and bleated “Where’s my German book?”, and she explained that it was … in the kitchen recipe drawer. (Stupid men, can’t find anything.) Because his house wasn’t selling after 6 months, Art hired a new realtor – who hired a landscaper to remodel the front garden, an interior designer to replace ALL the decorations and furniture (renting all new furniture for one month), and sold the place in 2 days.

GK