Green Wizardry: A Slight Problem

May 16, 2024

A few years ago, an elderly family member developed a strange problem. When she went to sleep, she would sleep for about two hours and wake up dripping with sweat, her heart pounding like a jackhammer. Once she got dried off and calmed down, she would go back to sleep and the same thing would happen again. It got so bad for her that she became afraid to go to sleep because the events were so terrible. Her Doctor’s brilliant suggestion was to put a lighter blanket on her bed.

This went on for two years and we thought we were going to lose her because she is frail and few people can go for years without proper sleep without going mad. Sleep deprivation has such ghastly effects that it is considered one of the fastest ways of breaking a prisoner for interrogation. That is why it is specifically forbidden to use sleep deprivation on prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. Most prisoners of war are healthy young people so, you see, it is even worse to do this to a frail older person.

My relative went to several medical practitioners and received no help. After a very long wait, she was able to see an Endocrinologist to have her hormones looked at. There was nothing wrong with her hormones. The Endocrinologist, to her everlasting credit, continued looking for the cause of this, really terrible problem. She looked at all the side effects of my relative’s medications. One was an anti-anxiety drug that her idiot quack had prescribed right before the terrible night terrors began. It was causing the terrible night terrors. Her quack had never bothered to look at what the side effects of her drugs were. My relative got off the drug that was causing her so much stress and anxiety and got better right away.

I mentioned this to an American friend who responded with the story of his mother who suffered chronic diarrhea for ten years. Her Doctor was puzzled by her symptoms. My friend decided to look up the side effects of all the drugs his poor old Mom was on. One of them commonly caused chronic diarrhea. He brought this to the attention of his Mom’s Doctor and the shameless man just wrote out a new prescription without one word of apology for the decade of severe pain, anguish and frustration that his laziness and incompetence has visited upon this blameless woman.

It is important to note that the term, “side effects,” sound kind of benign as if they were something you might experience or not. A Doctor explained to me that this is not the case. All side effects are the effects of the drugs and you will experience them all. The pharmaceutical companies simply call them side effects because they want to concentrate on the effects they think will be likely to get your Doctor to prescribe their filthy junk for you.

A Doctor friend told me this story. He had a patient who suffered from high-blood pressure. He had this guy on three different medications to lower his blood pressure. The man asked him if his pills were good? My friend replied that, “Of course they are good.” But, he wasn’t really sure so he began to record his patient’s blood pressure on a graph. He found he was able to take his patient off two of the medications without any effect on his blood pressure. So, some medications are of no use at all.

But back to my elderly relative. Recently, she began to have problems sleeping again. She would go to sleep but wake up after about two hours with a mouth as dry as the Sahara. I asked if she was on any new medications because I, correctly, assumed her Doctor was trying to kill her again. She was.

She had prescribed my frail, old relative an anti-psychotic medication used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Some Doctors are using this at a low dose to treat insomnia even though it is not approved for the treatment of insomnia.

The drug is called Jamp Quietiapine and its side effects include, but are not limited to, dry mouth, headache, constipation, suicidal thoughts, falls (which is just what you want in a lady in her late eighty’s) convulsions, uncontrollable body movements, dizziness, increased risk of fracture of the hip wrist and spine and the list goes on. I told her about these side effects and she flushed the pills down the toilet.

I spoke with her this evening and she is again suffering from dry mouth and a different Doctor had prescribed a drug for the treatment of her acid reflux. The side effects of this new drug include black, tarry stools, blistering, peeling or loosening of the skin, chest pain, red skin lesions with a purple centre, ulcers in the mouth and a host of other unpleasant experiences.

Acid reflux can also be treated by losing weight, not drinking coffee or alcohol, not wearing tight clothes, not eating too fast or too much, elevating the head of your bed and a few other simple and harmless practices. Which would you choose?

So, if you, or any of your friends or relatives, are ill, I implore you to look up the side effects of any medications yu are taking as they do sometimes cause these slight problems.

Letter to the Editor – Leif LeBaron

May 16, 2024

My name and associated misrepresentation appeared in an article by Will

Thomas in last week’s edition. The article raises the issue of EMI

(electromagnetic interference) and “dirty electricity”, which I aim to

bring more attention to here:

Poorly-designed (especially digital) electronics feed electrical noise

back into their power lines. It’s essential to understand that

electrical conductors are antennas; i.e. they both receive and broadcast

(unless they are shielded). Such is simply the nature of things, be they

man-made or of natural origin.

In contrast to other developed countries, residential electrical wiring

in Canada/USA is not shielded; hence, it broadcasts EMR (electromagnetic

radiation) 24/7/365 (a 60Hz sine wave at best) while also receiving EMI

from the increasingly electromagnetically polluted environment. Such EMI

is another cause of dirty electricity.

These are serious problems and that is why signal cables (for computers,

microphones, &c.) are shielded and often include “chokes” (the lumps

near each end of a cable). While optical fibre is superior to electrical

conductors in respect to EMR/EMI, the attached electronics may indeed

cause trouble.

Fortunately, these phenomena can be measured, and instead of blindly

trusting “The Science” or the market of dubious “solutions”, I urge

everyone to learn more about the simply demonstrable physics of the

world we inhabit.

Leif LeBaron

The Enemy Within

May 16, 2024

The Enemy Within

The battle always starts with trust

The enemy within

We gave our power willingly

The enemy within

The trap was carefully laid for years

The enemy within

The lies were spread and fear took hold

The enemy within

The trusting, helplessly, were prey

The enemy within

And then one day the mask falls off

The enemy within

The truth is there for all to see

The enemy within.

What came first?

May 16, 2024

Shucking Oysters: Can We Be Direct?

May 10, 2024

Shucking Oysters: Can We Be Direct?

By Alex Allen

I was thinking about how Denman and Hornby could bond more. What kind of event or gathering would help us to bridge, as it were, our differences. Or share our similarities. Potlucks. Tractor pulling. Tidal mud wrestling. Clothes swapping. Really, it could be anything. What connects and disconnects our respective islands? A body of water obviously, and the ferry. More specifically, that unpredictable landing barge. Or as one eloquent Hornby Islander called it, “the thingy.”

Last week, once again, the Baynes Sound Connector had “mechanical issues.” Except this mechanical issue was not a routine issue, like the hydraulic system, the bull wheel, or the starboard gear box. No, the cable was dropped, 164m to the ocean floor. Not exactly an easy fix, and again, the “Bayne of our Existence” was out of service, from Thursday morning to late Friday afternoon. A little more than a curve ball for some.

I had a scheduled car appointment. Peter was supposed to get knee replacement surgery. Stephanie’s dog had a surgery date. Who knows how many others were suffering from the SNAFU. How many times have we had to backspin our wheels in reaction to the BSCon’s moments of whimsy? It is not easy rearranging one’s lives when one is at the mercy of a mediocre, unpredictable conveyor belt. I could reschedule my car appointment the next day. But the knee surgery? Back on the waiting list. Global News shared Denman resident, Natalie Mathis’ feelings, “This ferry breaks down so much that we already have ferry anxiety on the island.” Natalie, after 13 years of primal scream therapy I still suffer from ferry anxiety.

The good news. Last week, the miraculous happened. Plan B or C kicked in. The Quinitsa would go directly from Hornby to Buckley Bay on the Friday. A concept, I will note, I have been advocating for years (quietly, because people think I’m out of my mind). This whole unintentional experiment proved it can be done (without building a new terminal) and that a direct route (or a combination of both) should be explored as a viable alternative to all the headaches Denman Islanders must suffer with the “highway to Hornby.”

So, Friday morning, 7:30 am the ferry leisurely motored south past Ford Cove around Chrome Island. It would not have seemed out of place to hear over the speakers … “and on the starboard side you will see the Chrome Island Lighthouse. Established over 133 years ago in 1891, it is one of the few remaining manned lighthouses. Twenty-two lighthouse keepers have kept watch, with the award for longevity at 14 years, Eugene Alexander Moden from 1939 to 1953.” We eventually made our way along the west side of Denman to pick up the high school kids and foot passengers and arrived at BB without incident just after 9:00.

What can I say? The length and passage changed the whole ambiance of the voyage. It felt leisurely, relaxed. Many of us who usually sit in our vehicle bubbles were outside chatting and relishing the extended route. A whole different view, from the historical lighthouse to an architect designed glass house. As they say, indirectly is a far more scenic route.

Even the return trip, was leisurely, relaxed. Those going to Hornby were given a pink slip (yes, I see the irony) and were directed on the ship accordingly. Arriving Denman West, you Denman Islanders drove off, like you had been doing it that way for years. A couple of cars boarded and off we went. Even more of us were on deck, marvelling at the view and the sheer pleasure of a direct route. Time seemed to stand still. It didn’t matter if we arrived in an hour or two, we were all in the moment. And for those who were not … Casino? Tiki Bar? So many possibilities.

Back to island bonding. I understand there are a few singles on both our islands who could do with a different point of view. Recognizing that “making connections isn’t always easy,” the Nanaimo to Vancouver fast foot-passenger ferry, Hullo, hosted a “high-speed speed dating” event in February, offering singles the chance to schmooze and mingle. Xander France, Hullo marketing and sales director said the event goes along with their mission to connect people. “A big part of our brand is – and just the name Hullo itself is an ode to friendliness and connectivity, and we’re connecting to great communities – downtown to downtown, Nanaimo to Vancouver,” France said.

“There’s a lot of people that date on both sides of the Salish Sea, and need a fast and affordable way to do it,” said France. “There was also this cool idea – some people said, ‘Hey, I’ve exhausted the fish in my sea,’ and ‘How about you open up a new sea, and let us go fish in a different pond?’”

So, what do you say Denman? Cast your line this way. Remember Jazz night? How about Frisky Friday on the Quinitsa? FFQ.

Full Version:

Love, exciting and new

Come Aboard. We’re expecting you.

Love, life’s sweetest reward.

Let it flow, it floats back to you.

Love Boat soon will be making another run

The Love Boat promises something for everyone

Set a course for adventure,

Your mind on a new romance.

Love won’t hurt anymore

It’s an open smile on a friendly shore.

Yes LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It’s LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! (hey-ah!)

Love Boat soon will be making another run

The Love Boat promises something for everyone

Set a course for adventure,

Your mind on a new romance.

Love won’t hurt anymore

It’s an open smile on a friendly shore.

It’s LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It’s LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It’s

LOOOOOOOOOOOVE!

It’s the Love Boat-ah! It’s the Love Boat-ah!

Copyright: Lyrics © Original Writer and Publisher

source: https://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/theloveboatlyrics.html

Paul Williams

CLIMATE BYTES: LEAVING GROWTH AND OTHER MAGICAL THINKING BEHIND

May 10, 2024

CLIMATE BYTES

By Rudy Rogalsky

LEAVING GROWTH AND OTHER MAGICAL THINKING BEHIND

The net-zero goals of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have a built-in precondition to “maintain prosperity” through perpetual economic growth and also the inherent belief that, if all else fails, human ingenuity will come through to solve the climate problem. Two levels of magical thinking.

Climate scientist James Hansen and ecological footprint analysis developer William Rees are skeptical of that thinking and propose that, to avoid catastrophe, we should turn back the dial of human interaction with the natural environment to a time when CO₂ emissions were almost at pre-industrial levels and there was no human ecological footprint. Those are destinations, but neither Hansen nor Rees articulate the pathways to getting there. That void is filled by ecological economists who advocate for the process of degrowth or achieving a Steady State Economy. Both types heap scorn on the idea that economic growth is an imperative and propose instead to scale down destructive and unnecessary forms of production to reduce energy and material use and scale up meeting basic human needs.

Either approach would require a broad spectrum of fundamental societal changes: world views, governmental policies, international agreements and, especially, mandatory reduced production of unnecessary goods. For many, no longer having access to unconstrained consumerism would be disconcerting or even frightening. But, such people are making the wrong comparison. Their choice is not between their accustomed lifestyle and a much-diminished economy. Their accustomed lifestyle is almost certainly doomed and their real choice is between 2 forms of a smaller economy: one is a 2.8^oC hot-house earth with the poverty that would accompany uncontrollable economic, social and environmental chaos; the other is a world where we have fewer choices and less “stuff” but where we actually have used humanity’s planning and creative abilities to control down-sizing to a scale needed to curtail and maybe even reverse climate change while still providing basic human needs.

The first order of business in the second paradigm would be to continue our pursuit of reduced GHG emissions but more successfully. Our failure up to now in this endeavor has been in part because we have purposely neglected to pick the low-hanging fruit. Stringent regulation of the worst-emitting parts of fossil fuel industries could be easily implemented especially if it were preceded by a legislated termination of corporate donations to political parties. At the same time, governments could bring in capital and income taxation measures directed at the very rich. Swedish analysts have calculated that, world-wide, the richest 10% are responsible for 49% of emissions. Cut those emissions by half and a quarter of total emissions would disappear. Other legislation also could end the obligation of corporate directors and management to maximize profits and, instead, require enhancement of community well-being. Similarly, an international agreement to limit the mobility of capital would return the basis of international trade from profit-maximizing capital flows to something akin to comparative advantage as it was originally expounded and as it is still taught in Economics 101. Nations could also legislate shorter work days and weeks as well as earlier retirement.

We learned from Covid-19 and World War 2 that, in an emergency, governments are never short of money. Week after week during the pandemic, the Bank of Canada created millions of dollars in new money to fund Government initiatives. To fund down-sizing, other revenue would be needed and that could come from eliminating subsidies to fossil fuels and through taxation on wealth either directly or through taxes on GHG emitters and ecosystem rogues like air travel, automobile production and usage and meat production.

With such revenue, public programs could be initiated to insulate buildings, revitalize ecosystems, improve public transit systems plus other social system modifications needed for a smaller world. This would, no doubt, result in a mix of public and private ownership of economic resources. For those who think that the private sector is the main source of ingenuity and creativity, economist Mariana Mazzucato in her book The Entrepreneurial State, documents that it has been government and not the private sector that has been the boldest and most valuable innovator in such revolutionary break-throughs as the internet, computer technology, the iphone and, as well, health research and development of new medications. Still, this writer believes that competitive (not monopolistic) market structures can allocate resources efficiently and should be integral to a down-sized economic system.

The thoughts outlined above are a beginning. To document more fully the parameters of degrowth and the stationary state would be beyond the scope of a one-page essay. Hopefully, these few words are one miniscule step toward avoiding the hot-house catastrophes of magical thinking. Some readers will say that changes to a smaller world make sense but they are too radical to get political traction. Climate scientist Kevin Anderson has correctly pointed out that there are no futures for humanity that are not radical. Let us hope that we will not have travelled too far down the road to radical catastrophe before that “oops” moment when we collectively wake up to the reality that survival requires getting back to marching with nature’s drummer.

Green Wizardries: Reasons to be Cheerful

May 10, 2024

Reasons to be Cheerful

Selinda White called me to arrange to have the Garden Club tour her garden. I contacted the executive and they were very pleased to have Selinda and Mike’s lovely garden thrown open for the club. A lot of gardeners are doing this. Susan Tait just opened her famous spring garden for the club a few days ago. If you wish to know what it feels like to be royalty, spend an hour in Susan’s garden to find out.

Sadly, these gardens are not open to the public but more and more gardeners are inviting the Garden Club to visit. People who used to be on the Home and Garden show, but now think they are too old (one day you wake up and realize you are not seventy anymore) are letting the Garden Club come instead. Hint: if you wish to be in the enviable position to visit these gardens, you can join the Garden Club for a low annual fee. Contact info is at the bottom of the article.

Also, on June 19, Liz and John Johnston, will be hosting the annual Garden Club Hats and Gloves Party. This is a whimsical event and people come with their garden hats and gloves decorated with flowers, foliage and in one memorable case, a miniature watering can and a tiny trowel. It is a potluck picnic and a social event. Liz, as hostess, will judge the hats and gloves and the winner gets a prize. If you don’t feel like wearing a hat full of flowers, you are welcome to come as you feel comfortable.

Liz has a mighty rose garden and will be selling her home-cultivated and lovely collection of roses at the party. This is also the only chance for most of us to enjoy Liz’s exceptional garden as she is not on the Garden Tour this year.

Let’s get back to Selinda. I couldn’t make it to see her garden as we would be working with a contractor at the times her garden was open. So, being cheeky, I phoned Selinda and asked if my husband and I could come early. We were the first visitors so Selinda made an event out of it and gave us a tour.

What a delightful, lavish, enchanted garden! Selinda and Mike have lived there for twenty years but the gardener who lived there for some twenty years before them was Josephine Hepburn, a Master Gardener from the VanDusen Botanical Garden. She specialized in rare shrubs and a riot of ground cover plants. Selinda built on this foundation with lots of tough plants. Her garden was a sea of bluebells and wild garlic with its frothy white flowers.

I was expecting a lot of nice plants and they are certainly there but I did not know that Selinda was a ceramicist. She has created enchanting sculptures of ceramic cups, tea pots, piggy banks and so on. They dot the garden and give it the flavour of a Mad Hatter’s tea party. She showed me some of the 200 tiles she made, “to keep my grandkids busy while I was babysitting.” The concrete tiles are inlaid with mosaics of china pieces, metal vases, toys and other oddments in full Mad Hatter style.

She showed me the bug tree which is just on the right as you come in the gate. Look for an arbutus and you will see little pieces of colourful plastic toys emerging from the tree bark. She had pinned plastic bugs from the Free Store onto the tree and it ate them up, covering the toys with its bark. Selinda proudly told me her grandkids were terrified of that tree when they were little and always went past it at the gallop. Every childhood should contain a little wholesome terror.

Selinda led me to another part of her garden where two tall Douglas fir trees formed a vee shape. They have circles of barbed wire formed as wreaths between the trunks while the trunks of the trees are decorated with ancient barbie dolls, some without heads and missing limbs. I said that looked like pretty dark magic to me and Selinda explained that she hates Barbie dolls and has been teaching her grandkids that women do not have bodies like that. Her dogs gnaw off heads and limbs.

If you would like to see Selinda’s garden she will be opening it to the Garden Club again in late June to show off her mad poppy collection and her 45 roses, all grown from cuttings.

To join the club, you can come to the next meeting which is at 2 pm, 15 May at the United Church Hall. They will be having a couple of speakers and the fee to join is only $15 for a single or $20 for a family. See you there!

Carbon Tax

May 10, 2024

Carbon Taxes are endorsed by a majority of economists as a reasonable, if by no means the best method, for reducing carbon emissions. Forty-six countries have instituted some form of carbon tax, pricing it in Green House Gas (GHG) emissions per ton which currently run from around $1 (Ukraine) to $154 (Uruguay) with Canada due on April 1 to raise its tax from $65 to $80 per tonne. Canada has two levels of carbon tax: on CO² producing fuels directly (this is the fuel you use in your car or home and pay at the pump) and secondly, an Output Based Pricing System (OBPS) which applies to industry when they exceed set levels of emissions. You can argue that a Carbon Tax is the most politically expedient of the policies a government might choose as it is redistributive, taking from those who can afford, giving to those who can’t, and that precious little of the collected monies are used to set up non-fossil fuel alternatives. Thus it is usually seen as a transition tax whose effect is to encourage well off citizens and businesses to adopt greener alternatives through an ever increasing cost on using fossil fuel.

Danielle Smith rails against the carbon tax telling us that ‘it is inhumane’. Pierre Poilievre has made eliminating the carbon tax a promise for a Conservative government. Scott Mo refuses to collect it. So what would happen if they got rid of it? Before April 1 the direct carbon tax at the pump was $0.1431 per litre, about 7.5% of what I just paid before April 1 to fill up my tank. According to Natural Resources Canada the average annual distance driven in Canada is 20,000 kilometres and the average fuel economy runs about 8.8 litres per 100 kilometres. Doing the maths we find the average Canadian purchases around 1760 litres of gas annually and the owner will thus pay around $246 in carbon tax at the pump each year. Carbon tax also applies to heating fuels: 12 cents per cubic metre for natural gas and 10 cents for propane. The average Canadian home uses 2385 cubic metres so pays a carbon tax of around $286 per year on natural gas. The light fuel oil on which the Feds put a 3 year tax moratorium is taxed at 17 cents per litre, 42% higher than natural gas, and forms more than half of the heating fuel source for PEI and Nova Scotia where natural gas must be imported from the US after the 2018 closure of the Canadian Sable Island gas fields. Fuel oil is almost unknown as a heating source from Quebec west. Eastern jurisdictions do not have the cheaper natural gas alternative; this is why Scott Mo’s removal of the tax on natural gas is not at all equivalent to the Liberal moratorium of the carbon tax on heating oil. These calculations produce similar results for the new $80 per ton price ($0.1761 per litre) of April 1 as both the tax and the rebates will rise.

Redistributive taxation to enhance equality has become a dirty policy after decades of successful Conservative propaganda labelling such taxation as unjust. The carbon tax, like road, health and education taxes, IS A REDISTRIBUTIVE TAX and, minus administration, all money collected for the fuel tax is returned to the province of jurisdiction to be redistributed by the provincial government to its less fortunate citizens. In the case of the fuel tax around 90% of the money collected is returned to those least likely to be able to afford it. A family of four in BC receives $894 annually if their income is below $50,170; as incomes rise above that level consumers get less and less until they reach a level where they get nothing. If a Canadian jurisdiction chooses not to implement a carbon tax the Federal government will do so. Just three jurisdictions in Canada have implemented both levels of their own carbon tax conforming to federal regulations: BC (the first), Quebec, and the Northwest Territories. The rest are a mixture of provinces who have enacted partial legislation with the slack taken up by the Federal tax. And just to shatter another stereotype, Alberta returns the highest redistributive amount at $1544, nearly twice that of BC.

So if the average Canadian family pays tax of around $532 for their car and heating this will be the average amount ‘put back in the pocket of consumers’ as Poilievre is fond of claiming. What he never says is that he will TAKE anywhere from $894 to $1544 OUT of the pockets of those least able to afford it while relieving those who can afford it of $532 in taxation. And, of course, Poilievre’s business buddies will get a truly big win as they will no longer have to pay millions for the OBPS. From these figures you can see that Poilievre is not talking publicly about what the results of cancelling the carbon tax will be for many fellow Canadians; instead he pushes the airy-fairy, Conservative motherhood statement that it would be good for business—you can probably work out why. And yes there are much better ways to reduce fossil fuel use but the carbon tax does help those with the lowest incomes during the transition.

Contemporary conservatives put the well-off above the many who struggle to make a living, asserting of the latter that their lot in life is their own fault and that, in any case, a rising tide lifts all boats. Milton Friedman, the conservative guru, once declared that “a relatively free economy is a necessary condition for a democratic society”. But then he added: “I also believe there is evidence that a democratic society, once established, destroys a free economy.” Perhaps Friedman was afraid that when the ‘free’ boats of the very, very wealthy have risen out of sight, a democratic society might rise up to sink them. Canadian Conservative economic theologians may maintain a bit of moderation but under Poilievre they are headed in Friedman’s direction of emasculating democratic institutions to ‘free’ economic ones, as successful conservative movements in other parts of the world have already done. To do so they have forsworn any useful policy discussion in favour of vituperation, invective, and vitriol against any and all who they feel oppose their lack of useful policy. Trudeau is correct, Conservatives are ‘misleading’ us as to the use and consequences of the carbon tax.

NOTE: Calculations in this article were based upon the taxation level before April 1, 2024 but similar ratios will remain in effect for the new price per ton.

Oakley Rankin

Phoenix Riting! – May 9th, 2024

May 10, 2024

Hello dear community, what a week it has been! I just came out of a week of Blues camp (my third year running) and I’m still high. I wrote about my experience at Blues camp in some depth last year, so I’ll give the condensed version: it was awesome! Stellar! Amazing! Life-changing (again)! I hadn’t planned to go this year, but the moment I saw the workshop write-ups I knew I needed to, and I am thankful that I did. My teachers this year were Stephanie Martin and Suzie Vinnick, and they were both excellent. I learned so much! I might even retain some of it.

High point among many: Student night! So many incredible performances, all were excellent this year. Watching Jason Long win the guitar raffle was surreal and wonderful. Julia Rossignol’s gorgeous a capella rendition of her composition ‘River’ was heart rending and a personal peak for me. I played a song of my own, and people seemed to like it. Molly Blaze, our Hornby scholarship recipient, played a sweet banjo version of Plastic Jesus. It was such a great capper to the week. Then we had the ‘cry and bye,’ the farewell brunch on Friday, and it was all over for another year. Every year I feel more at home with this group of folks, many of whom are becoming friends, as I learn and grow as a musician and singer.

Unless I started making a load more money than I do, I would not leave Hornby to attend such a camp elsewhere. But I don’t have to! We are incredibly lucky to have these world-class opportunities right here on the island. We have much to be grateful for here and I am more thankful than I can say. Every day I notice, reflect and am amazed by the simple fact of where I live. It’s impossible to take it for granted! Call it a blessing or a privilege; I prefer the former. We needn’t feel guilty about blessings. Yes, we are better off in so many ways than so many other people. Some of us stumbled on the place by accident, some were born or grew up here, some had parents who vacationed here and grew up feeling like Hornby was home. Others have their own pathways to this magical isle.

I was one who stumbled, back in the eighties. Hornby was truly remote back then. This was a world away from the world, long before the internet existed. I ran to Hornby as a refuge, a place of escape, where I could hide in the woods, let my boys run with the other wild kids (no helicopter parents then), lick my wounds and recover from oh so much. I have no complaints about my life, though. I am full up with experiences and I must write in order to process them, and I am exploding with creative energy, ideas and stories.

It’s time for me to move forward! I’m back-burnering this column. Due to the pressures of ‘cancellation’, the Grapevine is no longer able to pay my small salary. I fully understand, and I support this local avenue for the free expression of ideas and opinions, something I fervently stand for. I may pop back in on occasion, if the Grapevine allows. Right now, I have other things to write that occupy my focus.

I’m shifting focus to my new column at https://phoenixbee.substack.com. Substack is a subscription writing site where writers of all genres and walks of life congregate and write for their subscribers, free and paid. There is a ton of well-written, thoughtful, nuanced writing there and I’m happy to join that community. I am not putting in a paywall, so all who sign up for free can read my writings there. Of course, you have the option to pay if you wish to support my work.

I like that Substack is not social media. There, I know that those who subscribe are interested in what I have to say, and that matters to me. I will continue to advocate for alternative points of view and to express these views from the centremost radically inclusive position possible.

I am shelving my opinions for the most part to finish a series I am writing about the music on the album, song lyric discussions, observations on life, what it is like to carry this brain around with me, and the tools I use to facilitate my growth to becoming a bigger, better version of myself. Once that is done, I will expand the focus of the writing.

Also, my new album kicks, I really wish you would listen (I don’t know how to market, does it show?)! To hear it, go to my bandcamp (phoenixbee.bandcamp.com), or search “Phoenix Bee Late Bloomer” on the streamers. It’s out there now. You can also find it linked from my Substack.

That’s what’s happening! To receive regular more-or-less weekly articles, subscribe to my Substack at phoenixbee@substack.com. You can always reach me at phoenixonhornby@gmail.com.