Can we stop trying to grow our population?

Once again I read a Facebook plea from my mayor Don Darling that, “Growing our population in Saint John,” is a key success factor for our future.” It is a rather ubiquitous political stance. Former NB premier Frank McKenna wrote in the Globe and Mail a year ago, “…parts of Canada are dying for lack of population growth.” In Ottawa, a 14-member council formed to advise the Trudeau government on economic growth recommends tripling the Canadian population to 100 million people.

I am not against immigration; I am an immigrant. My wife is on a team helping a refugee family, and I help out. I am all for open borders, globalization, and economic well-being for all. But I am tired of us killing our planet.

Have you ever thought about the finiteness of our planet?  We have water shortages worldwide; we are very close to killing our oceans to the point of the only fishes it will support are jellyfish (enjoy your jellyfish casserole!); our air literally stinks; global warming is a fact; animal extinction is accelerating; and I could run on and on and on. The cause, while seemingly complex, stems from one simple fact — we are growing the human population base unfettered.

Did you know we cannot make iron ore? We can make oil, but we don’t want to yet. We can desalinate water. We cannot make rare metals. We can grow more trees, but we keep cutting them down faster than we plant them. We can probably grow more food in the ground, keep adding fertilizers, and … no, before much longer all our food will be hydroponically grown as all our topsoil will be dead. What is, what isn’t, what can this planet sustain, have we passed its limits: these are arguments that meet resistance. People oppose the thoughts we need to cut back; because we like our elite lifestyles and want to defend them. We want our children and our descendants to live in an advanced society where they can flourish. It is a noble goal, but can the planet support us?

Let me ask you resisters a simple question: how big is too big? We have 7.5 billion people now. What’s your cap? 20 billion? 40 billion? A trillion? An alt-right man argued to me once that we could fit the world population in the state of Texas; therefore we are not even close to maxing out this planet. In my opinion, 7.5 billion is way too many people, yet at the rate we are growing, in 100 years it will top 22 billion. Enjoy wearing your life-support suits.

In the 1950’s, geophysicist M. King Hubbert realized that Earth’s resources were finite and devised his peak theory to predict the lifetimes of its resources. Primarily applied to oil, it has been expanded to other natural and renewable resources. We will at some point exceed the earth’s capacity for human demand in many if not all categories: oil, iron, copper, food, air, water, minerals, etc. At some point, humans will stop growing because they cannot grow anymore, and at that point, it is more than likely that great reductions in human populations will occur. Laws of nature. Foxes and rabbits.

It might take decades, centuries, or even millennia to prove the finiteness of this planet, but we will discover that population growth is not sustainable, so why do we push it? Short term gain? Let our kids worry about how to feed themselves?

Saying we need to grow through population growth is lazy. Think about what you are really saying when you say Saint John, NB, or any other jurisdiction, needs more people for its economic well-being. Its area population base is about 100,000 people. You are basically saying any city with such a population base is too small to sustain itself. Sussex at about 5,000 cannot possibly survive. Bathurst at 12,275 people is a hopeless cause. Every other community around the world less than what, a million people maybe, is pointless. If population is so vital to economic well-being, then let’s merge Canada’s population into one single city: Toronto.

These are stupid assertions, but that is what you are implying when you say we are too small. We are not too small, we are too lazy. If it’s good enough for much of the world to live in small communities, then why can’t it be good for us? Let’s get innovative. Let’s put our heads together and find ways to be prosperous. But let’s not keep expanding our footprint on this beautiful planet; because it just cannot sustain us that much longer.

November 2016 Poetry – PAD

While November is my primary novel starting month (25,435 words written through the first 17 days), I am also participating in the Chapbook Challenge, a poem a day event run by Robert Lee Brewer over at Poetic Asides.

I will be honest: I am putting nearly all of my energy into getting this novel on a good road. 50,000 words of prose is not a finished novel, not the first draft, not even close. But in my experience, the tighter you can make the story now, the easier it will be to finish later. It’s one of these things called paradoxes: two extremes with no logical compromise. I do want to keep it tight and in track, but I also need to ignore my boundaries and explore when the urge arises.

They call this urge ‘characters telling you what they want to do’ in your story. Right up there with other myths like women are unequal to men in every discernable way except for having babies and doing housework (I am writing about women’s rights, and I am being facetious, unenduring as my words are). The truer version is our minds are not linear, organized machines. They respond to input. Our minds are much more reactive than active, sometimes. The reactive minds are creative: throw a word, an image, a sound, a smell, a situation… and the reactive mind finds a new door and opens it. And if they are willing to step through, there is always a whole new world behind that door. The reactive mind become an artist: painter, photographer, designer, musician, sculptor, dancer… a writer, a poet.

Poems are created by walking through new doors but are also unexplored doors themselves. There is an element of craft to poetry, an element of care. Those first responses are first steps through doors, down new pathways, and they need further exploring. But my mind this month is wandering down prosaic doors this month, secondary pathways, ideas of white privilege and feminist movements and high school immaturity and searches for personal freedom without entrapping yourself in media prisons. I am writing first drafts of poetry this month, then abandoning them for my novel.

And then there was the election. In my mind, there’s a name for a person who cannot open doors in their mind. It’s a Republican!

Here is a collection of my poems from this month so far that might actually resemble poems. I’ll give the prompt for each.

Nov. 18, 2016
Prompt: write a poem that uses the following six words:

• band
• logic
• pack
• web
• froth
• clean

before coffee

a pack of lies bandied freely
as if authored in biblical times
unseen film directors and misguided preachers
it is now a fact-free, logic-free world
we live in a dream projected through the web of
rhetoric and fallacy
the land without physical filters
and Bubba tightens his tie and grips his shifter
clean living his myth
unclean politics his gift

Nov. 17, 2016
Prompt: Paper

Background: some days you just want to have fun 😉

God made paper on day eight
An afterthought, a flick of fate
He made a mark with his feather pen
Invented glyphics over and again
The very first Ibis
Sat on the first papyrus
And Shat the first whiteout
On the very first script

Nov 16, 2016
Prompt: Play (blank)

Go! We’re through
No choice, no option
No money for a cab home
My dice fail to monopolize
Fives and tens, a lone fifty
No hope of consolidation or peace

B&O and Water Works
The corner store supplies my food
Chips and soda
I can run water
But not was my clothes
Life is no fun
With cards stacked against

A community bailout
My only chance
A gift from the man
A lucky seven
Skirts disaster, again
But all I get is a ban
And do not get to pass Go!

Nov 11, 2016

Prompt: write a description poem. Pick someone or something to describe

My Mug

My morning maw of motivation maintenance
A fire-hardened rock
A liquid lover that sips on life
A great handle, on the trends
It is essential, to my well-being
It is vital, to my happiness
I toast of tastefulness, I boast
Of wastefulness
A Saturday morning reading club, I host
My own internal parties
I get more out of it than I pour in
And it gets more out of me than I bleed out
Shakes me awake, yet grounds me
With its fragile weight

Nov 10, 2016
Prompt: Tragedy

Background: I wrote the last line and asked myself ‘now what?’ I immediately succumbed to Thesaurusitis and looked up plan. I then saw the need to link each line, so I linked them into a story. This is not so much a freely written poem as it is a construct of form. Still, it’s a fun read.

The Plan

Your policy of sympathy, combined
with intentional apathy, implemented
by methods of rationality, coordinated
through arrangements of fantasy, stopped
since procedures for bankruptcy, tempered
his program of apathy, complicated
a project of gadgetry, intimated
her suggestion of jalousie, encompassed
in their system of stagnancy, concluded
the treatment a travesty, became
a strategy of tragedy

 

Nov. 9, 2016
Prompt: Call Me (blank)

Background: this was more about my platonic relationships with women than the image of two old politicians bantering, but that’s what we might as well be. And I wanted to use the image I recently took in Charlottetown PEI of the two Fathers of Confederation named John Hamilton Gray.;)

Call me, when you’re free
We can chat, and pretend
We’re old friends
Catching up on, lost times
Times on the mend
No walks on the beach, for us
No bitters in the pub
Just a cup of coffee
And a warm muffin
We can be intimate
But we cannot be close
We can share our dreams
But not our secrets
We can agree, to disagree
On the pedigree of our lives
We will not jeopardize
This thing we call friendship
So call me when you’re, feeling down
For you know too
I will feel alone
As kindreds always do
Call me, I’ll be around

 

The John Hamilton Grays

 

 

Liberty’s Elysium

Tags

cbt, Elysium, fatca, FBAR, Goulet Pens, liberty, Noodler's

Patrick Henry might be most responsible for today’s America. The American colonist lawyer and Politian was one of the more radically opposed to the Stamp and Townsend Acts, insistent on a Bill of Rights protecting personal freedoms, and a leader in making a clean break from England (War!). To the modern day USA, USA, USA American, he is an icon. Goulet Pens and Noodler’s Inks devised Liberty’s Elysium ink in honor of Henry. Goulet operates from Ashland PA where Henry was from.

I just purchased a bottle to honor my own newfound freedom, freedom  from America. Americans revolted from Britain largely over these taxes (Stamp and Townsend); CBT (citizen-based taxation), FBAR, and FATCA are my oppressive tax acts.

If you’ve not read my blog before and immediately see me as a hillbilly defending his still, please research the American expat plight. Please open your eyes to the loss of freedoms and liberties nearly nine million of us living outside the borders experience. Just as Americans left the British fold in 1776, I am a new breed of America leaving the American fold in the 2010’s. I have relinquished my citizenship and filed all my taxes. I am freer as a non-citizen than I was as a citizen, and by Patrick Henry’s calculation, I couldn’t be more American.

The ink is American Flag blue, more or less, and is used in Goulet’s logo. I love blue inks and have about a dozen bottles, but I don’t have any patriotic blues. I don’t have any blues that sing freedom to me when I write. I do have blues that make me smile when I write: I love my Bad Blue Heron, Eclat de Saphir, and Majestic Blue. But I wanted that perfect blue, a blue I could write a story or memo with, that would inspire me in whatever I wrote and would be agreeable to any person reading it, especially to me. I honestly don’t know if this is the blue, but I do love it.

I am not opposed to paying taxes. I want community services and protection. I believe in paying a government to serve me. But I do not believe in paying a government that does not serve me in any way, shape, or form. I live in Canada and I get zero services for my American tax dollars. The right to move there is not a service, it’s a right. Military protection is not a community service but an international one (my Canadian tax dollars go to Canada’s military which in turn help protect Americans). I get nothing from America and I ask nothing, and like every other country in the world, I should not have to pay or file taxes with a country I don’t live or work in. The USA taxing us is clearly taxation without representation (a vote is not representation; service is representation) and by giving up my rights to return, I am free of the IRS tax burdens. My pending retirement and future business ventures are safe. My foreign family is safe. At least they might be in another ten years after this Draconian statute of limitations runs out. I have nothing to hide from the IRS, but their 76,000 pages of tax law make that a moot point. One is never sure if they are completely compliant.

So I celebrate my freedom from taxation without representation with an ink representing personal Freedom. Every stroke reminds me what it means to be American (which I still am). Every stroke reminds me of my disappointment in and anger with my native land. Every stroke sing’s Patrick Henry’s words:

NaPoWriMo/PAD 2016 Day 30

Tags

8854, citizen-based taxation, fatca, IRS

For today’s prompt, write a dead end poem. Of course, I was thinking in terms of the challenge, but a dead end can literally mean the end of a person’s life, a dead end road, a dead end job, dead end mortgage, and so on. Take the phrase “dead end” and apply it to a noun, and the possibilities are nearly endless (except, well, there’s the whole “dead end” finality to it, I suppose). I hope it’s fun and that the blog is alive and well today.

Dead end. An easy prompt. A dreadfully easy prompt for someone who has spent their life running into walls. While I admit most walls were of my own construction — John builds the greatest walls! — some walls were built by others. One wall in particular, the United States citizen taxation walls of laws, has been a huge road block in my life. And there was only one way to get around it, so I took it. I left the American side of me behind that wall and moved forward. Thank you presidents Lincoln and Obama for being so un-American.

Perhaps these two gentlemen will eventually be seen as two of the greatest presidents. While I am not an Obama lover for many reasons, I am not a hater. He’s a smart, reasonable man, but maybe he’s too reasonable. I’d rather he did more his first term while he had control. I wish he have made even more changes: cut government, implement true universal healthcare, and get America on a path of world participation. Instead, he’s blocked financial growth. He’s implemented FATCA which has pissed off ever foreign financial institution, over 160,000 of them. Foreign banks if my words are too big.

Why do foreign banks matter?

Because now foreign banks do not wish to do business with America. FATCA poisons the waters. If you are a medium-sized company say in Hong Kong and you need financing (all companies use financing), then you need to give your banks certain documents: business plans, financial statements, cash flow, risk analysis, etc. It is now risky for banks to deal with the US. I can envision foreign bankers telling foreign businesses to ditch the American sourcing. Sell all you want; because we want their money, but if you buy from them, no money for you. Source your expertise from China or even the hated Japanese. Just don’t source from America.

I don’t know this is happening, but I do know banks around the world are shutting American citizens like myself from basic banking services, and millions of individuals and an estimated one million small businesses are scrambling to rid themselves of their American ties. I relinquished my citizenship and this last week signed a form with my bank confirming I was no longer a risk to them. No, I didn’t get a toaster.

Corporate inversions are another form of disloyalty — in the eyes of homelanders, but to me it’s common sense. If a large corporation has operations around the world — a common example is Ireland with its 12.5% corporate tax rate — they want to be able to compete; they need to be able to compete. America’s corporate tax rate is 39%, so if company X, American,  makes a million dollars in profits and company Y, Irish, also makes a million dollars in profits, Company X nets $610,000 while company Y nets $875,000. That’s called unfair competition, and that’s why American multinationals are inverting to foreign ownership. They want to be taxed 39% on American operations and 12.5% on Irish operations. It’s only fair, right? Obviously there is room for cheating, and that needs to be controlled, but as it stands now, the US is the biggest tax cheater of the all. These troubles are its own fault, instituted by Lincoln in 1863 and reiterated by Obama in 2010.

Taxation without representation!

Representation is not a vote. Sorry, but a American vote means nothing to me because no elected official can impact my life: I drive Canadian roads, work for Canadian employers, use Canadian schools, use Canadian health care, use Canadian retirement vehicles, and pay Canadian taxes (as I should). What possible claim does the US have on my life as a US citizen when I use zero of its services? That’s the way the rest of the world thinks, it’s the way I think, and it’s the way any common sense person thinks. Just as the US taxes foreigners living and working in its borders.

The original law was drafted to stop Confederate sympathizers expatriating to Canada to avoid the new income tax act. It was the only logical tool at the time. But this is no longer  1863. Our world is computerized. We don’t need to tax citizens abroad, we can tax them as they leave, like Canada and some other countries do. We could give citizens a choice: be taxed on everything you own (with a much lower than $2 million limit) as you leave, or keep filing with reduced foreign income exclusions until you return from your temporary stay.

This is no a hard concept. It’s called fairness. But Americans are too wrapped up in their own aggrandizement to care. America is number one, and everything outside her borders sucks and should be leached because they are subhuman civilizations.  Maybe that’s not what you as an American think, but it’s how the world sees you. The US sucks in every comparative category: healthcare, education, standard of living, satisfaction, freedom, or whatever. The only thing Americans are first in is saying they are number one.

My rant’s not over, not by a long shot, but it’s time to post a poem. Another rant about, not my dead end, but the potential dead end for America of it doesn’t get its shit together. FATCA, Corporate inversions, and more recently a ubiquitous fear of trade deals. Listen to me: if you kill all free trade deals, it will send a clear message to the world that you do not want their business. This might be an eye opener to you, but the rest of the world no longer needs American know-how. And most nations are more than willing to try and fail on their own. Obama brags of his $2 trillion trade surplus. Don’t wait until that turns into a $2 trillion trade deficit before you believe me. I might no longer be a citizen, but I care about my country.

#FATCA

Today I’m filing my 8854, what the FATCA for?
Because my fellow Americans have forgotten
life, liberty, and the illusive pursuit of happiness
were intended to be inalienable.
Taxation without representation has caused previous revolts
financial slaves of the free world
you have no right to bury your heads and hide from, the oxymoron
President Obama, the thinker
The biggest tax cheat of them all
The American People

I am angry and sad, my home nation
dying in a world of progress, more intent on building walls
than living its propaganda. Freedom.
Hate cannot defend right
A bully cannot pretend might
The myopic will never be able to write, happy endings
A blinded horse is incapable of leading the way
straight roads only with shallow ditches
a future without curves.
A nation with the least common sense and the most guns
can only lead to dead ends.

NaPoWriMo/PAD 2016 Day 29

For today’s prompt, write a haphazard poem. The poem itself could be haphazardly put together, I suppose. But it could also be about a haphazard situation. Or whatever haphazard thing you can bend the poem into.

Haphazard raises so many ideas with me, I can hardly think today of anything but poetry. Though I made a nice buttered chicken curry without burning down the house. My first though was to write haphazardly, but experience has told me to feed the Muse first, get the poetic muscles moving first. So I thought of my writing routine and how haphazard it is, how haphazard it should be, to some degree. Controlled, intentional haphazardness. I wrote of a writing day.

A Day In The Life – how to write a poem

Feed her with some poetry
Feed her with some prose
Read a Munro short story
Or a poem about crows

Take a walk through a park
Ponder puddles and leaves
Imagine how the gravestones stark
Become servants on their knees

Find yourself a coffee shop
Have a drink or two
Write a poem about your pop
Write a song of a cow saying moo

Don’t forget to chat with friends
Find the troubles of the day
Keep an ear for open trends
Listen to what strangers say

Walk again through the streets
Let ideas bounce off windows
Find yourself something to eat
Share it with imaginary bimbos

After napping, eating, bathing
Sit down at your station
Get to work on engraving
Computer files with your creation

I wanted the next poem to feel haphazard and nonsensical, but of course it needs to make sense in my head. I took a nap after my curry lunch. I was full and sleepy, but I scribbled some lines as I lie there. The opening term, The Sobriquet men, haunted my dreams. I repeated it too many times for comfort. Who knows, maybe it will become a novel some day.  The poem, I think — I don’t know if I will ever be sure about this mess — is not about specific individuals, though the Trumps, Cruzes, and Boehners did come to mind as did the so called 1%, but more about an idea. I think it is about the so-called American Dream (which I have written about), the we’re number one attitude that prevails in the country oblivious of the threats such isolationism creates. I am now hearing Washington called Rome too often. I use the literary device paradox, in a sort of abstract way. Paradox is the meeting of two extremes that cannot meet and is, I suppose, by definition haphazard form. Enjoy, if you can.

Humanity Waits

The sobriquet men despise the nameless
unable to live in the wide open spaces, surrounded by walls
Only the truly crazy would leave the fake sanity

If all dots were connected, per Remington
your monikers wouldn’t matter, he said
the meek will inherit the earth but he never promised gold wrapping paper
or he’d make wine for the previous owners’ funerals

Your rights will never be liberated and your liberty never freed
Call shenanigans all you want, but words have never unlocked shackles

You’ll pounce on cats who pounce on rats who pounce on Big Macs
and in the end we’ll lose track of you too, for with too many names
Just as you want, to hide
An island will be discovered and the stranded brought home

Humanity waits

 

NaPoWriMo/PAD 2016 Day 25

For today’s prompt, write an exercise poem. The poem could be about a specific exercise, or it could just incorporate exercising into the poem. Or it could be dedicated to a piece of exercise equipment–so an ode to an elliptical machine or those hand grippers or something. Of course, not every exercise is physical; there are military exercises, mental exercises, and so on.

I think it’s important for us to work through our writing. Inspiration is rather easy to find. Read some news, read some blogs, take a walk through town, strike up a conversation, or just sit and watch and listen t people. If you can’t find inspiration, you’re not living. But turning these multitudinous triggers into poetry, prose, a blog, an essay, an article, or a comment on a news site is the hard part. It takes work, even when it’s easy.

Knowledge also helps. I won’t claim to be there yet, but I am working on it. Today I started on a little treasure I found at Value Village. In Rhyme and Reason, John Metcalf and Gordon Callaghan begin discussing connotation. They give seemingly endless exercises and only a few pages in I am seeing the worthiness of re-examining how words affect our writing.

If you were underweight, which word would you most like to be called? What does each word suggest?

1. Skinny
2. Scrawny
3. Slim

Simple exercises with far-reaching impacts.

My first poem came after a mid-morning nap. I’ll admit it: I was drinking last night. Our 4-men book club discussed Thucydides (because we still haven’t all read the beast) and Us Conductors, and it was my turn to provide drinks. I brought some Forty Creek Barrel Select Canadian whiskey and made Manhattans. I had also made my own bitters with Vodka, so we had the Manhattan and Russian angles of Us Conductors covered. Round two was the same but with Angostura Bitters for comparison. Both were good, but the traditional won 4 to 0.

Three ounces of alcohol a drink on a Sunday night with a chaser of straight whiskey because it’s so damned good, makes one drowsy on Monday mornings. I was up at 5:15am, made some coffee, and was back in bed by 9am, but with exercise triggers to ponder.

 

So here’s the first. It’s rather divided, but I think it has content to work with. I suspect an end result, if there ever is one, will look vastly different.

Untitled

Choices are thinning with the hair
There will be no more offspring for this old horse
no more free reigning, in greener fields
where the fillies hop and skip, and prepare
for their runs through the gates

The alarm with the disappearing slider wakes me
2:30 is early enough to eat, read, and catch the five o’clock news
Second sleeps might be luxuries, to the rodent racers
Those high-flying traders of options
But I exercise mine in my own good old time

The second came later, after dinner, after reading some Alice Munro and Metcalf, and after feeling primed to sit and write. So I sat, penned a poem, then edited it as I typed it in. It changed quite a bit as I typed. I think this one has more substance, but I am not happy with it. Pillars of Society. Some odd, disparate metaphor. Still, it has some potential imagery. I like Nixon square and the outreach line.

Pillars of Society

Sturdy, as the piles that hold the pier
the container ships dock and bump
Nixon square, offering basket holey
my eyes search for hope in my lone workout room
not hide in full halls, were the outreach works my pockets
the power-poles guard by wracked body, my racked mind
the only four pillars I trust, with weight on my chest
I wish the pillars of society were as reliable, were as strong
I wish I could revive them with simple protein drinks
and a designed exercise program
but I’m afraid he’s too lazy to care, anymore

 

NaPoWriMo/PAD 2016 Day 14 – Show Me Your Papers Please!

Tags

Moncton

For today’s prompt, write a time out poem. There are moments in my life that I wish I could take a time out. For instance, it would’ve been nice earlier this year when I had pneumonia, but life and work keeps chugging along. But there’s always a chance to take time outs in poetry if you dare. So dare to write a time out poem (or two) today.

I didn’t post yesterday; because we drove to Moncton, an hour and a half trip. I handed my CPA/CMA certificates back and had a nice, frank talk with them. No hard feelings, no regrets, it’s just time to part ways. I’ve tried rekindling that spark for numbers over the past couple of years, but the creative brain wants to dominate.

We went almost directly across the street for dinner at C’est la Vie, a quaint little café. They serve Korean food, a variety of coffee, and beer & wine. Service was excellent and charming, if not linguistically challenging. It doesn’t bother me the Koreans can’t speak English as long as the French don’t mind me not understanding them. It’s very often how things work around here, slow, deliberate, probing, yet in the end everybody smiling. The Bibimbap was outstanding as it always is everywhere, and I recommend the place. I’ eat there again.

They also host literary events. Last night was an open mic night, and I brought a few things to read. There was entertainment, a local singer/guitarist André Saulnier,  and about 25 people in attendance, spread out over the café. Thanks very much Lee Thompson for hosting an outstanding event and the vibrant Moncton writing crowd for making it altogether an enjoyable evening.

My poem yesterday had nothing to do with the day. It was my obligatory shot at America; which I am no longer part of. I still engage in the fight for freedom, though, for the 8.7 million Americans abroad being abused by President Obama and the IRS. I actually kind of like this little ditty, but that’s all it is, a political/human rights rant disguised as poetry. I didn’t make it rhyme 😦

The American Expat

The IRS does not care, if you’re not there
Show me your papers, please
Treasury doesn’t look away, when you don’t stay
Show me your papers, please
The consulate can meet with you in June, next year
Show me your papers please
Your new country turns you in, there’s no way to win
Show me your papers, please!

 

NaPoWriMo 2016 Day 1 – Poem A Day (PAD) #1 – National Poetry Month (April)

Tags

PAD

April is National Poetry Month and many writers around the world are attempting to write a poem a day, 30 poems in a month. As with NaNoWriMo, this month is more about quantity than quality, a shotgun approach to writing. April is a learning month for me. I am feeling more and more comfortable with my prose voice, but my poetry voice is still mostly a mystery to me. I plan to write at least 30 poems, and I also plan on reading at least one poetry craft book, “The Poet’s Companion” by Addonizio and Laux. I will likely open other craft books too. I also plan on reading quite  a bit of poetry, but I have no specific plan.

I follow prompts provided by Robert Brewer at Poetic Asides.

For today’s prompt, write a foolish poem. It’s April Fool’s Day, after all. Let’s loosen up today with a poem in which we’re fools, others are fools, or there’s some kind of prank or tomfoolery happening. Fool around with it a while.

I told myself I didn’t really want to write about American politics this month, but I guess that was a lie. Is there anything more foolish in the world right now than the American election cycle? Two years and billions of dollars of discussion, debate, and analysis and all they can come up with is nonsense? While my poem is clearly aimed at the GOP, I am not by any means a fan of the other camp. It’s just the easier target. And while the dominant fool might be Trump, I also refer to initiatives proposed by Cruz and Huckabee. I will look for other Tom-foolery topics later today, but for now, here’s my attempt:

And The World Will Be A Better Place

We’re going to build a nation, once again
A bigger, better, braver nation
Even the greatest nation needs to clean house
Now and then

We’re going to build a wall, to keep them out
We’re going to boost our economy, encourage trade, and promote peace
By restricting integration, multiculturalism, and globalization
Oh they’ll pay for it

We’re going to build a church, a National Church
A church protected, a seat for everyone, with the cheapest donations
Praise the President for he will wear the robes
The directive to believe entrenched

We’re going to build an army, to force world peace
Tanks against sickles, nuclear weapons for all, vaginas guarded by guns
No fool will shoot up the world when all nations are ready to respond
And the world will be a better place

Day 1, poem number 2

Hotrod Lincoln

They were run over by a Lincoln, from behind, diagonally
Four straight thinkers, four pretentious immortals
Green flashing lights and solid red hands ignored
Too externally confident, internally insecure
Forever unresolved

High school teaches numbers and words
Students learn old-world lessons, not modern practicalities
The science of motion isn’t for two more years, they’ll never see
Their retinal biology not fully realized, by the hoary and old
Not all muscles and minds are testosterone-driven
A sixteen-year old’s life is too intense, but not rich enough to satisfy

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America the Rock, America the Island

Tags

change, economic, growth, island, rock, technology

I am unhappy with my homeland. This realization has been slow developing but it has been steady. A person wants to believe their nation is a great country. American patriotism is an ingrained propaganda based on solid values. After 55 years, much of it remains but much has been whittled away. When you live abroad, you seem to pay closer attention to home than many homelanders do, but it is tempered with a much broader, global perspective. Americans, even the broader thinkers, are myopic to the core. I moved to Canada in 1970. My father was not a draft dodger but a teacher. He had a Masters of Music from UW in Madison which he later upgraded to a PhD. He took a job at the now defunct Nova Scotia Teacher’s College, and we settled into life in this new nation. It was exciting. It was eye-opening. And it was confusing. During grade three in Lodi WI, I made a complete and accurate map of South America. To me Canada was a red blob (the province of Ontario) in the arctic with little to offer but a rustic, backward, third world lifestyle. The quick discovery that Canada was a vibrant, cool place didn’t shock me. What bothered me, and what still bothers me, is I knew almost nothing about the nation.

Many times I have wondered how any American could be unhappy with their country. Unhappiness and disagreement are common and arguably necessary. One doesn’t improve without disagreement. But I mean vitriolic hate. My adult life has all been spent abroad, and I have heard such sentiments. I have no direct quotes, but these are generally not public figures. They hate violence; they hate war; and they hate America’s invasionary habits. While I am immensely unhappy with America, I don’t hate it. I don’t hate the people, as is a common sentiment among expats happy to live abroad who share my sentiments. I have family and friends there. I still hold strong American values, strong human values of right and wrong, of freedom, of liberty and the pursuit o happiness. I still think I hold noble values, but they’ve been tempered by said perspective. My pen [this post] writes to improve.

Living abroad, by no means perfect a perfect existence, has provided a more worldly view. Canada does suffer some of the isolation America does simply from its size and ocean borders, but we’re more multicultural and we have the large French population. We are a multinational nation. And of course we have the Queen. Many are still loyal here. Involvement in World Wars is much, much higher here, absolute and percentage, and ties to Britain and Europe are much higher. Gaelic is still spoken in parts of Nova Scotia. Partridge Island at my home Saint John was Canada’s Ellis Island for almost as many Irish. We think my ancestor Peter Boylan might have come through here in 1848 before making his way to Wisconsin. The truth is, of Jay Leno’s testing of the common citizen are true, I know much more about language, religion, multiculturalism, social-capitalistic balancing, elevating community values above individual (an no, this is not a euphemism for communism), the trade-offs that rule the free world outside the U.S. But we all come from the same stock, and this does not explain America’s myopia. Why America forgets and the rest of the word remembers needs deeper study.

The U.S. is polarized along every imaginable topic: politics, religion, social safety nets, income, race, gender, and even art. Pick a topic and America is divided on it. The government is corrupt, the media is corrupt, organized religion is corrupt, law enforcement is corrupt, the military is corrupt. Pick a topic. I guarantee the country is divided on it and each side thinks the other side is corrupt. My problem is I don’t see mere disagreement. I see more than disgust; I see unadultered hate. I see a nation divided with many sharp, deep wedges. If the dialog gets any drier, what kind of spark will set it off? Militant ranchers attacking a larger government facility? The Texas State Guard taking pot shots at U.S. Marines engaged in harmless exercises? A future president taking real action to limit individual freedoms, as in free speech? A third civil war sounds far-fetched to many, but if history is a measure, America is in trouble.

Is it any wonder America is filled with radicals? America was founded by religious nut bars escaping persecution of their fanaticism, capitalists searching for power and riches, the utterly destitute, refugee after refugee, hosts of military forces, and shipload after shipload of slaves. People with limited agendas, one-dimensional communities, either by free will or by others’ choices. It became hostile to its homelands, and took to arms. It fought off its oppressor and drove out tens of thousands of its own people in what many academics call America’s first civil war. Since 1765 it has isolated itself and thrust forward towards its Manifest Destiny delusions of grandeur. The open, mineral-rich land unencumbered by modern government succumbed and fueled its exasperated growth, and the South thrived on the backs of the blacks. Its pockets swelled. Its heads swelled. Its radicalism and racism entrenched in success.

This nation emits disturbing signals. It’s the “greatest nation on earth,” number one, the leader of the free world and keeper of the peace (right). It’s the land of freedom and democracy. It’s the land of religious freedom and tolerance. The reality is strikingly different. It’s the land that 65 years ago adopted (the Christian) God as its trusted leader. It’s a land that cannot support the United Nations and most other international movements because these are New World Order. It cannot adopt the metric system. It cannot consider changes in government because their constitution is an entrenched gospel. It is a people that arguably have never been able to think critically but for handfuls of academics and social blowhards. America was founded on unfettered growth, but even as they deny the world’s resources are fixed, it continues its mission, “Grow, grow, grow!” I don’t fully agree with Premier Trudeau (yes I have the right to say this), but I do agree with his criticism of Americans: “Americans should pay more attention to the world.” My own words are a little harsher, “Stop being so bloody myopic!”

The conservative in me says the nation suffers from the same inefficiencies its own conservatives claim to disdain: it lacks competition. The U.S. has no close, competitive neighbor. Europe is too busy fighting among themselves and is separated by an ocean. China and Southeast Asia are progressing rapidly and are arguably the modern America, but an even larger ocean separates them. Japan has been contained. Korea ignored. The only true pest since Hitler has been Russia. The U.S. has a monopoly on power, and it is easy to argue America has abused its own dominance to gain further advantage. They still thrive on economic slavery: the pennies an hour labor geared to produce the dollars per hour profits. It treats its own citizens as economic slaves, sucking billions a year through them from foreign economies. American corporations are moving abroad. G.E. and Johnson controls don’t hate America, but doing business abroad is without the American ball and chain. If state-run administration is a recipe for disaster through inefficiency, according to libertarian sentiment, then the U.S. is dying in its own made bed.

What Americans do not realize is the world is not only catching up but in many ways has passed them. We are generally more educated, better trained, more global, more accepting, and more adaptable. The religiously destitute nations excepted. Few countries need America’s help anymore; nobody wants America’s help anymore. We can build our own infrastructure; our computerization and technological advances are on par or better; our education systems are better; our basic research is broader; and our arts have always been more daring and artistic. The world no longer throws spears at the American white man and no longer fears her guns; we wave her away with the back of one hand while typing code with the other.

Whether Americans believe it or not, global warming is real and serious; whether Americans believe it or not, fossil fuel supplies are limited and will run out within hundreds of years; whether Americans believe it or not, metals and minerals are limited and when the crunch comes, all technology will feel the hurt; whether Americans believe it or not, we need a healthy natural world; whether Americans believe it or not, capitalism is not a panacea (I am a fan of competition, but it makes zero sense to make health and incarceration compete); whether Americans believe it or not, drugs are not the danger, guns are; whether Americans believe it or not, human health, education, and social wellbeing are community concerns, not individual; whether Americans believe it or not, kilometers, liters, and degrees Celsius are the better measures; whether Americans believe it or not, our lives are not pre-ordained by a 2000 year old book that is in actuality nowhere near that old; whether Americans believe it or not, evolution is scientifically valid and creationism a fairytale; and whether America believes it or not, it needs the rest of the world to survive.  America needs to dump its growth fetish and adopt the mantra, “Change, change, change!” America needs to join the world community of nations as an active participant.

But a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries.

Dear Michelle Obama

Tags

FLOTUS, POTUS

I received the following email today. I get them all the time but rarely read them. When I do, I feel ill: my heart races, my fists knot, and I turn red. Sometimes I even curse at the senders. Today I noticed the bold line in the footer, so I wrote Michelle Obama a letter. First the email in question:

John —

At this very moment, some of the first votes of this election are being cast in New Hampshire. And before you know it, I’ll be asking you to go to the polls in the fall.

And even though you won’t see Barack’s name on your ballot this time, this election is just as important as those we’ve been through before. When we vote for Democrats in November, we’ll be voting to protect everything we’ve worked so hard for these past few years and to keep making the change we all believe in.

John, you’ve been such an important part of this movement and everything we’ve achieved together. That’s why Barack is counting on you to do all you can to keep us moving forward — and I am, too.

So please let us know you’re committed to a Democratic victory in November:

http://my.democrats.org/Elect-Democrats

Thanks for always being with us,

Michelle

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My reply:

Michelle,

I don’t know whether to laugh, cry, or upchuck as I read these emails.

I gave up my US citizenship this year, so I cannot vote. And if I could, I wouldn’t vote Democrat. It’s not that I hate liberals; I are one. And the Republicans honestly make me sick. The bottom line is America has lost its way in this world, and neither party, in my humble opinion, is going to make any headway in making it better.

I have lived abroad most of my life. This is my 46th year in Canada. I married Canadian, my kids are Canadian and not American, I’ve worked my entire life in Canada, I invest here, and I will retire here. I am Canadian, but as you are likely aware, giving up that USA brand is not easy. I have many relatives living in the 50. I used to love to visit them. At the moment I couldn’t care less if I ever cross that border again.

This brings me to my main reason for handing in my passport: your taxing me. I hope you continue reading, as I get the sense most homelanders typically shrug our complaints off as sour grapes and tax avoidance. It is anything but. My issues are fundamental; my issues are based on American values and its constitution; and since those values and the constitution have failed me, I am gone. As are thousands of others. A national disaster that in my opinion will be a black mark on your husband’s legacy.

I want you to consider the duty to file and pay taxes based on citizenship. It sounds patriotic and all red, white, and blue, but I’d like to reword it for you: “citizens shall pay taxes to the United States because the US owns them.” They do not have the right to walk away from this obligation, despite what the United Nations proclaims, because the US owns them. They are chattel. They are economic slaves. Yes, no? I love being treated as a slave. I live, work, and pay taxes in Canada, yet my master needs his payment. The concept is against everything I consider American.

Consider also sovereignty of foreign nations, something I can’t claim the US has ever respected. The US does not allow foreign countries to step in and tax its businesses and its citizens at home, its economic contributors. America’s practice of taxing its citizens abroad is basically what Mr. Trump accuses Mexico of doing: sending its citizens to America to generate dollars to send home. It is a despicable concept which the Democratic Party has rightly laughed at, yet this is what you do with CBT, FBAR, and FATCA. You tax monies earned abroad by your citizens. You tax capital gains on private homes in the UK; you apply SS and Obamacare taxes on mom & pop businesses operating overseas; you tax lottery winnings considered tax free economy boosters in foreign lands; your actions pirate money from foreign economies and you pretend it is okay because we victims are American. We are not the only victims. Our families, our communities, and our host nations all suffer from your syphoning. You steal funds, jobs, and debt. You are the biggest tax cheater of them all, and the fact you justify it based on patriotism is disgusting to me and almost all the 8.9 million citizens abroad.

I could write all day about how I am personally abused: cannot invest in mutual funds, invasion of my privacy, invasion of my family’s privacy, cannot save for retirement, cannot open the financial accounts my neighbours can, etc. And upping fees to prevent us from leaving is nothing more than extortion. You are nothing more than a disgusting bully, and yes, if I could still vote, I’d vote for the worst of the opposition because I hate what your husband and his cabal are doing to American citizens like me.

John Hanson
Saint John, NB Canada