Finally – at long last!

When you start out doing something for the first time, you always have a certain mindset going forward. Once you are hip deep in it all, you realize just how right – and wrong – you were when you began.

Most Canadian kids, at some juncture, wish to be an astronaut, firefighter, or Prime Minister – or all three. Life and fate tend to weed out all but the most brave and committed of souls. For me, I had always wanted to write a book. I don’t necessarily understand why – it was just something that had always appealed to me.

For years, I wrote, but it never seemed to amount to much. Finally, about eight years ago, I resolved to stubbornly shepherd something as far as I could take it. That became my first book, “The Case for Commonwealth Free Trade,” published by Trafford in 2005.

Writing that book did three things for me. One, it allowed me to articulate many deeply held views. It also gave me an introduction to people and to circumstances I might not otherwise have had the chance to enjoy. Lastly, but just as important, it broke my internal resistance – the thing that made me start a writing project, then conveniently toss it aside before I took it to the end.

Two days ago, at about nine at night, I reached the point that, for better or worse, I could do no more. I don’t know if this is indicative of all writers, but I had a voice inside my head that said “It’s done – play with it anymore and you’ll just break it.”

And so, I have completed my first novel, entitled “Lulio”.

It has no sexually driven vampires, and no pre-pubescent wizards, so it is markedly different than 99 percent of what you’ll find in your local bookstore. It does, however, have the following:



• Wall Street corruption

• Seedy motivational speakers

• Cold War spying

• Prostitution (and yet with no sex?)

• Mistaken identity

• 1980’s karaoke performed with a very thick Cuban accent

• …and a large fiberglass hotdog

You will have surmised that this is not high literature, and if it were a movie, it would be a cross between a film adaptation of Voltaire’s “Candide” and the Farrelly brothers’ “Dumb and Dumber”.

It may not get me invited to have drinks in the lobby of the Algonquin with John Irving, but it was fun to imagine and to scribe. It’s fiction, and it’s supposed to be fun. I don’t want to change the world, or buy it a Coke, or anything. I would, however, like to know that somewhere, someone reading it is laughing at its rather rude and naughty bits.

It is published through Smashwords as an e-book, and in the coming days will (hopefully) be available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple and other online retailers.

Enjoy!

PS. No-one I know, or have ever been within twenty feet of, is a character in this book. Besides, I don’t think that you would really want to be!

Problems with Pugnacious Partisans

It is an enduring paradox of the human condition that we tend to apply labels to things that have no correlation to their attributes.


Think back to the days of the Cold War and the existence of two German states. One was called the Federal Republic of Germany, while the other was called the German Democratic Republic. Now, take a wild guess as to which one allowed free movement of its citizens and which one erected razor wire and routinely incarcerated its citizens?

There are very few times when the farm kid and the political science grad in me actually have a meeting of the minds, but this is really one of those moments. The bigger the sales job, the more underwhelming the product. In politics, as with many other things, there is an inverse relationship betwixt sizzle and steak.

In our local newspaper, there has been a long running verbal joust between an ardent supporter of the Liberal party, and the two gentlemen who represent the constituency at the federal and provincial levels.

The gentleman spares no opportunity to complain about what he sees are demonstrated behaviours unworthy of an elected official and representative of the people.

The record, of course, is that the one gentleman has never publicly uttered an aggressive or ill-tempered word in over a decade of public service. The other gentleman did, on one occasion prior to his election, post a photograph that was, admittedly, in poor taste. Nevertheless, in the four years he has held his seat, nary an intemperate word has left his lips.

In contrast, his accuser is someone familiar to yours truly as he often provides the most colourful displays of pantomime and histrionics during all candidates debates in order to make his point. He is usually brandishing a notebook or some visual prop and with all of the alacrity (and ascerbity) of a Crown prosecutor, he presents his ‘j’accuse’ in a voice that would drown out rusted car mufflers, fighter aircraft, and air conditioning units about to eject their fan blades into the machine housing.

The local debate during the last federal election was particularly poignant, and I cannot help but to share some aspects of it.

The crowd was visibly partisan, and clearly incensed, for all number of policies of the government of the day. When the local member, Scott Reid, attempted to open his mouth – if even to clear his throat – he was quickly seized upon by a gaggle of heckler whose boos and hisses made the sound of my own breath inaudible to me. He could not, in effect, get a word out edgewise.

What was more curious was that these rude and aggressive interruptions had a theme. They were always prefaced, or concluded, with the allegation that the government ‘silenced’ its opponents. Yes, people concerned about Canadians being able to speak at liberty fought for that right by not allowing a candidate to so much as cough without an interruption.

One older lady who sat beside me proceeded to heckle and hiss throughout Mr. Reid’s opening statement. She wore a button for an opposing candidate, and did not stop the hectoring until I politely promised her that if she immediately stop the catcalling, I would guarantee that I would not try to shout her candidate down in a similar fashion.

It has been my contention for a long while that political ideas are very much like songs. A bad song on the radio does not improve its melody when you turn up the volume. Similarly, bad policies and ill conceived debating points do not mysteriously become elegant and mesmerizing if they are presented at such a decibel level as to induce hoarseness and protruding veins in one’s forehead.

In many ways, the ‘bully pulpit’ has become the ‘bullying pulpit’, with members of the congregation displaying all of the characteristics of a lynch mob that has not quite built up the naus to go all of the way.

What may be more unconscionable than the boorishness is the blatant hypocrisy of it all. Just to clarify, I understand that inconsistency, like sin, is an element of the human condition. Those who understand this spend a great deal of time and effort trying to overcome it, and atone for it. There are, however, those who have the mental acuity to know that they are hypocrites, and will nevertheless revel in it. They not only celebrate the double standard, they worship at its altar.

Years ago, I was a Grade 5 student who was, by any measure, awkward both physically and socially. Like most boys of that general description, I was the object of bullying and haranguing. On one particular occasion, two older – and physically more dominating – boys decided to prey upon their favourite target at recess. I was tossed and jostled around, kicked and shoved. No matter what, I could not extricate myself.

Past the shoulder of one of the bullies, I caught eye contact with the teacher supervising the playground – my teacher, in fact. He watched the proceedings with a cool detachment, and did not intercede.

Out of frustration, I finally yelled “Why don’t you two just f--- off!”

Within a split second, my teacher – the one who watched me get roughed up for five minutes – finally sprung into action. He came over, grabbed me by the collar and frog-marched me up to the Principal’s Office because of my filthy mouth.

Why do I tell this particular story? Two reasons.

It was because of episodes like this that I developed a strong distaste for bullying, incompetence, and hypocrisy. The second, and more direct, reason is that one of the loud and boorish hecklers who shouted down the podium at this particular debate was none other than that teacher – thankfully retired so as to not impair the minds of another generation of public school students.

I am not so doctrinaire as to see only virtue in my own party of choice, and only vice everywhere else. I also hold that the choice of a political party is one of perspective and of reasoned consideration – not a reflection of one’s character or moral compass. I also believe that people of differing political views can find some pretext for being kind and respectful to one another.

The recently concluded Ontario provincial election provides a good illustration for me. The Tory incumbent in my riding, Randy Hillier, is someone whom I have had a good and respectful working relationship. Indeed, I serve as the Past President of his constituency association, and was proud to have voted for him.

The Liberal candidate, Bill MacDonald is well known in the area, and happens to be a “Brother” in the sense that we belong to the same fraternal organization, and have crossed paths in it.

The NDP candidate, Dave Parkhill, is someone who I used to spend Tuesday evenings with, as we were part of a gang that would gather at a Kingston eatery and quaff drinks and eat wings while we played a networked online trivia game against other places across the continent.

Having a positive close personal association with three of the provincial candidates in my riding may have made it difficult to be ravenously partisan, but it certainly made me sensitive to the fact that politics is not, in fact, life and death. Although I did not cast a ballot for either Bill or Dave, I know them outside the partisan arena, and know them to be good men, and good neighbours. Nothing that has transpired in the last six weeks alters my view, and I certainly look forward to seeing any of them again, now that the dust is mercifully settling.

There are those, of course, who I have crossed paths with who sincerely believe that holding a membership in a particular party is akin to living a life of depravity and perversion. It is though a group of people are prepared to argue publicly that the act of signing a form and paying ten dollars is tantamount to committing an act of such debauchery, you should be shamed much like a latter-day Hester Prynne, wearing a large blue C in place of the famed ‘Scarlet Letter.’ Possibly these individuals believe that those of us who hold such affiliations should have our computers examined for crude material, or have our children put into protective custody?

It is the most lamentable of situations, as I have often benefitted greatly from my associations with those who had different party colours. Our debates and conversations were not simply about muttering ‘Amen, brother’ back and forth. They were about challenging each other’s views, as well as the logic we used to develop them.

I have always been a fan of Sir Karl Popper, the German-British philosopher who developed the “Theory of Falsification”. In short, it holds that you cannot know the value of a theory until you know the point where it breaks down. A hammer is a good and useful tool, but you can’t saw a piece of wood with it – that is its limit.

Those who respectfully – and kindly – disagree with you force you to acknowledge the limits of your beliefs – where they work and where they let you down. In doing so, they pay you the greatest of services.

Those disagreements, however, never come in anger, and certainly never in an angry scream.

We should all bear this in mind – most especially those who say they want a more civilized discourse.