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.