Blog or white ... because it never is.

For me and thousands of Boston Red Sox fans, the first few chords of Sweet Caroline is like a call to action.  I hear them and I squeal with delight and start dancing.  I love the song and have to dance to it.  I feel sorry for people who don't have the equivalent of Sweet Caroline in their life.  I hear the song and I feel joy and I feel compelled to dance publicly.  I am not a good dancer but I don't care, when I am listening to Sweet Caroline, it doesn't matter.  My only desire at that point is to hope that my awkward dancing inspires others to dance with me, I just love that song.  Yes, I''m writing this on my blog which is a form of social media.  I'm writing it without consequence to how it will affect my friends and family. I am taking a risk.  I could have a friend that despises that song and will cease to be my friend that I have publicly stated that I like it.  I'm willing to take that risk.  I have always been open to m...

A Newfoundland woman died early this month and had an interesting obituary.  She died after being diagnosed with cancer.  Her death came 11 days after diagnosis.  However, she had been going to multiple doctors for years complaining of symptoms.  Apparently, each physician she went to listened and then told her that she needed to lose weight.  They all attributed her symptoms to complications of obesity.  When the cancer was finally detected, it was too late for treatment.  In her obituary, she talked about the problem of fat shaming. Fat shaming seems to be the one acceptable prejudice that society has left.  I am fat so I can attest that this still happens.  It does hurt.  Yet, I do it myself.  When I am out with my girlfriends or my sweetie, I often look at another overweight person and ask who I am with which one of us is fatter?  My sweetie and my girlfriends will always answer that it is the other person.  I ...

Governments are looking for ways to cut the cost of hospital stays.  Apparently, in my province it costs $1600/day for someone to stay in the hospital overnight.  Health providers are reluctant to keep anyone in hospital due to these costs.  Rising health costs are often in the news.   I went to visit a friend in hospital last week.  It was a very hot afternoon.  As I walked to the entrance, I couldn't help but notice the beautiful flower beds.  I always notice beautiful flower beds out of jealousy.  You will never notice beautiful flower beds outside of my house.  However, as I was wiping sweat beads off my brow, I couldn't help noticing someone else wiping sweat off his brow.  It was a maintenance worker who was watering the extensive flower beds.  I don't know the value of watering the flowers in the highest point of sun on such a hot day, but, then I obviously know nothing about gardening.  I am assuming that this m...

December 17, 2012 was the date of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.  A few days later, the world was urged to have a moment of silence in support of the victims at a particular time.  At that time,  I went on the public address system at my workplace urging a moment of silence to commemorate the lives of 20 small angels and 6 bigger angels.  That was early in the morning before my boss arrived.  A few hours later, my boss called me into her office.  In her office was a colleague who didn't like me.  I don't know why she didn't like me, but she sure didn't.  This woman went to great lengths to make my work life miserable.  And there she sat, in our boss's office, crying.  What had I done now?  Not that her crying was any indication that I had done something wrong.  She cried regularly.  Anything that happened, she brought out the water works.  I was actually a little bit jealous. ...

I have many friends who are actresses, but only one who makes her living from acting.  She always had a passion for acting so when she was in her mid 30s, she quit her "day job" to follow her dream.  Family commitments have prevented from relocating to a bigger city.  She knows she will never be famous but has managed to build a life worth living by acting.  She is currently acting in a play at our Fringe Festival.  The play is about a family living in the American mid-west. We don't see each other as often as I would like so I was excited when she invited me out for coffee yesterday.  I was much less excited when we met. In her current play, she is playing the family matriarch.  It doesn't have much to do with the plot of the play, however, the family are all Trump supporters.  My friend researches every role she takes in order to fully get into character.  I expected that we were going to have a lot of laughs as she was going to tel...

Tim Horton's has a new advertising campaign. They are introducing more new products while their commercials focus on employees who are providing above and beyond customer service. Puh - Leese. First of all, stop bringing in new products every week trying to find something that will appeal to the public.  The reason that people go to Tim's is to go through the drive-thru to get something quick and convenient.  None of your new products will ever stick.  You are being played by your own marketing division.  Your own marketing division is pushing you to develop new products so that they can design new and elaborate marketing for the products.  They are just justifying their overpaid salaries.  You are caught in a vicious cycle.  If you could find something that you are good at and go with that, you could save yourselves millions of dollars and then you would be able to lower prices.  That is why you could return your market.  It doesn't t...

This won't be surprising but I like my blog.  I like the idea that I am a social justice warrior and my voice may encourage others to take up the cause.  I believe we have complicated our lives to the extent that we overlook common sense and often there is a common sense solution to difficult problems.  I want common sense to become common practice.   One of the exciting things for me is to look at my audience summary.  My number one audience country is Canada and number two is usually the United States.  After that, I have views from almost all countries in the world.  It is exciting to have my ideas viewed around the world.   For the last two days, my second country of views has been Vietnam.  Over the last two days, I have had 322 views from Vietnam which is precisely the amount of entries that I have published.  So, I believe someone in Vietnam has found my blog and has read every entry.  I hope that person read...

Who would ever think this was possible?  FOX News is pledging solidarity with their colleagues of CNN and the two news organizations are united over the issue of journalistic integrity and a free press.  (I just reread that sentence and it is actually quite amusing.) There is only one man who could accomplish this and that is President Trump.  It was a relatively typical day at the White House.  Trump was meeting with people and after the meeting, the press is invited for a photo opportunity and then a further opportunity at the Rose Garden.  When such events happen, the press corps assigns one reporter to be the "pool reporter."  This means that they are not expecting the President to give a statement or interact with the media, however, they are hoping for some sort of interaction or comments by the President.  The press gives it a try through the pool reporter.  That reporter asks the questions of the day in an effort to get a response....

My sweetie and I celebrated our 8th year together this month.  I love this guy.  I love him as much as I love my perfect grandson and two angelic children.  I am truly blessed. We always quibbled about the actual date of our first date.  He claimed it was the 16th and I said it was the 19th.  This year, I checked the calendar fro 2010 and it turns out I was wrong and he was right. I was wrong.  I can hear my sweetie thinking, "Oh my goodness, put a mark on the calendar.  She admitted she was wrong."  Well, actually,  I do freely admit when I am wrong.  I just actually wish I was wrong more often.  There was so many things that I wish I was wrong about.  I was acquainted with my sweetie for four years prior to us starting a romantic relationship.  Even though I didn't know him very well something was very obvious to me.  He was "heavy".  I don't mean that he was overweight, but there was a heaviness about ...

My city, Winnipeg, is in the midst of civic elections.  We will be electing a Mayor and City Councillors.  Elections happen once every four years. I remember voting in the last election.  I remember because I struggled with who to vote for as Mayor.  I don't remember who I voted for to represent my Ward in Council.  I don't remember if I voted in previous elections. I don't remember because it is of little consequence to me.  The City actually runs itself and about 85% of the city's budget is already committed to contractual obligations.  There is actually very little discretionary money that the Mayor and City Councillors can use to advance their personal agenda.  The job of the Mayor and Councillors are really to provide oversight and to be chief cheerleaders of our city. Things happen in all city's that are beyond the control of anyone.  In Winnipeg, the thing that happens is snow.  When it snows, the snow needs to be cleared re...

As someone who is a news junkie, I have been watching all three Canadian networks reporting on the Danforth shooting.  The tragedy is affecting all of us.  Why is this happening in Canada?  The news coverage on Sunday and Monday was appropriate and was a good way for us all to grieve.   Today, all news networks have turned their focus to the gunman.  Why?  Why do we need to publicize him?   Why are we giving him a platform?  Why are we allowing those who are racist to think that his race justifies their bigotry?  His family will spend the rest of their lives grieving their son's actions, why do they need news trucks outside of their apartment?  Why do they need to be their pain be public?  Why do we need to know the tragedy of his siblings?  Why do we need to his medical history?  I live with a mental illness.  People who have limited understanding of mental illness and see the coverage will assume that p...

Kathleen Wynne has not been in the Legislature of Ontario since her stunning defeat in June.  She maintained her seat even though the Liberals lost official party status.  It was the worst showing of Liberals in Ontario history.  Some have suggested that she needs time to heal.  She needs a break from politics and she will return after a period of time.  Some have suggested that since she has served as Premier for so long that we owe her this period of grace.  We owe her?! I realize that I am not a resident of Ontario, so this is completely moot for me, but the residents of Ontario don't owe her anything.  Nobody put a gun to her head and made her run for politics.  She did so, on her accord, knowing that in politics, all possibilities exist.  Regardless if she is Premier or not, she still owes the constituents in her riding.  They elected her to represent their interests.  The people who elected her are her boss.  They did ...

Dave Wheeler or Wheeler in the Morning was fired today.  He was an early morning DJ in Winnipeg.  I confess that I never listened to him really other than his show was broadcast on a local station and sometimes it was on as background noise.  I didn't care for him.   It is always sad when someone loses their job and I wouldn't have wishes this on him, but, I think it is a good thing for the city of Winnipeg that he will no longer be occupying our air waves.   Apparently, on Monday he made comments on his show about the LGBTQ community that displayed at minimum, a lack of class, and at maximum, were bigoted. What is probably more telling is that after he was suspended, someone reached out to him on facebook messenger for clarification.  He stood by his remarks.  If we suspended already, he should have known that the remarks were offensive and wrong, he should have apologized and not tried to defend himself.   I nev...

I don't know why it would be Russia? A very unemotional response from Trump when asked who he believed, the Intelligence organizations of the US or Putin? When football players were taking a knee during the national anthem, Trump was livid.  He expressed his anger loudly.  If you follow his tweets, you know that he is highly emotional.  Yet, during his press conference after the stupid 3 hour meeting with Putin, he was flat and showed no emotion. Democrats are not even bother responding.  They are letting the Republicans do all the talking.  Even Fox News was up in arms about this calling it the worst day in a Presidency.  The only one defending Trump is Vice-President Pence.  Well, that is sort of his job. I don't understand everyone's anger and astonishment.  With Trump, it has never been about America first.  It is about everyone with the last name of Trump first. People are speculating that Russia has something big on Trump a...

Who remembers Gilligan's Island?  It was a silly series about 7 castaways on a dessert island after their boat crashed.  They were originally scheduled for a three hour cruise, a three hour cruise.  Somehow their luggage survived which was extensive for a three hour cruise, a three hour cruise.  It was fun to watch as well as pick apart because it was so absurd. For some reason, I have the theme song running through my head as I watch coverage of the Putin/Trump summit.  So much anticipation about this summit.  It turns out, it will be a three hour meeting.  They will meet 1:1 for 1.5 hours with only translators present.  Then, they will meet for an additional 1.5 hours with their aides present. The summit happens only a day after the completion of the FIFA World Cup. It was interesting to watch what each leader did yesterday. Trump was at his own golf course and resort in Scotland, attracting thousands of protesters.  Trump spent ...

It is the question most men dread, but seems to happen eventually in every heterosexual relationship.  "Do these pants make me look fat?"  There seems to be no right answer. Many men, when asked this question, pause to think of the answer that will get them into trouble the least.  Pausing is always the wrong answer.  If you're pausing, we think this means yes and you are trying to figure out how to answer diplomatically.  The fight will be on. Some men foolishly think that a woman wants an honest answer to this question.  That would be wrong. Some men instinctively answer "no" without looking.  That is the wrong answer.  We know you didn't even respect us to look.  The fight will be on. Some men answer with something like, "not compared to your other pants" or "not as much as last year".  I hope I don't have to tell you what is wrong with those answers.  There is only one right answer to this question, but you will have ...

Tim Horton's announced three new initiatives today.  The CEO, Canada Division, announced that the new initiatives were directly in response to the negative spiral that the company has taken in terms of popularity with the Canadian consumer. It is very hot and humid out.  I just took my perfect grandson out to the park where it poured rain for about 30 seconds.  We didn't even get wet and 1 minute later, there was no evidence of the rain.  Therefore, I am too hot to re-issue all my reasons for not supporting Tim Horton's.  The biggest one, of course, is their manipulative advertising pulling on our Canadian heartstrings when the corporation is no longer Canadian owned. I do take some comfort that almost their entire senior management has changed over the last year.  That means that our disdain in affecting their bottom line. The first new initiative announced today was that they were going to start delivery services.  It seems weird for a busi...

A story in the news appeared today about a Spanish civil servant who had been working at his job for a decade and was fired.  He appealed that decision to a tribunal and the tribunal upheld the termination and imposed a punishment.  He would not be allowed to work in the civil service for 9 years. I understand why he appealed the decision.  He was counting on the Spanish civil service settling out of tribunal.  He was betting that they didn't want this decision made public as it would be more embarrassing for them than it would for him. He was an archivist and it turned out, he was coming to work everyday at 8 am to clock in.  They he would leave and come back at 4 pm to clock out.  You have to admire his discipline.  To do that for a decade is remarkable.  His co-workers became suspicious last summer.  So, it took 9 years for them to figure this out?  That is embarrassing.  I'm guessing it was some new keener employee that w...

The Loud House.  It is an animated show aimed at an audience of preteen viewers.  It follows Lincoln Loud and his 10 sisters along with their parents.  Every member of the family has a first name that starts with L, so there are 13 L. Louds.  Each of the 10 sisters has a unique interest that defines them.  The show doesn't do much for me, and that is ok, because it is not designed to do anything for me. Yesterday, the television was on as background noise and I was drawn to watching an episode of The Loud House.   Yes, I was drawn to it.  It was not like I was procrastinating from doing housework.  I was drawn to it. The episode I watched showed all Loud children having a crush on someone.  The plot was complicated and I can't get into all the intricate twists and turns, however, one of the sisters, Luna Loud (the rock musician) had her crush on fellow rock musician, Sam.  Luna felt that Sam was so cool but out of her league....

There is so much pressure on our education system.  The three Rs of basic education (Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic) aren't even known to the millennials.   The school system says they can't keep accommodating all the demands that put upon them.  They have to teach social skills, ethics, and life skills.  Life skills includes everything from nutrition, mental health, fitness, and critical thinking.  In addition, they must ensure students appreciate cultural opportunities, are not prejudice, and are good citizens.  It is a lot. Fortunately, thanks to innovation, they really don't have to teach much of the three Rs.  Children learn to read quickly thanks to social media.  Cursive writing is a thing of the past.  Math is not really something needed as we can ask what we need from our phones and they will figure it out for us. There still is some cooking done in society and we can thank the food networks for the resurgence of popularit...

In a few minutes, the heavily favoured English soccer team will take on Team Sweden in the FIFA World Cup. This has created problems in England as it is a Saturday in July.  Many weddings are happening.  The head of the Church of England had to issue a public message reminding people that if they are attending a wedding that they should focus on the wedding and the couple and turn off their phones. A tweet appeared from a young man.  Roughly translated, it said: My brother, Charles, has tickets to the soccer match this afternoon.  When he got the tickets, he had forgotten that he was getting married at the same time so obviously he can't go.  If you want to replace Charles, please go to St. Andrew's Church in Cambridge at 4 pm.  Her name is Sarah. I am not a soccer fan as I prefer to watch sports in which something actually happens.  My sweetie is a huge football fan.  He doesn't mind me criticizing any aspect of his life, but, when I d...

Justin Trudeau was caught jogging in Toronto yesterday.  This made national headlines for a few reasons.  The first one was that he was shirtless.  So, this fact got mixed reviews.  The people who find him physically attractive were all for this and were proud that our leader has such a bod.  Others found this inappropriate for a Prime Minister.  He shouldn't be displaying skin or he won't be taken seriously.  I think it is important to recognize that even though he is our Prime Minister, he still is a human being.  It was not as if he invited the press and announced that he would be jogging shirtless.  It was a private act caught by several people on their phones.  He should expect some reasonable privacy and allowance to participate in activities of his choosing.  I don't know if it is really our business if he wore sunscreen or not.  He was wearing a hat.   The second reason that this made news was beca...

Most all of us are familiar with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).  People living with this diagnosis are overwhelmed with symptoms of deep depression, anxiety, flashbacks, and fear.  It is sad to see in anyone potentially debilitating this diagnosis can be.  I know one person who was so overwhelmed that she could not leave the safety of her home for a six month period and reported panic attacks that seemed to last for hours. We often see this disorder in veterans of our military and police services.  It is truly tragic to see a previously fearless soldier overwhelmed with fear and having little self-esteem.  But, there are many veterans who experienced the same experiences but do not have the disorder.  It turns out that there is another possible outcome for people who experience trauma and that is PTG (Post-Traumatic Growth). Post-Traumatic Growth is positive psychological change experienced as a result of adversity and rising to a higher leve...

The short answer is that there isn't one. Ontario Premier has proclaimed that Ontario will no longer cooperate with the federal government when it comes to accommodating asylum seekers.  Ford blames the surge in refuges over the last two years as the reason for Toronto housing crisis. That is just ludicrous.  First of all, the Toronto housing crisis is not new.  It has been decades in the making and has lasted over the last decade.  The reason is that there is no affordable housing in Toronto.  A starter home in the greater Toronto area is pricing at $1,000,000 and up.  That is simply out of the sights of most young families even with two good paying jobs.  The same starter home might cost $250,000 on the Prairies.  Real estate is over valued in the GTA and this is not news.  People have been waiting years for the bubble to burst but it doesn't seem to. Since the cost of living is so high in the GTA, people simply can't exist on min...