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Framing the Issue, Naming the Struggle

Mediators are assumed to be nonbiased and neutral. Perhaps this explains why a few people  asked me over the years why my articles seem to show a “slant” in favour of the Palestinian people. How could I, as a mediator, show such bias? This isn’t surprising to me, as the news has for so long been one-sided toward Israel that any recognition/raising of Palestinian interests or viewpoints risks being labeled anti-Semitic, let alone biased. This keeps criticism of Israeli policies to a minimum.

When I took training to become a mediator in 1985, it dawned on me fairly early that we mediators of course are not always neutral, and as humans, we naturally have biases. Concern about neutrality & bias makes sense. Bias renders a mediator unlikely to be equally fair to all involved. In self-assessing my appropriateness to act as mediator, I used to ask myself:

am I biased in this matter?  And if so, am I capable of remaining objective and fair in my dealings with everyone involved despite that bias? If not, it was my ethical duty to step aside. (Even a perception of bias, such as having met one of the parties and not the other, needs to be raised and the matter perhaps referred to another mediator. This is for the parties to decide.) American leaders who called themselves “mediators” during past Israeli-Palestinian “peace talks” exemplify this problem; they were neither non-biased nor neutral. Further, American mediators had a conflict of interest, which is always reason to disqualify oneself as mediator.

For me, another aspect of serving all disputants is the mediator task of stating the issues at stake in a way that fairly names the struggle the parties are grappling with. Trying to do this in an honest and concise way is a humbling task! Naming what is at the heart of a dispute with clarity and kindness allows parties feel recognized, tensions ease, and they are more able to find their way forward.  Naming the struggle may not be easy to hear; it disrupts disputants’ narrative of themselves as victims of the other. If the attempt is off base, the parties say so, and a process of clarification, disclosure of key interests, and working together to better characterize the struggle ensues. To me, this is a very helpful part of the process.

With Israel-Palestine, one might name the struggle as: “How do these 2 peoples find a way to end the violence, ensure their own security, and negotiate a two-state solution?”  One dilemma this statement presents is its built-in solution, one that the disputants themselves may not choose;  (indeed, one that is now impossible due to 700,000+ Israeli settlers having moved to the West Bank and East Jerusalem.)  It also fails to recognize the hugely disproportionate power held by Israelis over Palestinians. It ignores the complex history between these conflicted peoples – the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the 1948 UN Partition Plan, the 1948 & ongoing Nakba (“Catastrophe” in Arabic), the 1967 War, 2008’s “Operation Cast Lead”, etc. It ignores the very real oppression occurring now, where all Palestinians – whether forgotten inside Israel, being attacked by settlers in the West Bank, or locked inside the 6 x 26 mile “open-air prison” that is Gaza, – are denied basic rights and equality under the law. It ignores the denial of access to water, the vast Separation Wall, the hundreds of checkpoints, the home and school demolitions, the land, sea and air blockade of Gaza, the Israeli-only road system through the West Bank, and the multitude of other indignities Palestinians endure daily.

From a mediator lens, when the power differential is so vast, the struggle is not amenable to a mediated/negotiated solution.  The more appropriate frame is that of “victim-offender”, where harms have been caused which need to be acknowledged, responsibility/accountability needs to be taken, and a plan put into place to repair and restore relationship.

In the Restorative Justice paradigm which I believe applies with Israel-Palestine, Israel is unlikely to take responsibility for its part in causing harm until held accountable by the community of nations. This would mean seriously pressuring Israel to end its long occupation of Palestinian territory and the siege of Gaza. Only then, and with much support, clarity and compassion, can those involved begin to restore & repair relationship and begin to craft a way forward. This is a big, but achievable task. But what is the alternative? And it absolutely requires the collective engagement of the international community!

I wrote this article (with some updating) in 2013, in a series of articles called “Hard Conversations – Israel-Palestine”. It’s discouraging to note that in 10 years, the situation has only deteriorated, peace and justice are ever further from the horizon, and the violence has never been more brutal.  To offer some context for the war on Palestinians right now, I’ll be revisiting some of them in weeks to come.  

 

1 Gorenberg, Gershom, The Accidental Empire, Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977, Henry Holt Books, New York: 2006.

2 Flapan, Simha, The Birth of Israel, Myths and Realities, Pantheon Books, New York:1987.

3 Pappe, Ilan, The Forgotten Palestinians, A History of the Palestinians in Israel, Yale University Press, New Haven: 2011.

4 Gorenberg, Gershom, The Unmaking of Israel, HarperCollins, New York:2011.

5 Sacco, Joe, Notes from Gaza, Henry Holt and Company, New York:2009, & Pearlman,Wendy, Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada, Thunder’s Mouth Press, New York: 2003.

The Hypocrisy of Bureaucracy is Killing our Democracy

The Hypocrisy of Bureaucracy is Killing our Democracy!

Taking multiple species with it, we humans are in a pickle! High in the head, we are the only breed living outside nature’s equilibrium! So ‘Batten down the hatches – FOLKS!’

Under the guise of caring, self-absorbed brains have managed to promote themselves through clever high-tech manipulation. Democracy – as we imagined it – shall  be no more! Note the ‘Woke’ movement!

To blame is a no-brainer! To begin taking responsibility – as aware individuals – is a beginning! 

Did you know that more than 50+% of all our country’s jobs are with the government? 

Democracy: ‘the practice or principles of social equality.’  

Communism: ‘a governing system in which the state controls the economy – while claiming to make progress towards a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared.’  

Bureaucracy: ‘an excessively complicated administrative procedure of controlling the masses!’

The main difference = hands– on versus hands– off!  

i.e. Passive trust in those you’ve jointly put in charge of common affairs will ultimately serve and fulfill their own needs. It’s human nature. Survival of the fittest! 

 The Hypocrisy of Bureaucracy: It is foolproof!’

We are on the cusp of BEING HUMAN – as we know it!

It’s either TIME we ‘WOKE’ up, or we are destined to the machinations of a handful of upfront Tech-IMBIBERS !

PS: I recently quit a 12year web-project: GoCascadia.com  

Meant to cover our still British Columbia ☹ Washington and Oregon > with our mountain range/ valleys and ocean running North-South in common!  

– As small communities we would ‘Work from the Inside-Out,’ as far as self-sustainably required. 

– We came close in the seventies with some 350 newbe ‘homesteaders’.  However, I was ‘In Over My Head!’

 – Facebook is doing it their way!     

Green Wizardries: Winter Potions

This winter has started very mild which I am joyful about.  There is nothing like waking up to Manitoba weather where every water bucket and water bottle on the farm is frozen.  It makes morning chores so much slower.  

Winter brings colds and bouts of flu.  To cure, or even to prevent colds, I like to make a pot of Nuclear-Noodle Soup.  To do this right, you need an old hen, preferably over two years old, to poach in a large pot of water with some onions and garlic added to improve the flavour.  Simmer for several hours to get the most out of the old bird.  When the chicken is falling-apart tender, your broth is ready.

A chicken you buy at the grocery store may be only weeks old and will never make a good chicken broth.  My mother in law tried to make broth from a supermarket chicken and, old farm girl that she is, decided it was too disgusting for words and threw it out.  

Once you have the broth ready, you take the chicken out to cool and separate the meat from the skin and bones.  Chop the meat up and add it back to the soup.  I like to add a quart of home-canned tomatoes, some broccoli I froze in the summer and a few noodles made from bean or lentil flour.  When the soup is ready to eat, I add four or five tablespoons of freshly chopped ginger and garlic.  If I have fresh chili peppers I would add the same amount of those too.  

The idea is to simply warm the spices but not to cook them as they have more healing power served raw.  You can see now why it is called Nuclear-Noodle Soup.  Give a bowl of this to someone who has a streaming cold and they, usually, get better quickly.

We grow elderberries and I froze some in the summer to make elderberry syrup which is a traditional European remedy for colds and flu.  You can find these syrups in any pharmacy in Europe and even some pharmacies here carry it.  But I like to make my own and it tastes great made with the fresh berries.  If you do not have elderberries in your garden yet, you can buy dried elderberries by the kilo from Harmonic Arts, a herb store in Cumberland where I buy all the herbs I need that I do not grow.  

For fresh berries, I put two quarts of berries into a pot with a quarter cup of water and simmer them gently until they are quite liquid.  I mash them to get the remaining juice and strain the solids out.  You can compost these but my hens just love them.  For dry berries, use one quart of dried berries and two quarts of water.  Simmer until you have one quart of juice and strain.

To this juice, add 1/4 ounce of freshly-grated ginger and 1/2 teaspoon of ground cloves and simmer until the juice is reduced by half.  Pour the juice into a measuring cup and add the same amount of honey and warm the honey and juice until the honey melts.  I like to add a 1/4 cup of rum at this time as a preservative.  I bottle the syrup and keep it in the fridge where is stays good for up to twelve weeks.  

Tree Eater Nursery on Denman has lots of great varieties of Elderberry to choose from and these bushes are beautiful and really good for wildlife as well as medicine.

I have noticed as winter draws in, that a lot of people are having trouble sleeping.  They might go to sleep fine but they wake up about 3 am and cannot get back to sleep.  I was given some marijuana ginger snaps by a kind friend and find them sovereign for getting to sleep and staying comfortably asleep.  

I grew a marijuana plant in the garden two years ago  and it was huge and had lots of buds.  I learned how to decarboxilate, (roast) marijuana in the oven and then to make an infused oil with coconut oil in the slow cooker.  I strained the oil and poured it into a silicone mold to make little pucks of oil which I keep in the freezer.

I made a batch of gingersnap cookies from the recipe in the Joy of Cooking, using the marijuana oil in place of butter.  The spices in the cookies mask the taste of the oil and the cookies are very tasty.  The recipe makes about forty cookies and the most I would suggest is half a cookie to get to sleep.  Indeed, one friend finds a quarter of a cookie gives him an excellent night’s sleep and when his alarm goes off in the morning, he silences it and goes back to sleep until about ten.   These cookies make excellent presents.

Phoenix Riting! – December 7th, 2023

I completely missed the Forest Fest put on by CHI recently. I can’t do all the things! I’m amazed I missed that, though; it slipped right through my brain. I must have needed the down time. As the dark time unfolds, the days continue to shrink and the nights to deepen, I spend more time alone. Time to think.

 

Polarization is on my mind. Worldwide, opinions are crystallizing into oppositional deadlocks where both sides are convinced not only of their own rightness but the other side’s malignancy. This assumption of evil on the other side is most insidious and destructive. It goes beyond simple disagreement. In war, each side must believe that the other side is hateful, evil, inhuman. It’s what makes war possible, to demonize the enemy. In my opinion, if you find yourself demonizing or dehumanizing someone in your own mind, that’s a red flag. Question it!

 

Wars are breaking out again after a time of relative peace. Everyone is convinced that if only everyone else would do the right thing (as they see it), the world would be fine, but useless and hateful opposition is causing all the problems. In truth, though, polarization is necessary. There will always be people who do not share our beliefs, values or priorities. It’s how a human body functions, how the environment itself functions. We have butterflies sipping nectar from flowers and flies laying eggs in carcasses. Everything is valuable, nothing is superior or inferior, we all have a niche to fill.

 

But now, we are collectively drawing battle lines and the end result is war. We are dealing with enough stress on the planet already. War could break everything. What can be done to shift this situation?

 

A few years ago, I saw a video about a man who made it a practice to talk and listen to people who believed things he found detestable. It started when he went to a pro-life protest and spoke to an anti-abortionist. He asked her, “Why are you so against abortion?” He expected her to come up with religious or ideological reasons, but instead, her eyes filled with tears and she told the story of her heartbreaking struggle to have a child, and her grief, rage and incomprehension about why anyone would throw away such a precious gift, that had been denied to herself. “It’s wrong!” He saw how her political beliefs were rooted in her own pain and was able to open to her with compassion. He went on to tell many similar stories.

 

That is how we change minds. In another example, Darryl Davis, a black man, has spent thirty years befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan. Over 200 Klan members have given up their robes after talking to him. Again, he spoke with them as human beings, to their hearts, from his own heart, with interest and curiosity. Magic happens when we ask another, why do you believe as you do? What motivates you, what moves your heart and soul? Then we need to listen with a mind to understand them, rather than marshalling arguments to convince them that they are wrong. Most will find the balance themselves, if they are heard and understood, if they feel a sense of connection with. It’s simple, and yet so hard to practice.

 

But when we do, we find that each individual point of view provides a unique and valuable perspective. When we understand where another human is coming from and why things appear to them as they do, we can begin to approach a rapport.

 

We have to stop thinking in terms of ‘us vs them.’ There is no ‘them.’ There is only ‘us.’ That is why I love living on an island. Here, on this rock surrounded by water, it’s obvious that we are in this together. We are motivated to get along because we have to, our survival may depend on it. The same is true of the whole world, of course, but it’s harder to see it on that scale. And of course, not everyone agrees with me. Not everyone will agree on anything, and that’s okay, if we can simply allow disagreement without demonizing.

 

On another note, my song, “Something About Christmas,” by Phoenix Bee, is now available on all the streaming platforms. It’s also on Bandcamp if you enjoy supporting artists directly. Enjoy!

 

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

Hello old Bob

I can’t clearly remember the details. She was my wife’s grand niece from a third cousin once removed… She was a frizzy freckled ginger haired mess of a thing with a permanent sinister smile. Her chin was disfigured slightly, like a wad of crushed pink bubble gum, but there was a swift solidness in her gait and she moved with purpose, despite a slight hunch, a crook in her neck that leaned to the right.

Her man Edwin was lean with big red hands covered on the tops with green tattoo ink formed into indecipherable symbols. His smile was a sneer and his skin was yellow, like his eyes.

“We are only here for three weeks,” Rita had told my wife before she added, “My name is Rita but everybody calls me Rizzy and we are here to help.”

After four weeks things started to go missing. I saw that half of my coin collection was gone so I locked the rest in the basement safe.

“They are stealing from us Mildred, they need to go.” Mildred nervously wrung her hands.

“My great Aunt Betty has pleaded with me and they’ve got nowhere to go but the shelter.”

I decided to take matters into my own hands. I went into the kitchen and put my hand on Edwin, who was eating one of our organic bananas. He smacked my hand away.

“Look you, don’t you steal from us, we are doing you a bloody favour.” He grimaced, then smiled. “Yeah right, sure, whatever. We got some money coming in quick so no worries old Bob.”

“Don’t call me old Bob.”

“Yeah right, whatever,” he sneered.

Soon we had people all around the house at all hours. They wore hoodies and bike helmets with spikes. They were always looking at their phones. Cars would show up and they would converge on them like pigeons being fed in a parking lot and then they would suddenly disperse. 

I watched the action constantly through the bedroom blinds.

“They are all involved in drugs, Mildred.” 

“They are kids with problems, they need our help.”

“We aren’t doing them any favours.”

That night there was even more activity than usual; strange little men all over the front lawn looking at their devices.

Rizzy was different. Her eyes were dark black holes. She pulled the screens off of all of our house windows.

“You don’t need these!” She railed.

“It’s our house, I’m calling the police!”

“No, you better not,” said Mildred. She looked terrified, shivering in her old blue nightie.

“Best not do that old Bob,” said Edwin, and he grabbed my wrists from behind and surprised me with his strength. As he pressed against me I could feel his lean body full of wiry muscle. He reminded me of a boa constrictor I’d once let crawl under my t-shirt when I was a teenager.

He dragged me out to the shed where I could see in the moonlight my old nemesis Jimmy Smits, rubbing two butcher knives together. Jimmy’s thin face was more skull like then ever and when he grinned it pulled the white cheek bones upward.

“Hello old Bob,” he said.

Evolutionary Reconciliation: Part 5

According to Sarah Schulman, in her book, Conflict Is Not Abuse, New York City after World War 2, became a haven for psychoanalysts and other refugees who left Fascist Europe. Many of these scapegoated people had a deep desire to understand the cruelty of their accusers, in an effort towards healing the collective psyche, not just the personal. New Yorkers, flung together from all cultural corners of the globe, began to unabashedly seek out therapy. The idea that conflict is normal and can occur for reasons that arise from the unconscious, became integrated into daily life. “To think therapeutically was the definition of being an adult.” Instead of fearing the stigma of needing help from others, seeking support became normalized. Instead of blaming others for causing trauma, asking why trauma occurs was seen as productive and beneficial. Edith Weigert, a German psychiatrist, fled the Nazi regime in 1935, and in 1938, joined the US psychoanalytic circle that included Harry Stack Sullivan and Freida Fromm-Rechmann. In her book “The Courage To Love” she described the mass hysteria of Nazism as “vindictiveness directed as transference to the Jews, the socialists, and the communists.” In other words, humans tend to unwittingly externalize internal conflicts, in an attempt to avoid feeling our own pain. This denial of our own emotional pain creates suffering and trauma, not just for ourselves but for our loved ones and for society. The important difference between pain and suffering is a common theme in Buddhist psychology.

There is a famous Zen story that illustrates the power of non-reactivity in the face of potential conflict. Here is my feminist version of the story. The Zen teacher Hakuin was praised by his neighbours as one living a pure life. A teenage neighbourhood boy got a local girl pregnant. The girl tried to hide her pregnancy but her parents eventually found out. They reacted with much anger. She would not confess who the sperm donor was. But after much harassment, she named Hakuin as the father. Enraged, the parents went and stood outside his house and hurled insults so that all the townsfolk heard of his terrible misdeed. Hakuin’s response was; “Is that so?” He was ridiculed, ignored and shunned by many in the town and lost his job working for a local media outlet. After the child was born, the parents brought the baby to him and demanded he take care of it, saying it was his responsibility. “Is that so?” he replied as he took the wee bundle into his arms. Luckily, some of his students were breast-feeding their own kids and offered to help. Hakuin took good care of the child as best he could. After a year, the girl-mother felt remorse and told her parents the truth; that the father was not Hakuin. Her parents went to Hakuin to ask his forgiveness and asked him for the child. “Is that so?” he said as he held out the baby to the grandparents.

This story examines a non-violent way to de-escalate conflict and also the behaviors of blaming others and avoiding the truth. The girl cannot admit the truth, her parents refuse to make it safe for her to tell the truth, the parents do not ask the accused for his side of the story and instead shame him in front of others. They make false, unproven accusations and then make harsh demands upon Hakuin. He may have experienced some pain, e.g sleep deprivation and relentless demands from caring for a baby and from losing his reputation but he did not turn this pain into suffering. His response is self-defense in the form of “ego-death.” Ask yourself and others this week what they think. How can we tolerate being blamed for someone else’s unresolved suffering, without harming ourselves? How can people skillfully defend themselves, without adding fuel to the fire, against forces that threaten the common good? 

Let’s reflect on the ancient dictum: “furiosus furore solum punitur” which translates as “The madness of the insane is punishment enough.” And this translation from Dostoyevsky: “While nothing is easier than to denounce the unskillful person, nothing is more difficult to understand them.”

Late

Late

by Mr. Unknown

Alarm beeps

Press snooze

Alarm beeps again

The world’s most annoying sound

Not a lull, a harsh startle

You win

The clock will lose

So, once more

You press snooze

You jump out of bed

Like a bullet from a gun

Glance at the time

The day has long ago begun

You turn on the shower

Finish in several minutes

Dress in your clothes

No time for breakfast 

this day blows

You run to the car

Sporting unties shoes

This all started from you

Or give the blame

To the damn button, snooze

As the car whirrs to life 

You remember something you need

“Oh no, my coat!”

Needed for later

On a chilly winter’s eve

You bolt to the house

Slipping on fresh, morning frost

Regain for position

But your coat remains lost

You frantically search

In every crevice of the house

But a coat is one thing

Your house is hair

And your coat is a louse

You finally find it

Sitting with ten million things on the rug

Such as your unused coupons

And an unwashed coffee mug

Now it’s back to the car

At speed of top notch

As you open the door

It smacks you in the crotch

You howl in pain

And say a few curses

Before franticly driving away

Out the driveway your car lurches

You are late 

Pretty Things

A Letter to the Community – Laura Thomson

Dear Community, 

Many of our residents are new and may not be aware of our current housing crisis. If you are newer to the island (or a long-timer) and have a place that could be rented out, but you haven’t yet for any reason, will you reconsider? We currently have single individuals, elders, and (most imperatively), families with children that are precariously housed, or actually homeless. With the drastic rise in real estate, it has left many regular folks with no where to turn. Many people have called this community home for years, contributed to the local economy in various ways, retired here, or raised children here. They are now left out in the cold, literally and figuratively.
If you are able to offer a secure rental, please reach out and I will be happy to help you (anonymously) connect with potential tenants. If you are someone in dire need of housing, please also contact me with your information, we need to start working together to match up those with rental spaces, and those who need them. Your privacy is of utmost importance, and I will help facilitate connections with confidentiality to protect the personal circumstances of all parties. 

Please keep in mind that while the price of real estate has skyrocketed, the incomes of working families, single people, and retired seniors have not risen at the same pace. If you are able to provide a rental, please also consider renting below what is currently considered “market rent”. As it is well over 50% of the income of many. Finding a home is an emergency for many right now, homeless children seniors and local workers does not reflect well on this community. Not only do homes need to be found immediately, folks need to be able to afford it without going destitute (not able to pay bills or basic expenses due to high rents). I appreciate some landowners cannot afford to rent for lower, thankfully there are some people who can afford the higher “market rents”. It is just a matter of matching up the various individual tenants and landowners who will suit each other. If you are reading this, and you know someone else who might have a space available will you please approach them about it?

As we approach the holidays and share the cheer and joy within our own homes, remember that there are families with no home right now, so let us please take drastic action without hesitation.

laurathomson@telus.net

Laura Thomson

Shucking Oysters: Reality TV

Like it or not, reality TV has been a pervasive part of our world for years and it isn’t going away. The first introduction to consensual voyeurism, if you will, was the 1973 TV show, An American Family, where millions watched a family unravel week after week. Since the early 2000s, there has been a massive reality television boom from the quaint to the questionable. 

Boy Meets Boy, the first same-sex dating show was considered groundbreaking in 2003. Viewers watched gay bachelor James Getzlaff romance 15 men, and unfortunately, almost half of them were just pretending to be gay. As someone wrote: “Cruel, offensive, and worst of all, boring.” Perhaps the most successful and iconic to date, is The Bachelor which has been on television for over 20 years. The series boasts five successful marriages, eight steady couples, and several babies. 

And now we have The Golden Bachelor, or more accurately, “The Fox and the Cougars,” 22 women between the ages of 60 and 75 trying to win 72-year-old widower, Gerry Turner’s heart. The producers even swapped the group date staples like mud wrestling and tackle football for a pleasant game of pickle ball. Surprisingly, the “boomer bait” fest drew a healthy 4.1 million viewers during its premiere episode last October. And if you think that it would be hard to find contestants in that age bracket, an astonishing 30,000 women auditioned. 

The 22 women had careers in education, real estate, finance — even cheerleading and competitive aerobics. Some are from a small town and others from a big city. Their musical tastes are varied, classic rock to Harry Styles — one contestant saw the Beatles live. They have names like Ellen, Nancy, and Peggy. And every one is at least 60-years-old. 

“When you get to our age, it’s almost inevitable that you have suffered a loss in some way, whether it’s the death of a spouse or a terrible divorce,” explains Gerry. “And when we share that commonality of loss of a spouse, it really is a huge launching pad for us in conversation. We can cut through a lot of the frivolous talk that maybe is necessary when you’re in your 20s and 30s.”

There are critics. The producer’s insistence on the vitality of its contestants can feel like a step forward, but some see it as “a second teenagerdom.” Hello! It’s “reality” TV, of course all the contestants are active and attractive. 

Mary McNamara of the LA Times wrote, “given this culture’s historic tendency to treat every postmenopausal woman as too old for whatever she’s up to, I worried that the sight of 30 such women vying for the affection of a 72-year-old widower would leave viewers either complimenting their “bravery” and cooing over how sweet it is to see older gals giving it one last try, or excoriating the women as desperate and condemning them for trying too hard to attract romance and attention.”

McNamara adds, “if the actual goal is matrimony, as opposed to some on-camera polyamorous canoodling, I expect women over 30, never mind 60, to be worrying less about how Gerry looks in a bathing suit and more about whether he is going to just leave that bathing suit on the bathroom floor.” And I’ll agree, I too found it painful watching the women being forced to stand awaiting Gerry’s judgment during the infamous rose ceremony. Like Miss America and Miss Universe, the rose ceremony is “reminiscent of choosing teams for dodge ball. And they all knew exactly what they were signing up for.”

As he bids goodbye to Anna, Pamela, Patty, Maria, Renee, and Sylvia, poor Gerry is crying. “The only time I ever felt worse in my whole life is when my wife passed away, and this is a goddamned close second.” But, the most heartbreaking and emotional elimination is November 30, between Leslie, 64, a former aerobics champion from Golden Valley, Minnesota, and Theresa, 70, a securities professional, from Benton City, Washington. Good luck Gerry. [Spoiler alert: Theresa.]

Nicole Gallucci noted that the “petty drama, goofiness, and hot hookups that people typically crave from reality TV dating shows” is not part of the narrative. Going from “a refreshing hour of wisdom, life experience, and maturity of 60 and 70-year-olds having deep, moving conversations about dead spouses, families, and second chances at love” to “two hours of 20 and 30-somethings fighting over love triangles, bouncing from hookup to hookup, and chatting about superficial topics, feels a bit like backsliding.” Or maybe refreshing?

Here’s a reality show: The Lonely, Eccentric Bachelor. I could see at least 200 island bachelors lining up for any chance of “polyamorous canoodling.” Finding 22 women could be an issue, on the other hand.

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