Spring is in the air, get excited about something

I sit now at a desk in a quiet room and even wonder what words will roll from my fingertips to the page you will see on your monitor. Will I bore you? Will you find me an arrogant hack and never come back again? Over 800 readers that appear now and again according to whoever is keeping score for me. Few respondents and once again, am I too judgemental am I too much of a know it all? Or are people just disinterested. I believe there is a lot of disinterest in all things in Canada that involve social, economic, and political issues. I once worked to raise awareness among young people and encourage that they could make change happen. Leadership! Carpe diem! Some I hope have taken a firm grasp on the things that I and others demonstrated to them and do show more of an interest in the things that matter to them on various  political levels. But some of them, too, put paid to the old adage "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" Perhaps they want to ring in change, but they are ships with sextant or compass on a cloudy night. they have no polestar to guide them Still others have found a tried and true way for at least moving their own agenda forward, pick a smaller pond, determine if it's worth it to you and stage a coup. As bloodless as possible of course, but power never really is shared, it's always taken. In those few situations, one has to wonder how the perpetrators of the coup manage to work together with trust afterward. I once used to share an expression with people in an office where individuals gossiping had become quite a problem. "If a person will gossip with you, they will gossip about you" Does no one else see that statement extrapolates to the person who will cut your throat (metaphorically...at least thus far) or destroy your reputation? I wish those who use this level of avarice to push forward their own greed based agendas all the luck in the world. In time, they'll need it. That has always been my opinion of people who move ahead thus, they are blindered by short range vision. My advice to them is see Reservoir Dogs.

My mood as a sit sipping my tea and enjoy the quiet of the house is one of a bit of melancholia. I have joined a couple of online presences to hopefully find that lively debate I sought. As I entered into a realm where the participants are obviously a little more gifted with use of the language and engaged in looking at some of the larger concepts in life, I was quite happy. I thought I had moved away from the vitriol, anger and bitterness of some of the news sites where people go immediately on the attack with insults instead of offering compelling or thoughtful counter-arguments. I found instead they just use a much higher level of insult. People too often seem incapable of rising up above their own pettiness and bruised egos to consider that someone might challenge how they feel about pretty much anything. Rather like, all opinions are welcomed as long as they agree with mine. some of the threads I've found are simply astonishing. Over 500 comments on the difference between a good leader and a good strategy and what is more important of the two. Well, I've got an answer for what works for neither of the two: having to go through 500 redundant and superfluous responses to make a decision.

A piece of news that I received last week is what got me thinking about all these things. Leadership and the ever reaching tentacles of apathy. It's always interesting to see people scrambling to prove to their constituents that what they are doing is noteworthy and not wasted, that the apathy is not deserved. It all called to mind some of the things that I have drawn upon in leadership discussions in the past. Julius Caesar was one of my all time favorites as a leader and I have drawn upon his statesmanship often, but things did end badly for Julius. I am given to recalling that Shakespearean scene where Marc Antony pokes his finger through the blood drenched hole in Caesar's robe and quotes 'and Brutus, as we know, was Caesar's angel.' Don't it always seem to go.....So, anyway, I've always also been a bit of a fan of General MacArthur, he made a comeback in WW2 and beat the Japanese all the way back to Japan, never got credit for it because his bosses decided to use Japan to test out their new atomic toys. MacArthur was often referred to as the American Caesar, there was an excellent movie made about his life in 1977 with Gregory Peck in the title role. Here's a wee clip from the and of the movie, when Eisenhower gets elected US President; I find the scene at home with his wife most poignant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UommQEnknQg

I was busy

So, I'm back. I watched a television series recently wherein Kevin Spacey plays an extremely manipulative and power hungry senator. I hope there are more than the original thirteen episodes, I thought it was quite good. A close friend who lives in another community watched part of it also and she commented to me that, after watching the various power plays and the manner in which these DC power chasers each play one another so underhandedly, that she had a better understanding of some of the things I've had to deal with in one of my previous careers. I actually got to take away from one episode a lesson about my friends. Spacey does a brief soliloquy on those who work in the capitol whether politicos or lobbyists or whoever pursuing money to those who pursue real power. He compares the money chasers to the ten year old mansions one sees around the city that are already starting to crack and their finishes peel, whereas those pursuing real power he compares to the two hundred year old estates around the outskirts of the city whose houses are as strong and breathtaking beautiful as when they were built. I ran into a situation just recently where I had to reach out to someone for some personal help. I went to some of my dearest friends in Portage and they gave me a hand getting out of the problem at the time, without question. It led me to think how many of what I thought were friendships were like those ten year old cheap façade mansions and how few like the grand old estate. How many relationships built with so called friends have their foundations in shifting sands? The sands of self-interest, greed, fear, or hypocrisy. How few are the friendships based on a foundation built on bedrock. I know about bedrock I grew up on the surface of the Precambrian shield.
There are certainly a lot more in that class of friends who, well let's just say are of the shifting sand variety and there is certainly a variety of responses when I bump into them I am certain several wish that I would pack up and leave town and some act accordingly. How about a media representative who used to call me every second day for quotes and now doesn't have the time of day? How about a high level bureaucrat who pretends he doesn't see me coming  and studies cheap pink electric guitars on the display wall at Walmart so he doesn't have to talk. Better still are the person  who races up with a big, fat bouncy smile to say hello and tell me how bad the kids miss me. Should have thought of that before you engineered how to get rid of me, but c'est la vie. I don't think a person in that position qualifies for having hurt feelings because all I gave were the most perfunctory of responses. Funny old world, my Dad used to say and then he'd chuckle just to prove his point. Anyway, these are just a few observations I've had around town. I feel fairly certain that if people had their own agendas to implement in any of the organisations for which I used to serve, their work is done now and they can get back to business.

In other news, I had to the distinct pleasure of dining with a couple who are probably around eighteen on nineteen. Nice, clean cut, fairly bright Canadian kids. A conversation started up about the rights of First Nations people as recently as the sixties and even the early seventies. they had no idea of the history of Canada and the abuses that Native people have had to tolerate and I didn't even get started on residential school. I sort of turned their minds toward politics and PM Harper for a few minutes and challenged them with the question of how far is Harper, with his treatment of native leaders and his policies toward native communities from the man who was his mentor (Preston Manning's dad) who's policy was 'assimilate or die" Now we have Harper trying to incorporate native communities and make them into town. Sounds kind of assimilated to me.  My conversation with the young couple turned to the other tow national options. I spent a few minutes going over what attack ads are and how effectively the CONs employed them last time. From the response I got, I don't think Harper running early attacked ads on JT will do him a lot of good. Nice to get some stuff out there, I hope a few of you drop me a line, (not literally, literally dropping a line is fishing, it's not like that here.