Aaron Bushnell Burned Himself Alive To Make You Turn Your Eyes To Gaza

February 29, 2024

Aaron Bushnell Burned Himself Alive To Make You Turn Your Eyes To Gaza

FEB 26, 2024

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

I watched the uncensored video of US airman Aaron Bushnell self-immolating in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington while screaming “Free Palestine”. I hesitated to watch it because I knew once I put it into my mind it’s there for the rest of my life, but I figured I owe him that much.

I feel like I’ve been picked up and shaken, which I suppose was pretty much what Bushnell was going for. Something to shake the world awake to the reality of what’s happening. Something to snap us out of the brainwashed and distracted stupor of western dystopia and turn our gaze to Gaza.

The sounds stay with you more than the sights. The sound of his gentle, youthful, Michael Cera-like voice as he walked toward the embassy. The sound of the round metal container he stored the accelerant in getting louder as it rolls toward the camera. The sound of Bushnell saying “Free Palestine”, then screaming it, then switching to wordless screams when the pain became too overwhelming, then forcing out one more “Free Palestine” before losing his words for good. The sound of the cop screaming at him to get on the ground over and over again. The sound of a first responder telling police to stop pointing guns at Bushnell’s burning body and go get fire extinguishers.

He remained standing for an unbelievable amount of time while he was burning. I don’t know where he got the strength to do it. He remained standing long after he’d stopped vocalizing.

Bushnell was taken to the hospital, where independent reporter Talia Jane reports that he has died. It was about as horrific a death as a human being can experience, and it was designed to be.

Shortly before his final act in this world, Bushnell posted the following message on Facebook:

“Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’

“The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

Aaron Bushnell has provided his own answer to this challenge. We’re all providing our own right now.

I would never do what Bushnell did, and I would never recommend anyone else does either. That said, I also can’t deny that his action is having its intended effect: drawing attention to the horrors that are happening in Gaza.

I know this is true because everywhere I see Aaron Bushnell being discussed online I see a massive deluge of pro-Israel trolls frantically swarming the comments in a mad rush to manipulate the narrative. They all understand how destructive it is to US and Israeli information interests for people to be seeing an international news story about a member of the US Air Force self-immolating on camera while screaming “Free Palestine”, and they are doing everything they can to mitigate that damage.

As I write this, there are with absolute certainty people digging through Bushnell’s history searching for dirt that can be spun as evidence that he was a bad person, that he was mentally ill, that he was steered astray by pro-Palestine activists and dissident media — whatever they can make stick. If they find something, literally anything, the smearmeisters and propagandists will run with it as far as they can.

That’s what they’re choosing to do at this point in history. That’s what they would have done during slavery, or the Jim Crow south, or apartheid. That’s what they’re doing while their country commits genocide right now. People are showing what they would have done with their response to Gaza, and they’re showing what they would have done with their response to the self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell.

I’m not going to link to the video here; watching it is a personal decision on which you should probably do your own legwork to make sure it’s really what you want. Whether you watch it or not, it happened, just like the incineration of Gaza is happening right now. We each own our personal response to that reality. This is who we are.

_____________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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NAVIGATING ANGER (part 2)

February 29, 2024

NAVIGATING ANGER (part 2) Sally Campbell

Reflecting back

Sometimes negative, accusatory or angry words create such a reaction in us that we miss the speaker’s real meaning. Reflecting back is a way of trying to capture the essence of what you heard without parroting what the person said. It does not need to be preceded by: “So what I heard you saying is…”! This is filler that just annoys people. Simply try to capture the gist of what you heard. It doesn’t mean you agree with it.

Reflecting back (also called paraphrasing) can serve many purposes:

we show we are trying to understand
we let the speaker know what meaning has been transmitted to us
if there’s misunderstanding, we give the speaker the chance to clarify
if we’re on track, the speaker is often encouraged to say more
by reflecting back the essence only, we can clean up the content (take out the “sting”)
we overcome the temptation to react defensively
it keeps the discussion on track
it forces us to actually listen rather than prepare a response while appearing to listen.

A summary is like a longer version of reflecting back. When I taught mediation, I used to say to mediators-in-training: “If in doubt, summarize.” I still think it’s a useful practice and I wish I remembered to do so more often when I’m in a jam and becoming defensive. If you don’t know what to say next, just say so. This is a non-defensive response, way to go! Or try to summarize what’s been said so far. Don’t sneak your own viewpoint in there, just try to keep it clean. The goal is to try to understand where the other person is coming from, before you try to be understood. The great thing about a summary is that if you got it wrong, the person will correct you. If it’s incomplete, they’ll add more.

Showing Empathy

Empathy is the capacity to “feel with” another. It is a quality of understanding that is not pitying or patronizing, nor superior or condescending. It is communication that acknowledges what the other is experiencing without trying to “fix” the situation. Showing empathy is different from giving unsolicited advice, no matter how well-intended that advice, or from offering solutions.

Empathy validates the other person, shows respect and human warmth. Empathy builds connection. Empathy can be shown by tone of voice, volume and pacing, or by non-verbal communication such as a silent nod or genuine eye contact. It may also be shown by expressions which acknowledge the other person’s emotional experience, such as: “It sounds as if you are really struggling with this”, or “I’d be very upset about that too”.

We often think these thoughts. Less often do we express them, particularly in a culture of “doing and solving”. Some are afraid of opening the floodgates to a torrent of emotion they won’t be able to cope with, so they avoid acknowledging feeling altogether. Showing empathy defuses anger. Sometimes it is all the speaker needs to feel validated; now it may be possible to move

back to the subject at hand. A warning about empathic expression: it must be genuine. Fake expressions of empathy create a backlash and cause more harm than good. Communicating well is not about using skills on people; it’s about using skill with people.

Using Immediacy

Immediacy is the art of naming the emotional climate, or “talking about what is not being talked about”. Instead of reacting to anger with defensiveness, noticing that tension seems to be building (in you, in the room, between you both) will often lead to an exploration of the reasons for the tension. This simple statement alone can reduce the level of charge in the atmosphere. In naming the unspoken energy in the room, or how they are communicating, parties move off the content of their negotiation or dispute and examine the process. It may be that tension was building and an angry outburst occurred because one side felt the “real issues” were not being addressed. Or maybe the person doesn’t feel the other will truly listen. Like empathy, using immediacy diffuses tension. Now that person can be invited to say what’s going on for them, and the parties have an opportunity to look more deeply at their differences. Improving process releases pressure and empowers people to take charge of their disputing, rather than let anger run the show. Needless to say, timing is everything. We have to be clear-headed to communicate well in intense situations.

As I said last week, these ideas are offered because they have made a difference in real life for me, both in my work and in my personal life. With a father who was an amateur boxer in his youth, I certainly wasn’t raised to “move in to resistance” by reflecting back the feeling or content of what just irritated me! Hopefully these are basic and practical reminders for you as well. They are not words to memorize, but rather tools to expand our “conflict fluency”, a language we can keep learning our whole lives.

Next week: part 3

CLIMATE BYTES: The Significance of 1.5 Degrees

February 29, 2024

This is the first of a series of short notes about aspects of the climate crisis.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF 1.5 DEGREES

In 2015, the countries attending the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) meetings in Paris agreed that we need to keep our global average surface temperature below 1.5^oC above pre-industrial temperatures. This note is to give some brief context for that goal but there is much more to be said.

There is general but not total acceptance that human-caused global warming began in the last half of the 19^thcentury when, using energy from burning fossil fuels, we changed from being an agricultural society to an increasingly industrial society. As we burned fossil fuels, the concentration of heat-trapping CO₂ in the atmosphere increased. Most of the change has happened since 1950. Since the 1940s, humanity has burned about 90% of all fossil fuels ever burned: more than half of that has happened just in the last 30 years, which is also the period of the most dramatic increases in global temperature [Prof. William Rees, various Youtube lectures]. So, when it is reported [NOAA, www.climate.gov]that the global temperature in 2023 was 1.35^oC above pre-industrial levels, that is how much the earth’s average temperature has risen since industrial activity began affecting climate change.

Readers may be aware of reports that in each of the last 12 months, the earth’s average temperature reached or exceeded 1.5^oC above pre-industrial levels. How does this info tally with our saying that global temperature increase in 2023 was just 1.35^oC. That is because annual temperature changes are averaged over longer periods such as 10 to 20 years. Because the 2023 temperature monthly rises are probably an El Nino effect, once we cycle back to an El Nina phase, monthly temperatures may drop below 1.5^oC.

Even so, a 1.35^oC change, in the perspective of geologic time, is extraordinary. The Holocene is that 11,000-year geologic era since the last ice age. It is the period during which humans turned from being hunter-gatherers to plant and animal domesticators and, eventually, creators of our human civilization. The Holocene provided the climate stability that made it possible for humanity to transform so remarkably: throughout the period the earth’s temperature, though sometimes hotter and sometimes colder, never strayed more than 0.5^oC higher or lower than 14^oC [Johan Rockstrom, 44thMacaulay Lecture]. This was the earth that we now think of as the self-regulating Gaia.

The 1.35^oC annual change we are experiencing is more than two orders of magnitude greater than any change humans ever experienced during the Holocene. This is not surprising when we consider the scientific finding that CO₂concentration in our atmosphere is now the highest in the last 2 million years. And it is now clear that the speed of the earth’s temperature rise is increasing [NOAA, www.climate.gov].

The number and severity of climate-related catastrophes in the world is also rising. At 1.35 degrees, we are already experiencing impacts such as extreme heat, more and stronger hurricanes, drought and forest fires. The 2016 Paris Accord stipulated the 1.5^oC limit because, if that limit is exceeded, the increasing frequency and intensity of such catastrophic events would likely become intolerable. More than that, scientists have determined that as the earth’s temperature rises, some of its results are likely to reach a tipping point, a point beyond which changes become self-perpetuating [Tim Lenton, Tipping Points in Comlex Systems]. One example: ice cover in the earth’s polar regions has been melting. Reduced ice cover means that less of the sun’s energy is reflected back to space and more is absorbed by and generates warmth in darker open water thereby furthering ice melting. Underlining the imperative to reduce CO₂ emissions, there are several other tipping points that have an increased likelihood of being triggered if long term global warming were to exceed 1.5^oC. We don’t want to go there!

NEW STUDY ON VACCINE ADVERSE EVENTS DEFINITIVELY SHOWS MAJOR ISSUES

February 29, 2024

Shortages in the Land of Plenty

NEW STUDY ON VACCINE ADVERSE EVENTS DEFINITIVELY SHOWS MAJOR ISSUES

A new study, recently released, looked at a 99 million person cohort of vaccinated individuals in eight different countries, including BC and Ontario in Canada. COVID-19 vaccines and adverse events of special interest: A multinational Global Vaccine Data Network (GVDN) cohort study of 99 million vaccinated individuals https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X24001270

The study investigated adverse reactions and the results confirm multiple previous studies and what many are experiencing after receiving the COVID-19 shots.

The brands studied were Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. Even though the individual reactions are described as “rare” – the overall numbers are staggering, considering that 13.5 billion shots were administered world-wide. For example, an increased risk of myocarditis is associated with all vaccine brands. The second Moderna shot alone results in an increase of 610%. This translates into millions of cases of myocarditis – a serious illness and no longer rare! That may not be the person’s only problem as the shot affects multiple bodily systems and there are a host of seemingly unrelated issues that people are experiencing. These reactions are having a “stacking” effect contributing to the observed range of post vaccine injuries that have been difficult to tie to the shot, based on the way information is collected and analysed.

Problems increase with the number of shots taken and can show up many months after vaccination. Damaged human tissues bear the unique genetic signature of the mRNA vaccines and represent conclusive evidence that most reactions are not related to the lingering effects of actual COVID 19 infection, as has been proposed. Low vaccinated countries are largely being spared the massive increases in excess deaths (approx. 20%) and injuries seen in heavily vaccinated countries since 2021. The adverse reactions are coincident with the release of the vaccines and track closely wherever they are investigated.

“The Bradford Hill criteria for causality includes nine viewpoints by which to evaluate human epidemiological evidence to determine if causation can be deduced: strength, consistency, specificity, temporality, biological gradient, plausibility, coherence, experiment, and analogy”. The association of the vaccines with observed adverse reactions satisfies all the Bradford Hill criteria for causation-the gold standard. The shots are responsible for excess all-cause mortality.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368426122_Australian_COVID-19_pandemic_A_Bradford_Hill_analysis_of_iatrogenic_excess_mortality

The mRNA technology being used to produce the vaccines is experimental and long term studies have never been done. Short term animal studies, prior to the pandemic, were unsuccessful in demonstrating safety. The controversial shots are still being administered even though they have been shown to increase the risk of contracting COVID 19 significantly as shown in this important Cleveland Clinic study. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.09.23290893v1.full

It’s very important to put pressure on Public Health Authorities in Canada and demand answers. Print out the studies and give them to your doctor. It’s possible that busy health care professionals are not being kept informed. “It is frequently stated that it takes an average of 17 years for research evidence to reach clinical practice” That would be unforgivable in this case. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3241518/#:~:text=It%20is%20frequently%20stated%20that,evidence%20to%20reach%20clinical%20practice

Letter to the Editor – Will Thomas

February 29, 2024

To the editor:

I wish to correct two errors in my January community information flyer regarding CityWest’s wireless routers.

Unfortunately, my pre-flyer enquiries to CityWest via email and phone went unanswered.

On the Calix website, I admit being triggered by the “5G bandwidth” description for their routers. Turns out, they meant the 5 GHz frequency. This isn’t good either. But 5 GHz is not 5th Generation wireless.

It also looks like I mistook the GS4227 GigaSpire BLAST u6.2 802.11ac for the hot new, GS4227 GigaSpire BLAST u6.2 802.11ax, with its 30% greater range.

But don’t feel left out. Both routers share powerful WiFI 6 protocols. Hence, the 802.11ac’s “Long Range”designation. Apparently slated for installation here, this fibre-to-wireless router provides simultaneously transmits multiple data streams “for optimal whole-home coverage.”

Calix constantly refers to their routers as “radios”. While semantically correct, this soothing moniker is highly misleading.

An AM radio station broadcasts on frequencies of 0.001535 — 0.0017 GHz.

Cell phones can transmit at 0.849 GHz.

The GigaSpire 802.11ac BLAST simultaneously radiates multiple channels at 2.4 and 5 GHz.

Operating essentially as miniature cell towers in the home, cordless phone cradles qualify for true “blaster” status at 5.8 GHz.

Giga = billion. Hertz = cycles-per-second. Flipping the polarity in living tissue billions of times every second matters. Because you are an antenna. And over time, every Gigahertz hurts.

The problem is all this pulsing. When a router sends a fibre-optic-delivered firehose of livestreams, texts and voice invisibly through the air, the more frequency modulation is required to handle all this data. And the more living cells get jackhammered.

Forget industry-captured “Safety Code 6, which continues to dismiss the long-proven biological effects of induced electromagnetic energy.

POWER DENSITIES RISING

Calix extolls its customers to “have a BLAST” with any of its WiFi 6 (u6) routers. The GS4227 transmits at 6.5 watts.

That’s a lot. Cellphones linked to many health problems are restricted to 2 watts of power.

A cell tower transmits through multiple antennas at 10 — 50 watts.

While wireless energy diminishes with the inverse square of distance, current 4th Generation (4G) frequencies easily penetrate flesh, glass and most walls to enable the connectivity currently experienced on Hornby patios and backyards.

Keep in mind that the myriad cumulative damage shown by thousands of EMF studies going back to WWII is measured in microwatts.

SPARE THE CHILDREN

“Wireless sickness” is real. Fetuses, infants, kids, seniors, pets and the infirm are especially vulnerable. In 2001, Spanish doctors expressed alarm over the disturbed brain activity they were seeing in wireless-exposed children that “will lead to impaired learning ability, as well as psychiatric and behavioral problems.”

A 2002 study conducted by Dr. Dietrich Klinghart, MD, PhD of the Institute of Neurobiology in Seattle similarly found that electromagnetic radiation “from cellphones and wireless networks” suffusing the sleeping environment of mothers during pregnancy, as well as electromagnetic radiation in the sleeping environment of children “may be the key undiscovered contributing if not causative factors in neurological impairments in children, including autism.”

Perhaps we ought to “watch the birdies” avoid microwaves when they can. Nearly 30 years ago, Canadian researchers found that feathers act as wireless antennas. Ditto the hairs on bees. And your arms.

WHO’S CULPABLE?

Wireless addiction activates the same pleasure centers in the brain as cocaine. In a seemingly terminal feedback loop, corporations are responding to the consumer demand stoked by their enticingly marketed gadgets. As more family members multitask in the home — and more signal-deflecting metal appliances find their way inside — WiFi 6 routers are flexing their muscles to keep up.

If you prefer to go with hardwired devices in your living space, a CityWest installer will disable the Gigaspire’s wireless functions and show you where to connect to its 4 ethernet ports. I am now assured that it will remain off, unless you say otherwise.

The Precautionary Principle stipulates that products must not be widely introduced until proven safe. When connecting to fibre, converting clean optical signals into home-saturating electrosmog may not be the best choice. Are your hardwired neighbours onboard with secondhand EMF?

Sources: calix.com, gigaspire.net, blastwifi.com, gvec.net, electronics.stackexchange.com, lumosfiber.com

Phoenix Riting! – February 29th, 2024

February 29, 2024

The show I went to last Friday night could not have been more different than last week’s metal bash at Joe King. I went to see the MADDWEve concert (Musical Alternative to Dark, Dreary Winter Evenings). I had my brains adjusted to hear classical music recently, starting when I first reviewed Festival classical concerts, and have since exposed myself to various forms of live classical music and enjoyed them all. I find I enjoy any music, performed live and well.

About these concerts: “MADDWEve is a concert series which aims to bring fresh young talent from UVic, UBC and beyond to perform on Hornby Island during the season when nothing much is happening there besides rain. In short, musicians with more talent than reputation to play for an audience hungry for live classical music.”

A group of five student musicians presented a program of chamber music. There was a piano, cello, double bass, viola, a violin and one vocal piece. The pieces were played in different combinations, solo or two to three instruments together, until the end when all five instruments came together to play four movements of a longer piece. I did not take note of the musicians’ names nor their school; I wish I had.

Classical music strikes me very differently than the forms of music I am accustomed to. Its complex melodies and harmony lines tell winding tales that stroke and caress my nervous system strongly yet delicately. I felt carried rapturously into another world. It was a wonderful evening of stellar talent! Thank you to MADDWEve for bringing this music to our island, and for giving these young performers the chance to play for a friendly and receptive audience.

Then on Sunday, HIRRA (Hornby Island Residents and Ratepayers Association) hosted a 50th/70th anniversary celebration at the Hall (they first started in 1954, incorporating as a society in 1973). As a past member of the Executive, I felt honour bound to go. It was so interesting! The memories! The cake!

I was vice-president in 1993, when Lynda Maloney was president. I learned when I was president and took it on myself to read through all the old minutes books that ours was the first year that a woman was president of HIRRA, let alone two women as both vp and president. Not only that, we were both young single moms. We made history! I was amazed it took Hornby so long for that to happen. Women had been on the Executive from the beginning, yes, but only as secretaries and treasurers.

I first joined HIRRA on February 13, 1991, a fact I know only because I happened to randomly flip open the membership book at the celebration and there was my name at the top of a page. I began to take notes at meetings and write the story for the First Edition, in an effort to entice more folk to come to meetings. My articles gained me notice and I was eventually invited to join the Executive. This made me feel special until I was elected by acclamation and learned that in fact, nobody else wanted the job.

This meant my stories for the First Edition had come to an end; the Peter Principle in action. In our two years, we implemented some changes that have lasted to this day. We could not keep a secretary, as nobody wanted to keep minutes, so we hired Janet LeBlanc as administrator, a job that Reina LeBaron holds today. After that a bookkeeper was hired as well. There had been no paid assistants up until then, but we could not do without them now.

In my day, Jack Kent, head of the Regional District, made it his project to force the island to adopt a conventional form of government. They offered us a few untenable options including becoming a municipality. But HIRRA prevailed, and here we are, thirty years later, still doing it our way. The downside of participatory government is that you have to participate or decisions may be made that you neither know about or agree with, but that’s easily remedied. Go to meetings! I recommend it. I don’t go to meetings regularly myself, but I try to check in now and then.

The previous Executive had instituted the practice of sitting in circle at meetings and we continued it. It was a much friendlier format and everyone seemed to prefer it. Sitting in circle meant everyone could hear and be heard, and everyone could see everyone else. I was disappointed when I returned to the island after a few years away to find they had returned to the old head table format. They did return to the circle format a few years later, for a while, I learned.

Now, thanks to Covid, meetings take place mainly on Zoom, while a few intrepid souls gather in person at Room to Grow to view the Zoom screen together. Zoom is more convenient, certainly, and accessible for folk who are not on the island, but something personal and precious has been lost, and it’s sad.

Really inspiring to see such a young Executive this year! Go to hirra.ca to find out who they are and more about our local government.

That’s what I think! What do you think? email me at phoenixonhornby@gmail.com

Silly Games

February 29, 2024

April 9th, 2007

Silly Games

Yesterday’s elements, all stormy and blustery, have given way to more spring-like conditions this afternoon. The day’s weather was still a mixed bag for the better part of the day but the mild evening sun, laying low in the sky, is peeking beneath the scattered cloud cover, casting its golden rays across the grounds now. A nice spring evening full of fresh smelling air and long, crisp shadows.

We’re finally putting to bed a very long weekend and the restlessness of the lot is now giving way to anticipation of returning to work. It’s surprising we’ve managed to endure the five days off with little incident. The potential for going stir crazy is rather high with so little to do. I suppose the tournaments over the weekend helped to preoccupy ourselves, somewhat. For me, at least, the weekend’s proceedings offered an interesting social study of my peers here.

I’m amazed how worked up some of the guys can get over things. Arguing rules, organization debates, emotionally vested to a point of annoying.

‘Spaceship visitor & friend burier,’ Darl proved rather competent at all events that he entered but his incessant scrutiny of the brackets and preoccupation with reminding guys to play and who was to play next, emitted an air of expectation of winning. It only served to crawl under the skin of a few of the guys. Their new goal beyond participating, was to now vanquish Darl. Like little boys, they all seem. Some things can take on an importance all their own. It can be quite tedious bearing witness to.

Rather than achieve a strand of acceptance or respect for proving adept at some silly games, Darl has only managed to annoy or downright piss off those who’ve cared to notice. And as for those he’s soured, what is with caring so much? Some gaming competitions meant to help break up the monotony of a very long weekend has only resulted in putting these guys further on edge. Hello! They are just games you egomaniacs. Why must you take it on so?!

Darl is strange enough as it is that whether he notices the angst directed at him or not, it simply just rolls off his back. In such tight quarters I’m sure he does notice but in his quiet, determined, dare I say ‘pathological’ way he revels in irritating these guys as he does.

Like I said, ‘it is fun to just observe it all from a distance.’

Green Wizardries: Getting Ready for Spring

February 29, 2024

Green Wizardries, Getting Ready for Spring by Maxine Rogers

The Liberal/NDP Federal Government under Trudeau and Singh has decided to make our lives easier by relieving us of a lot of money. They are increasing taxes on workers to support the Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance. They are also increasing the Federal Carbon Tax in a way that will cost Canadian families between $377 and $911 in 2024/25. In case this makes you feel the need for a stiff drink, have it now as they are also increasing taxes on alcohol. Don’t wait for the alcohol-tax hike.

I wonder what they need the money for? They do not seem to intend to use it to care for the many, many Canadians now forced out of housing and living on the streets in leaking tents in our notoriously cold and savage winters. They do not seem keen on restricting the supply of deadly opiates that are flooding into Canada and killing citizens right and left. I know some people thought that a safer supply of drugs was the answer but we have tried that in BC and it just led to an even higher rate of overdose deaths.

No, if you want to help people who have a drug problem, the secret is to get them into housing (so they feel less desperate and abandoned) and to offer them detox facilities whenever the fancy of getting off junk strikes them. The wait list for detox treatment is many months long. Do you think they need the extra money to save Canadian lives? Not a chance.

What they really need the extra money from the Carbon Tax for is to pay for Justin Trudeau to fly about the world in a private jet, going on holiday to the Caribbean while we have a beautiful summer in Canada. I guess he needs to get away as Canadians so resolutely and vocally hate him. Oh, and Trudeau has pledged to give 9.5 billion Canadian tax dollars to the war effort in Ukraine to get lots of healthy young people killed or crippled because who needs healthy young people?

So, you are going to have less money to spend, not much water this summer and you have a Federal Government that seems intent on depriving you of housing, civil rights and even your life. Well, governments are like that. Ask any Russian or Cambodian who is old enough to remember the Terror their Governments unleashed on their own people.

We can’t do much about Federal Policy but we can support each other. The first thing to do in a crisis is to protect yourself. That means there will be one less person needing to be rescued. You will also be in a better position to help others.

Start a budget that allows you to save some money every month, even if it is only a little. Begin to buy food in bulk as this is vastly cheaper than buying small packets of ultra-processed foods that contain little to no nutritional value. Bulk whole foods are your best value for nutrition. Donna’s store by the Bistro on Denman is an excellent place to shop.

Start a garden or increase the size or fertility of the garden you have. I was speaking with a neighbour who has a good professional job that pays well. She said she had begun to garden years ago because it was fun but now she has to garden in earnest as she can no longer afford to buy all her food.

Take good care of your health. Get out and walk in nature, sing, recount all the things in your life that you feel grateful for. Do nice things for your friends, family and neighbours. All these things make people feel better.

Start some seeds inside your house. March is the time to sow indeterminate (tall) tomatoes. I like the Italian Stallion Roma tomato from Salt Spring Seeds. They crop heavily. One year, I gave some Stallion seedlings to a friend who lives in a tiny home and she was able to get a whacking-great crop from the plants she raised in pots. It is also time to plant peppers and eggplants indoors but you really need some extra heat to get these fellows going. You don’t need to have a greenhouse, even a temporary plastic poly tunnel will give you the heat you need to grow a worthwhile crop.

If you have the space inside, this is the time to start broccoli and cauliflower. I never seem to have any luck with cabbage so I will only start a few of them to see if I can learn how to grow them. It is time to sow lettuce and other leafy greens in the garden. Remember to plant only a few small rows at first or you will have a garden of lettuces all coming ripe at the same time. The better idea is to plant spring greens every two weeks in small batches. Chit your seed potatoes. That means expose the seed potatoes to bright light in a cool window until they develop dark, green sprouts. The seed potatoes should be planted out starting in in late March. Good luck!