A Generation Of Women

May 1, 2025

A Generation Of Women – **CANCELLED due to emergency health issues**

The play A Generation Of Women evolved from a single monologue written twenty-five years ago into a saga spanning a century with five different storytelling descendants. As the writer and performer Theatreworks’ Kymme Patrick tells humorous and insightful stories of five generations of women who helped shape our community with their dreams, with obstacles overcome and achievements for women in workplaces formerly dominated by men.

Creating A Generation Of Women began with an historic look at women on Vancouver Island, incorporating facts about the mining town of Cumberland in 1910, the docks of Comox in the 1920s, the Campbell River logging activities in the 1930s and a variety of local areas with details that depict the changing times and challenges. Whether Maggie is escaping the coal pits of Wales to journey to a better life in Canada, or Lillian is cooking meals for the loggers while dreaming of faraway places that the steamship travels, or Florence is building airplanes during wartime while pining for romance and peace, or Lulu is having a moment of clarity while enjoying free love and pesticide-free farming life, they each add a colourful thread to the tapestry of women’s experience throughout the twentieth century.

“In this play I explore how women have struggled during their times with issues of poverty, prejudice and deadly working conditions. I became fascinated by the changing roles of women and of the working class in the Comox Valley and surrounding area.”

Kymme Patrick is a well-known actor, director and writer of dozens of plays, winning awards from Theatre BC in all areas of theatre production. After much deliberation she decided to perform the piece as a one-woman show. “I don’t leave the stage between characters,” she explains. “because I dress in layers to make quick transitions. A new look, a different voice, I’m ready to go!” Although Patrick has performed A Generation Of Women several times any thought of retiring this piece has been met with another request. “Women like to watch it,” she says, “with their mothers, daughters, sisters and friends.”

So come out to celebrate the sisterhood of women and bring your mothers, daughters, sisters and all those who love them. A Generation Of Women will be presented at the following dates, times and venues:

Showtimes are May 9, 7:00 pm at the Abbey Studios in Cumberland and May 10, 7:00 pm at the Gathering Place, United Church on Denman Island.

Tickets are $20 at the door – reservations are recommended at theatreworks@shaw.ca or call 250 792-2031.

Updates to the Tribune Bay Park Recreation Enhancements Project

May 1, 2025

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Updates to the Tribune Bay Park Recreation Enhancements Project

Site layout, upgrades and timeline released

HORNBY ISLAND, BC (APRIL 25, 2024) – PROJECT UPDATE – SPRING 2025

BC Parks is excited to welcome campers back to Tribune Bay Campground this Spring. Since acquiring two properties to expand Tribune Bay Park, BC Parks has been creating a long-term plan to make improvements and add new park areas that protect and enhance natural, cultural, and recreational values. Following its designation as a provincial park in 2024, all regulations of the Park Act now apply.

Some improvements have already been made since last season including a new septic system and updates to the campground road.

There won’t be many visible changes for the 2025 camping season, but there are more improvements coming and the campground will look different in Summer 2026. Here’s what is going on:

New Layout and Camping Options

A complete redesign of the current campground is underway to better align with the experience visitors expect from BC Parks. A variety of site options and sizes will be available including park- beside sites, pull-through sites, and small, basic cabins with more space and privacy between sites. A variety of electrified and non-electrified sites will be offered, as well as new pit toilets and shower building.

Reduced campsite density

BC Parks will take a phased approach to construction. Phase One will be built on the original campground footprint and will include a short-term, temporary reduction of approximately 40 campsites. BC Parks is committed to providing a similar number of campsites to the original campground. Locations for the remaining sites are currently being considered, and will be added back in Phase Two. Construction for Phase Two is anticipated in Fall and Winter of 2026/27.

Enhancing visitors’ experience

Other improvements include enhanced access from the campground to the beach, a new playground, and accessibility improvements such as compact gravel campsites and roads, and universally accessible showers. To support healthier air and reduce wildfire risk, wood-burning fires will be prohibited, with propane fires permitted. There will also be an extra vehicle fee for second vehicles at a campsite where space is available.

For project updates and to view the new campground layout, visit: helpshapebc.gov.bc.ca/tribune

Does Capping the number of Vacation Rentals Now Make Sense for Hornby?

May 1, 2025

(Paid Promotional)

Does Capping the number of Vacation Rentals Now Make Sense for Hornby?

We at HISTRA believe the Temporary Use Permit (TUP) bylaw requirements proposed for managing Vacation Rentals are reasonable and good for Hornby.

The Hornby community benefits from well-managed Vacation Rentals adhering to established water and ecological standards while at the same time supporting hundreds of our workers, artists,

businesses and families. Unfettered growth is not healthy for the island and a reasonable cap will help protect what we all hold dear.

At the March 21st Local Trust Committee (LTC) meeting, our two Hornby Trustees proposed setting a cap on Vacation Rentals at 67, half of the 135 Vacation Rentals they estimate are currently

operating on the Island. Trustee Scott said it was a number for the community to discuss.

We believe the current Vacation Rentals are stable and sustainable. Reducing them, let alone by half, is detrimental for Hornby as a whole. For many, renting their homes is how they afford to remain a part of the Hornby community. The guests they bring are an important lifeblood to the artists, artisans, businesses, workers, cleaners and tradespeople of Hornby.

With required Provincial Registration by May 1st, in the next month we will finally know how many Vacation Rentals we actually have.

So, what DO we know?

Most Vacation Rental owners have long and deep roots on Hornby, many being second or third generation islanders. Many bought on the island after years of visiting, making memories and

building connections.

We are not investors — and investors are not a part of Hornby’s Vacation Rentals.
Vacation Rentals do not all operate simultaneously or consecutively over the summer. Many owners enjoy their Hornby homes several weeks during the season.
Our information suggests the number of Vacation Rentals has been stable for several years.
We estimate around 400 Vacation Rental guests come to Hornby each summer week.
That’s compared to 2,400 part time owners, family and friends, another 1,000 at campsites and our other paid accommodations and 500 visiting full time residents.

- Cutting 200 from 4,300 weekly visitors won’t make much difference to lines, ferries or the popularity of Hornby as a destination. It will hurt a lot of locals though.

Every year Vacation Rentals spend the average annual income of 70-75 workers on Hornby — that’s over 15% of the local labour force. That’s not rental fees, that’s what is spent by guests and owners in our community. That would be cut in half.
Vacation Rentals pay 75% of the Municipal and Regional District Tax (MRDT—aka the “pillow tax”) for Hornby, currently $65-75K each year, goes towards workforce housing on Hornby.

- Since 2022 HICEEC has collected approximately $200,000 of MRDT funds in a GIC, dedicated to workforce housing, $150,000 coming directly from Vacation Rentals.

A long-held argument against Vacation Rentals is the belief they would otherwise provide long term housing on Hornby. The reality is this simply isn’t the case. Our own families are in their homes many times throughout the year making them unavailable for long term residency. They would also be unaffordable — what Hornby needs is more housing that costs below $1,000 a month, housing the MRDT funds can support.

In short, reducing the number of Hornby’s Vacation Rentals will negatively affect many, while providing little benefit or any real change. What it will do is cut the MRDT funds Vacation Rentals contribute to HICEEC’s workforce housing initiative. It will reduce the incomes of many islanders

and upend the lives of all the families who will struggle to keep their family properties and with no positive impact on housing or appreciable difference in visitors.

Reducing the number of Vacation Rentals doesn’t seem to help anyone or anything. What we, and we hope you, support as these changes are implemented:

- Every Vacation Rental that is legally operating, meets the TUP requirements, is provincially registered and paying the MRDT can apply for and receive a TUP.
- Once those TUPs are granted, the need for and size of a cap should be decided in a community process, not by the Trustees alone.
- If the cap is set below the number of TUPs that have been granted, then no new Vacation Rentals would be added until the number falls below the cap.
- To provide certainty for the community, our Trustees can formally confirm, at the May 16th LTC meeting, that, once in place, they will approve all TUPs for provincially registered active

Vacation Rentals that follow the bylaws, meet the TUP requirements and pay MRDT. If you think this is reasonable, please let the Trustees know by email or over coffee.

We believe the Trustees want to make changes the community supports but they must hear from you to know what that is.

Here are the emails:

- - Trustee Alex Allen: AAllen@islandstrust.bc.ca
  - Trustee Grant Scott: GScott@islandstrust.bc.ca
  - Hornby Island Local Trust Committee Chair, Timothy Peterson: tpeterson@islandstrust.bc.ca

Sincerely, Your Friends and Neighbours, The HISTRA Board and our Members

If you have questions about this information, please reach out to hornbyshortterm@gmail.com, we are happy to have a conversation with you.

The DIBB Has Jumped The Shark

May 1, 2025

The DIBB Has Jumped The Shark

Book Magoo, Roving Reporter

Well the iconic Facebook stalwart ‘Denman Island Bulletin Board’ has jumped the shark. It’s the end of an era folks. Like the once great ancient Rome, it now lies in ruins and all that remains are scant remnants of its former stateliness. It’s become as palatable as a steaming bowl of raw sewage. The intellectual equivalent to being tied to a chair and kicked down a flight of stairs. The DIBB is akin to the neighborhood bar that used to be a good place to go visit once in a while but then it got taken over by a bunch of unlikeable surly regulars that are there 24/7 and just try to pick fights with anybody that says anything that rubs them the wrong way. It’s an intellectual cul-de-sac littered with laughing emojis and snide remarks from thoroughly unlikable keyboard combatants who constantly feel driven to sate their appetite for shittiness and tell the whole world what they think about everything and anything that comes across their radar. The new and improved DIBB comes complete with public shaming courtesy of would be climate change “activists” who address the need to voice their displeasure every time someone idles their car for more than four seconds after its driver slaps it in park, along with long-winded rambling political screeds that read like one of those computer software licensing agreements where those on board skim the first two sentences then scroll to the bottom and hit “Agree”. And then there’s the “I’m so done with this shit” crowd who defiantly make a post announcing their departure from the whole sordid mess. “Hey, just letting everybody know that I’m leaving Facebook…you can find me over at Bluesky!” then within two weeks they’re back to sneaking in a like here and there and before too long they’ve full on reappeared like a persistent untreatable rectal itch and more unbearable than ever. I think when covid hit a few select people decided to uncork themselves and release their inner asshole loose upon the community. I could see things going in that direction before the “pandemic” but holy shit in a hat 2020 was like a pedal to the floor for some high octane assholery. The Pandora’s Box was open and as Grandma used to say “You can’t put shit back in a donkey”. Was it ever any good to begin with? Or am I just viewing this through a rose colored lens that clouds my perception of reality? Like that old movie you used to love, then you watch it again years later and find that time has been quite unkind to it. But the movie’s no different, it’s the same as it’s always been…

Shucking Oysters: Selling Your Soul

May 1, 2025

Shucking Oysters: Selling Your Soul

By Alex Allen

Celebrities have always been around. We used to call them musical artists. Movie stars. Politicians. Newscasters. Models. Poet Laureates. Philosophers. The print media followed their every move and we devoured every morsel, from Silver Screen and Movie Star magazines to People and Vanity Fair. We humans need someone to follow and worship.

Famous faces have always had a way of grabbing our attention. And then a moment of brilliance, celebrity endorsements. Who wouldn’t want to have Gordon Ramsay’s HexClad hybrid nonstick 7-Inch frying pan? Or be “toasty warm” in Reba McEntire’s battery-operated Ororo heated vest? For decades, brands have been using famous faces as a means of advertising. But there has been a huge shift, with brands turning their focus to influencer marketing. Now we all can be worshipped; we can all be an “influencing” celebrity. Find your niche. Vegan Photography. Oyster Baiting.

Except, the tides have changed lately. Instead of being adored and mimicked, many are being vilified and abandoned for their utter crassness. Not only are people sick of being made to feel bad about themselves by those who, more likely than not, have more sordid lives than the average person, the greatest currency in media today is authenticity. As Chadwick Moore recently wrote, “Social media audiences haven’t only caught on to rented Birkin bags and phony housewives agonizing over, say, their child’s artisanal packed lunch featuring a gold-dusted bento box, political influencers are feeling the backlash, too.”

From their distasteful antics, these narcissistic rude people do seem to go out of their way to advertise their stupidity – it appears that there is little they won’t do for a few likes on Instagram. Instagrammer Natalie Schlater posted a picture of herself in a bikini in front of a rice paddy, just like her other uploads. But it was the caption that caused an uproar: “Thinking about how different my life is from the man picking in the rice field every morning.” Wow. Schlater came across as shallow and entitled but she claims that the whole thing was a “big misunderstanding.” As Moore, added, “Perhaps if these influencers didn’t feel the need to accompany these ‘deep and meaningful’ thoughts with pictures of their asses, people might not find them quite so ridiculous.”

Society has a way of reining in bad influencers, however, and the current trend of “shaming” those who go too far seems to be working. How low can the bar of an Instagram influencer’s self-obsession go? For many online creators, however, negative attention, can also get them more likes. You can grow a career out of enraging viewers and many creators have reached huge audiences by doing just that: being extremely controversial.

A 2023 survey found 56% of Generation Zeds wanted to pursue influencing as a career. Compare that with another study where the same number of Chinese kids considered being an astronaut as their dream job. Influencers shamelessly promote unnecessary products in exchange for $$$, perpetuating a culture of mindless consumerism that’s destroying our planet. With every sponsored post, they’re basically saying, “Hey, buy this crap you don’t need, because I got paid to tell you to!” “Just sitting here being a beigeomaniac with my @imago_a Plis tote & happy to share my -20% code SISSY20…”

These so-called influencers may have thousands, even millions of followers, but how many genuine connections can one person really have? Do they care about their “fans”? Or the number of followers that boost their ego and their bank accounts? It’s all about who has the biggest following, not who has the most skill or knowledge. Their success is built on botox and luck, not hard work and merit. Yet, they all seem to act like they’re entitled to the fame and fortune they’ve stumbled on to.

Influencers are the epitome of narcissism (think Meghan Markle). Their posts scream “look at me, look at what I’m doing, look at what I’m wearing!” They also tap into people’s deepest insecurities, making them feel like they’re missing out if they don’t have the latest products or experiences they’re blatantly pushing.

Remember when friendships were based on shared experiences and trust? Well, not anymore. Now it’s all about networking and leveraging connections for personal gain. Influencers have turned human relationships into commodities. It’s about flashy cars, luxury vacations, and designer clothes – a hedonistic lifestyle that’s unsustainable and sad.

One individual on Reddit, eloquently commented, “With every vapid post, they’re contributing to the collective dumbing down of our society. Instead of promoting critical thinking, self-improvement, or meaningful content, they’re just adding to the mindless noise we’re all drowning in.” They’re the embodiment of everything that’s wrong with the hedonistic, consumer-driven society we’ve become.

Another had issues with the term influencer. “Like bro you literally sit in your bedroom all day and dance to copyrighted music on TikTok, what are you influencing people to do? You literally make fake prank videos or vlogs flexing how rich you are, again, what are you influencing people to do? We glorify the biggest idiots on the planet and then proceed to call them influencers. Real influencers are people like activists, actors, musicians, athletes, and artists. Not some annoying person in their teens or 20s doing dumb shit on the Internet for clout or playing video games all day.”

No matter how you look at them, they are get-rich-quick schemes so many are hoping to get in on. Micro versions of being a Kardashian. That’s right! You too can be useless and make money inspiring people to be useless while making money!

Fatima Hassouna and Aaron Bushnell

May 1, 2025

Fatima Hassouna and Aaron Bushnell

Poet, singer, photo-journalist, Palestinian citizen

25 years old; Fatima’s camera was her gun

delivering food, water and news in the streets

One day after “Put Your Soul in Your Hand and Walk”

was nominated for a Cannes film award

an AI generated drone massacred you

And nine other family members; thirteen kin already killed.

Fatima’s smile, described by AIDS activists, “as magical as your tenacity”

“They cannot defeat us because we have nothing to lose”

You embody the spirit of Black Panther, Zapatista,

Wolverine, Harriet Tubman, the 212 journalists killed in Gaza

Your zestful heart threatened the Big Shots.

Fatima, your passion inspires us to fight the good fight

Until we die; not of starvation or ethnic cleansing or self-defense.

Or self-immolation, unless you are

25 year old Aaron Bushnell, a US Air Force officer

driven to act against the nightmare of genocide.

Rest in Power, Fatima and Aaron

The Clouds

May 1, 2025

The Clouds

Oakley Rankin

So what is this Cloud that you are encouraged to float around in? Does it have a silver lining? Does it portend a storm? It’s really simple: the Cloud is a corporate computer storage system storing all your personal data and for which you pay a subscription price. In its full blown form—Software as a Service or SaaS—the corporate computer contains not only your data but also the software and apps which you use to create it. In essence it is all about ownership of resources as the graphic indicates:

In the graphic, white boxes are resources residing on your home computer and thus under your control; black boxes are resources residing in the Cloud under the corporation’s control; the boxes labelled ‘Databases’ contain your personal data. There are two end stages; On-Premise and SasS; and two intermediate stages Iaas and PaaS. I have little doubt that SasS is where we are heading with everything you create existing on someone else’s computer while you operate only what we used to call a ‘dumb terminal’—now a laptop, phone, tablet, etc.

Why after 30 years of more of storing all our data on our own computers are we now being sold the Cloud? Essentially because of the astronomical drop in the price of storage media driven largely by IBM—remember them? And curiously enough in our world where technological advance is supposed to occur almost overnight, the backbone of this cheaper storage is magnetic tape, the same tape many of you used in cassette recorders and which was first developed by IBM in 1951. A current version, the IBM TS4500, combines extremely high speed tape storage with discs in a single unit to store up to 400 petabytes. A petabyte is a quadrillion bytes or 1,000,000 gigabytes bytes and it is estimated that the entire content of all U.S. academic libraries could be stored in 2 petabytes. I used the progenitor of these devices, the IBM 3850, back in 1975; it had a maximum of 705 tape cylinders storing 35 Gigabytes which were loaded as needed by a truly Rube Goldberg system of motors, pulleys and chains to 14-inch discs of 5 megabyte capacity—I have such a disc hanging in my office window.

Operationally having all software and data on a single computer eliminates the constant updating of millions of personal computers and makes a subscription price much more acceptable. The corporation updates both the operating system and application software once and it is immediately available to millions of users; this is your advantage; your machine is always up to date with nothing to do on your part. For the corporation however, the advantage is control of everything in a much more secretive fashion—you won’t know when or what updating has been done and whether it is any advantage to you. And subscription pricing legally reinforces the corporation’s claim of ownership to everything while allowing more features to be charged as ‘extras’ with ‘flexibility’ in overall charge.

If you recently bought a computer with Windows 11 the chances are good that it has been preset to take you to Microsoft’s version of the Cloud—OneDrive. It is not quite full SaaS as the operating system and some apps remain on your computer but much of your data will be stored on the OneDrive computers either as backup or as the only copy. Microsoft can block your account and access to ALL your data if their regular PhotoDNA checks find any human nudity, online surveys or pirated resources among many other deliberately unstated reasons. Apple has iCloud and Wikipedia lists thousands of companies offering Cloud service.

You have already used one aspect of the Cloud for years: webmail; your missives come into corporate computers for Gmail, Hotmail, etc. for storage. And there they stay; when you read them you are reading a temporary copy of the original which stays in the hands of the corporation.

We will undoubtedly accept the Cloud fairly willingly. And the genuinely stupid who claim “I have nothing to hide” forget that they have never been the ones who decided what should or should not be hidden. Jews were not consulted as to their status in the Third Reich and you are not being consulted as to the corporate use of your data by the thousands of websites that currently collect it. Welcome to Cloud-Cuckoo land where your personal data is dumped into someone else’s nest.

Irony dripped from the fluorescent lights—a true story.

May 1, 2025

Editorial use only Open heart surgery. Members of a cardiac surgery team carrying out open heart surgery. During the operation, a heart-lung machine takes over the function of the heart and lungs. It oxygenates and pumps blood around the patient.

Irony dripped from the fluorescent lights—a true story. Gabriel Jeroschewitz, April 11th, 2025

The Royal Jubilee Hospital in December. It sounded like a party was going on somewhere, a muted, distant celebration filtering through the sterile corridors. Irony dripped from the fluorescent lights. My name is Gabriel, and frankly, parties weren’t my thing anymore, especially not with a bum ticker and a history of strokes that had messed with my optical cortex. Good times.

This adventure began with a familiar tightening in my chest, a dull ache that blossomed into a full-blown panic. One of my arteries had decided to embrace the season’s spirit by completely shutting down. Hence, the Jubilee. Therefore, the Quick Stay unit was where hope mingled with the lingering scent of antiseptic and fear, in a situation where the outcome was far from certain.

They wheeled me in, prepped me for the angioplasty, and explained the procedure with the detached efficiency that only medical professionals can truly master. Catheter, balloon, plaque-squishing – the whole shebang. It sounded… unpleasant.

Then the cardiologist, who looked like he hadn’t slept properly since med school, made his pronouncement. “I don’t know if I can do this. You may need open-heart surgery.” He delivered the news with the same tone he might use to describe the weather: partly cloudy with a chance of cardiac arrest.

My stomach dropped. Open-heart surgery? I pictured myself splayed out on a table, my ribcage cracked open like a coconut, not precisely how I envisioned spending my December.

Then, he backtracked in a move that defied all logic and inspired a flicker of hope. “Well, let me try. I’ll see what I can do.” It wasn’t a rousing declaration of medical prowess, but it was enough.

And so began the three-hour catheter odyssey. I lay there, strapped to the table, as the doctor and his team navigated the tiny tube through my veins, inching closer to the blockage. Above me, a massive screen displayed the inner workings of my heart in glorious, gruesome detail. It was like watching a particularly violent episode of a medical drama, except I was the star, and the stakes were considerably higher.

It turns out that a previous stent had decided to get all scar-tissuey and complicated, turning a simple procedure into a vascular obstacle course. Catheters went in, and catheters came out. I lost count somewhere around catheter number seven.

“So,” I croaked at one point, “I think my heart is about to stop.”

The cardiologist cheerfully, peering intently at the screen, said, “Oh boy, it looks like you’re right.”

And he was. My heart rate plummeted, and the monitor started beeping frantically. I heard the distinct rumble of the crash cart being wheeled in, like the sound of impending doom on rubber tires.

This, I thought, was it.

And then things got weird. Weird.

Suddenly, my life flashed before my eyes. Not in a montage of happy memories, mind you, but in a series of regrets. I saw myself as a flawed, insecure man. I remembered all the times I’d acted out of fear, the moments I’d let my anxieties dictate my actions.

I thought about my children. Had I been a good father? Had I been present enough, supportive enough? The answer, a resounding “no,” echoed in my head.

And then I saw her. An angel. Not the cherubic, winged variety you see on Christmas cards, but a radiant, androgynous being radiating pure, unconditional love.

I poured out my heart to her, confessed my failings as a father. “I should have been there more,” I lamented. “I should have been better.”

The angel listened patiently, her expression serene. She didn’t offer platitudes or assurances. She just… understood.

And then, bizarrely, I heard them. Other angels. They were making coded jokes that I couldn’t quite decipher with my rational mind, but I understood them on an emotional level. It was like hearing a symphony of cosmic chuckles, a divine roast session happening just for me.

All this, mind you, took place in what I perceived to be an eternity. But in reality, it was only five minutes.

Suddenly, a voice jolted me back to reality. “Looks like everything’s okay now,” the cardiologist announced, sounding almost as surprised as I felt. I guess we’ll continue.”

They continued. They wrestled the stubborn artery open, restoring blood flow. The monitor beeped a steadier rhythm. The crash cart retreated to the shadows.

The feeling of the angel lingered, a warm, comforting presence, which was perplexing, to say the least. I’m more of an atheist, or at least an agnostic, maybe spiritual but not religious. I wasn’t expecting a celestial encounter. I thought maybe I’d have my moment with Buddha, Yahweh, Jesus, God, or some higher intelligence. Instead, I got an angel and a celestial comedy club.

I felt small and insignificant, humbled by the experience. I felt terrible for some things I had done in my life. I wish I had been a better person, a feeling magnified by the humbling experience.

As they wheeled me out of the Quick Stay unit and back into the muted chaos of The Jubilee, my mind raced. What did it all mean? Was it a near-death hallucination? A subconscious manifestation of my guilt? Or had I caught a glimpse of something… more?

I may never know. But one thing was sure: I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d been given a second chance—a chance to be a better father, friend, and human being.

And a chance to finally pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a writer. A dream I’d buried deep beneath layers of insecurity and doubt. Over the years, I’d written countless poems, short stories, even a play about Nietzsche and Kafka. But, crippled by fear of failure, I’d burned them all. Reduced them to ashes.

But maybe it wasn’t too late. Perhaps the angel, the cosmic jokes, and the near-death experience were all a divine nudge, a reminder that life is too short to waste on fear.

It may be time to stop burning my stories and start telling them. Even if they were as messy, flawed, and utterly ridiculous as the angioplasty, and my own heart, that had just tried to kill me. The Jubilee, I thought, wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe everyone was having fun, and so could I.

Phoenix Riting! – Election

May 1, 2025

Election:

It’s tough to focus on writing a column right now. I’m glued to the TV, watching election results roll in. Okay, I muted the audio. Maybe now I can zero in on what I want to say.

This election, like all of them, is divisive, but they’re getting more so. The NDP got tossed under the bus, losing its status as an official federal party entirely. Fear drove it: fear of Trump, fear of the Conservatives, fear of not standing up to Trump or selling out to him… or something.

The good news for me as I write, is Gord Johns is projected to win in this riding. Considering only seven ridings that have gone to the NDP this time around, we can pat ourselves on the back here, though credit goes to Gord for his lengthy track record in serving this community.

Why am I writing about the election? Honestly, I don’t usually pay much attention to politics. It’s a bit “six of one, half a dozen of the other”; no matter who we vote for, the government always wins. But this year, I’m riveted. The drama! The emotion! I shed a tear or three during Jagmeet Singh’s resignation speech. So gracious, so generous, so raw. I’ve always had a soft spot for the NDP. Growing up, my family voted NDP, and I’ve identified as a supporter, if anything. I’ve voted Green too, but the NDP holds a special place in my heart. We owe them a lot. They’re the big losers this election, through no real fault of their own.

Jagmeet’s been through a lot lately, leading up to the disappointment of losing in his own riding, and the crash and burn of the federal NDP. He’d received some credible death threats, and he was at the Lapu Lapu Festival in Vancouver when tragedy struck: 11 people killed, many injured. He’d left the site only minutes before. That’s a lot for a human to go through. (Note: I call it a tragedy, not a crime, because the driver was struggling with mental health issues. That’s a whole other issue–the urgent need for better mental health resources–but back to the election.)

This wild election. Two out of three major party leaders lost their own ridings! If you count the Greens, it’s two out of four, though, because Elizabeth May, the Green co-leader, seems comfortably ahead in hers. I’m glad about that. But the NDP and the greens are effectively out of the picture for the next election cycle.

I’m amazed at how many friends and relatives are convinced that if the Liberals win, Canada’s doomed. Dead! Done! You can hear the lamentation for miles. I can hear it from up north, where some of my own relatives are freaking out. If the Conservatives had won, the other side would’ve been shrieking just as loudly. I don’t think it’s that dire. Politics won’t kill us. I don’t think Canada’s in danger of dying or becoming the 51st state. Everyone needs to take a breath. I might not be quite so sanguine if the conservatives had won, but I wouldn’t have been panicking either. The liberals are only marginally better than the cons in my opinion.

That doesn’t mean I’m thrilled with our political system. I’m not even sure I believe in countries, but if I had to pick one, I’d rather be Canada than America.

I think our only hope lies in community. We need to build from the ground up, connect with neighbours and friends, no matter who they vote for. We all have way more in common than our ballots suggest. This system might crash and burn, and we may need to come together in real, practical ways to survive. In some sense, that might not be the worst thing. Nothing unites people like necessity.

My grandfather would say we’re all too soft, spoiled by “lotus land” out here on the coast—plucking food off the ground, basking in sunshine, as he saw it. I can’t even imagine what he would make of this modern world. Back then, politics weren’t such a big deal. What mattered was who’d show up if your car was in a ditch or you broke your leg and couldn’t chop your own wood. The cultivated relationships with your neighbours because you needed them.

I’m not saying I want to go back to that world, or that I want disaster to befall us, to force us to come together. But it wouldn’t be the worst thing ever. Neither is this election result. This is the world we have, and this is the country we have. We work to change what we can, of course.

I have a lot of faith in us humans, despite all evidence that faith is misguided. Faith doesn’t need evidence. Faith can create. Faith can move mountains. I’ll put my faith in faith. I’m may be wrong, but faith feels way better than doubt. I’m going with that.

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

It’s Always About The System

May 1, 2025

It’s Always About The System

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

APR 27, 2025

The main reason more people don’t just go all in with opposing the US empire and rejecting all its propaganda about enemy states is because they can’t handle working through the heavy cognitive dissonance which comes with recognizing that everything you’ve been taught is a lie.

Most people recognize to some extent that the US and its allies do bad things, but those who take it all the way into a clear understanding that this power structure is responsible for most of our world’s ills are a small minority in the west. Even the relatively awake ones will try to cling on to this or that imperial propaganda narrative about nations like China, North Korea, Iran and/or Russia. Most try to at least keep a foot in the door of their imperial indoctrination, so they don’t have to experience the psychological discomfort of letting it close completely.

But that’s where the truth is. Coming to a lucid understanding of the world necessarily means abandoning all untruths for truth on every level. If you can work up the courage to really do this, the entire mainstream western worldview gets flushed right down the toilet.

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Israel is a bad country full of bad people. They are not bad because of their religion, they are bad because they live in a genocidal apartheid state whose existence depends on indoctrinating its people into seeing genocide and apartheid as good. It’s the system.

It’s always the system. Western countries are full of shitty people with shitty beliefs who do shitty things to each other all the time. This isn’t because westerners are inherently shitty, nor because humans are inherently shitty. It’s because here in the western empire we live under capitalism, which encourages selfish behavior and cutthroat competition against each other, and because we are indoctrinated into accepting the tyrannical white supremacist propaganda of western imperialism.

Nobody is inherently bad. We are all the products of our conditioning, and the systems under which we live play a large role in shaping our conditioning. That’s what mass media propaganda and the indoctrination of western schooling are: streamlined systems for determining what our conditioning will be. These systems can have as much of an effect on our view of the world as other forms of conditioning like trauma.

The powerful understand that humans are an easily conditioned animal, and so vast resources are poured into determining what our conditioning shall be. As soon as we are old enough to start learning about the world our minds are trained to shape us into good cogs in the imperial machine. Good employees and gear-turners for capitalism. Good soldiers and police officers. Good citizens who would never do anything to inconvenience our rulers.

We are funneled through carefully crafted factories of conditioning by the malignant systems under which we live. As long as those malignant systems exist they will keep churning out malignant people, and goodness will struggle to find any purchase. This is true whether you are talking about capitalism, imperialism, or Zionism.

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I’m the least religious person I know but some westerners are getting so obnoxious about Islam and Muslims that I sometimes think about converting, just to piss them off.

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Had a medical incident in my family the other day. It’s funny what a reminder of human mortality can do to dispel all the little resentments and dramas that can build up between loved ones over the years and cause all the old grievances to be seen for the insignificant mind fluff that they are.

And right now I feel sorrowful that it so often takes a major health scare or accident to remind us of this. We all know we’re all going to die, but we let the small stuff come between us anyway. We let the little quibbles in our heads stop us from touching hands and experiencing intimacy with each other during our fleeting time on this beautiful planet.

In the play Waiting for Godot, Beckett writes that our mothers “give birth astride of a grave,” and it’s just so true.

“They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it’s night once more,” the character Pozzo laments.

The line resonates because that really is what the human experience feels like. We get a short time here, and then we’re gone.

How bizarre is it, then, that we still find time to hate each other? That we still have time for grudges and resentment? That our mothers give birth astride of a grave, and we punch and kick each other on the way down?

Bukowski said, “We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”

It’s about the weirdest thing you could possibly imagine.

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