Guilt and Shame.

 

Sometimes I feel so frustrated that I want to get up, run out my front door and scream.  This reaction comes about most often when people who are supposed authorities come out and say something that is patently false yet whose views will be propagated through the cybernetic world, unchallenged. One recent example of this was when a friend posted a link with Oprah Winfrey hosting one Dr. Brené Brown, PhD, etc. who has written extensively on shame.  Her assertion that shame is the number one classroom management tool used in ‘all schools, all classrooms, every day’ will make ‘every’ teacher who hears the interview (to which I refuse to link) bristle.

But that’s a topic for another note; because I want to examine the concepts on which Dr. Brown is supposedly the last word: shame, guilt, humiliation and embarrassment. (Since the last two are merely extreme responses it is best to speak of them only in terms of shame and guilt rather than to give them an equal footing in this note.)  Shame and guilt are words/feelings that limit an individual’s ability to achieve total happiness, whatever that may be.  They are a self talk that brands us, punishes us, and diminishes us, but they are also necessary social governors as well, that keep us functioning in a cooperative society. 

So let’s do some defining of terms so we all know what we’re talking about.  Shame, alphabetically last but probably with the most far reaching effect, is the feeling of having let other people and ourselves down.  It is an acknowledgement that we have acted, thought or felt in a manner that is proscribed because it is contrary to the expectations of our society, our community, our family or ourselves.  Shame doesn’t gnaw at you like guilt does but peeks into your darkened room at awkward times. As such, shame is all about you and requires that you care what others (or the proxy others that live within you) think much more than how they feel.

On the other hand, it is the concern for how one has negatively impacted the feelings of another that lies at the root of guilt.  It is much easier to openly acknowledge guilt than it is to admit shame. Guilt is largely predicated on having transgressed on an individual or group rather than the flouting of a rule or convention.  In order to feel guilt we have to be capable of empathy; in order to feel shame we can ignore people and be capable of merely of knowing the rules and conventions. Guilt is likely to lead to a quest for atonement and reconciliation whereas shame, where it elicits a response other than the reddening of the face, can often lead to an attempt at retaliation.

There are shame based cultures and guilt based cultures that are very different in the way they approach social control and deal with transgression.  Shame based cultures, such as those found mainly in the east, accentuate social harmony above all else.  Many of them have religions based on ancestor worship and a deep regard for family honour.  Disgrace is to be avoided at all cost, more ;because of the consequences to friends and family than concern for personal pride and security.

Guilt based cultures, which are almost exclusively Christian in their composition, tend more to a focus on guilt.  A lot of it seems to center around the concepts of unworthiness and sin and their consequences for the individual.  Rather than being ancestor centered, guilt based cultures tend to be more concerned with the self and the impact of wrong-doing on the perpetrator’s soul than with the besmirching of one’s family and ancestors.

Just some food for thought . . ..

 

Modernity Ward

I know it sounds cliché but we are standing at the crossroads of history.  There have been a number of loci in the past century where the course of future humanity, indeed the future of the world could have taken a tack away from oblivion.  These were either lost or corrupted to losses for society and for the continued well-being of the planet.  These loci were triumphs of the human spirit over greed and triumphs of the good of the whole over the good of the few.  But, in the same way that 'the war to end all wars' didn't, triumphs were coopted by the corporate machine and turned into widgets and memes.  Now, with the ascendancy of information technology and research in the behavioural sciences, comes the last stand of freedom and liberty.

There are two ways to look at how we have arrived at the current state of affairs.  The positive view says that domination by oligarchies has been around since humans formed satellite communities and have always been overthrown.  Chieftains, nobility, party members, juntas, etc. conspired to enslave their various populaces and exploit their labours,and strove to skew the distribution of goods within their societies.  And the people always rose up to win a more equitable share of the common good for everyone.  They rose up against emperors and clan leaders, against bishops and generals, against dictators and their bureaucrats.  The negative view says the oligarchies have finally become powerful enough to maintain the stranglehold of Adolf Hitler’s“Thousand Year Reich”.  

People used to rise up to protect the social good.  Their revolts were popular movements that sought to assert the primacy of the people. With time, the people were manipulated into rising up on the pretext that they were defending their way of life and the safety of their loved ones.  They were convinced that destroying another society’s prosperity was key to their own continuing comfort and ease.  They were press ganged into the dehumanization of basic training and damaged to the core as warriors conditioned to absorb the insanity of modern warfare.  Where past wars were profitable to the society through payment of tributes, enslavement of populaces, and expansion of domestic markets, the new wars are fought and paid for with public money and the plunder and tributes accrue to corporate entities and the obscenely rich who own and control them.

The next step is obvious and logical.  Since there are only so many protracted wars that can be sustained, the war must be taken to the populace itself.  In recent years it has become more and more obvious that the target of the super wealthy has become everyone else.  With the complicity of the merely wealthy whose goal it is to move into the oligarchic penthouse, the super rich prey on the marginalized – and eventually the vast majority in the society will become the marginalized.  Already, the old, the infirm, the children, the poor, the mentally ill, and their advocates are under attack.  When they have been isolated,what remains of the public will be (has already been) enslaved – shackled by their inability to earn a living wage, encumbered by crippling taxation and doomed to fight over the ever shrinking crumbs that are scraped from the tables of the rich.

Where are the vanguards of the slaughter of western society?  In the U. S., the southern Republican states lead the way with their bankrupting of state and local tax bases and the selling off any profitable public sector enterprises.  Right-to-work legislation, restrictive voting laws, the promotion of racial tension, and the suppression of education are all symptoms of the disease.  

In Canada, Alberta leads the way due to the vast influence of corporate (especially oil) interests.  Albertans were always a rather backward people, comprised of the avaricious, the religious, the essence of the American“. . . your tired, your poor, your huddled masses . . .” yearning to prosper.  Because of its resource wealth,it has attracted an inordinate number of carpetbaggers from the scum of the capitalist pond.  In other words, it is the perfect proving ground for the enslavement of the modern citizen.  Alberta is the poster child of the corporate dream where wealth abounds but is distributed unequally.  

The gulf between the wealthy and the rest has grown into a chasm and will soon be an abyss. Unfortunately, a majority of the population seems to feel that their prosperity and future security is best placed in the hands and pockets of those whose interests are in direct conflict with theirs.  And money will continue to weave the great illusion and the greater lies that will rob the populace of their rightful share and their offspring of their birthright.

It will soon become too late to make a stand.  Choose your side now as if the lives of your children and grandchildren depended on it.  Or fail to choose and the choice will continue to be made for you

Canaries in the Coal Mine

- Fritz Kropfreiter

As much as I feel disgust toward the January 6th rabble and the Canadian KKKonvoy, I can well understand what has them climbing walls and honking their horns.  The world as they know it is dying, even more directly and precipitously than the planet as a whole. Drawn out from their squalid double-wides and emboldened by a deranged narcissist, then confronted with the harsh reality of economic marginalization, these struggling masses of threatened white supremacists have arisen en masse.

Normal doesn't live here anymore. Beaver Cleaver (you'd never get away with that name in this day and age) has left the building along with Wally, June, and Ward. Andy is no longer the sheriff of Mayberry and the Six Million Dollar Man is doing windshields for spare change at Hollywood and Vine.  A white guy sits in the Whitehouse but, not long ago, there was a black president who was more articulate and poised than the Caucasians who bracketed his tenure.

And decade upon decade of pale skinned, rough hewn machismo did not prepare the current European descendants to take a back seat to people of colour: it was always the black man who sat at the back of the bus! Now we have black CEOs and generals, Hispanic judges, and Asian lawmakers. The social landscape is no longer clearly defined in darkening shades as one moves from top to bottom.

LBJ famously said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." This truism has served the American south and much of rural America since the emancipation; however, today's poor, uneducated, unemployable white man has to resort to major self delusion in order to keep the fantasy alive.

And if you can maintain one fantasy, why not entertain a host of outlandish conspiracies and deceptions. If the world is deceiving people to believe that white supremacy is dying, why not believe that the Clintons run a sex slave racket out of a Florida pizza parlour or that jewish space lasers are responsible for California's fires. Climate change is a hoax and Bill Gates is planting 5G chips in vaccines. If you don't like the truth, change it.

That's why 'fake news' was such a master stroke (Trump may be an idiot but he has a nose for promotion) providing a 'get out of jail free' card for all the lies, misrepresentations, frauds, and crimes that Trump, Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, and Marjorie Taylor Greene (to name a few) perpetrated. When the Sandy Hook massacre of little children was attributed to crisis actors, the whole world should have risen in an ear piercing scream. Instead, the group who Hillary Clinton would later brand as Deplorables showed why they are worthy of the moniker.

Economic marginalization is the other edge of the double edged sword that hangs over the deposed white dregs. Where their strength had been the colour of their skin, the new world, having automated unskilled labour out of relevance and relative stability, now chose to profit the trainable and educable.  Service careers such as health care and social services far outstripped the want ads looking for pump jockeys and stock boys.  Stock room to the boardroom was always a lie to keep the peasants slavering but now it was impossible.

At the root of the new paucity of lower end employment lies the nature of the economic system.  As corporations and CEOs extract more and more wealth from the system, those who can be dispensed with to save money are thrown aside. The pool of available wealth that was divvied up in such a way as to carry the marginally employable now tilted away from the poor and gravity carried an ever growing pile of riches to the very rich.

Hence the title, Canaries in the Coal Mine. As the most vulnerable in our society, the poor white will be the first to be affected. Why not poor blacks, you may ask? Because they're used to getting the shit end of the stick. They had nobody to look down on because the whole racist structure of law, finance and society as a whole relegated them to the bottom rung on the ladder of success.

In the same way that canaries in a mine don't realize what is killing them, neither do the good old boys. The right wing media that has egged them on by pandering to their paranoia and scepticism has helped to ensure that they will never sense the carbon monoxide that is killing them. Not only that, the rest of us miners breathing an ever more poisonous atmosphere won't acknowledge what's killing us. The reality is that the obscenely wealthy are draining the oxygen out of the system.

Watch the canaries.

 Why do some people in the checkout line wait until the last minute to do a deep dive for their money/credit card/wallet/change purse? Did you think we were at the free grocery store? Did you think that broccoli was complimentary.

Rantdom Thoughts

I was in a checkout line at the grocery store behind a lady who was buying boxes and boxes of Kool-Aid. I asked, “Are you starting a cult?” She just looked at me.



I once had an argument about appropriate language with a mental midget.



I love religious zealots: not in an “I really admire you” kind of way but more in a “look at that dog chasing its tail” kind of way.



If I started a newspaper in Tibet I’d call it “The Daily Llama” and have a logo with one of those South American pack animals. I figure the Chinese government would have a yen for that sort of thing.



Men have a tough time committing to relationships and an even tougher time letting go. It’s like skiing – you would rather sit in the chalet and drink coffee or hot chocolate but once you’re out on the hill, you always want to do one more run. Or maybe it’s not like that at all.



At 97 my mother is starting to lose her mental turgor (the thing that keeps plants from drooping). That’s a good thing, from my point of view; the last thing I want is a clear mental picture of what’s lurking around the corner at that point.



I had a dream once that I was in a car accident and my car was totaled. The following week I had a car accident in which my car was totaled. I’ve also had dreams where I win lotteries, find treasures, have super powers and cavort with Angelina Jolie. I’m still waiting for a couple of those before I jump on the prophetic dream band wagon.



Apparently, if you dream of falling and actually hit the ground, you die. I don’t think this can possibly be based on any empirical evidence but it explains a lot of people’s very rational fear of bunk beds.



You know that old aphorism, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”? I think that’s the motto of the creationism-must-be-taught-alongside-evolution wing nuts. It’s actually been proven to work in some republican states – the same ones where “In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.” has been reaffirmed time and again.



I’ve never understood the saying, “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” I mean, how many cooks does it take to make broth?

Ranthology

1. I told the cashier at the express checkout, “The sign should say, ‘9 items or fewer’.” She said, “Do you have a Safeway Club card or Air Miles?”

2. Do they call it “scat” because somebody made the lyrics go away?

3. Removed because of adult content.

4. To those people who think the horse should get the award in equestrian events, rather than the rider, what would happen in downhill ski racing? The winner of the last billion Olympics would be named either Fischer or Rosignol. Wouldn’t that be fun?

5. Removed because of offensive language.

6. A few years ago, Tim Horton’s advertised a game where you rolled up the rim to win. The promotional poster also said, “No Purchase Necessary”. I think they called the game “Paradox”.

7. I was at my uncle’s funeral when I was a kid. As they were lowering the coffin I remembered the pet turtle I buried and said to my aunt, “Maybe he’s just hibernating.”

8. I was passing a young woman on the sidewalk and she stopped and yelled at me, “All men are animals!” I said, “Okay.” I mean, how do you respond to something like that? “No, we’re not.”? Then she’d just say, “Are so” and I’d say, “Are not” and so on and the bus would just go right by.

9. If what happened in Haiti was part of God’s Plan, does that make it 'premeditated' murder?

10. Removed because it wasn't funny.

11. I used to tell students who walked backwards in the hallways that, if they turned around really quickly, they would run into themselves. It made them think.

12. How come it’s a miracle when one person out of a hundred survives. What about the other 99? Where was their miracle?

13. I was worried about my carbon footprint and then I remembered Donald Trump.

14. When I look at my daughter’s iPod I wonder what the a to hPods were like.

15. I've always wanted to meet someone who worked in scatology so I could say, “No shit?”

16. My dad once ripped a book he was reading in half because my mother nagged him. He always peeked at the ending when he read so it was kind of a Pyrrhic victory for my mother.

17. I think the obits should just say what people died of. Forget all that “leaves to mourn” and “lovingly remembered by” crap, I want to know what diseases or misadventures to be wary of.

18. My parents taught me never to talk to strangers. I don’t have a lot of friends.

19. If you listen to people to get your thrills does that make you an ecouteur?

20. This homeless guy asked me for a dollar. I said, “Get a haircut.” He said, “Okay. Give me nineteen ninety-five.”

21. Removed due to expired "Best before" date.

22. I’m confused when people say my father is in a better place. He’s dead. Just about anything is better than that. Except Morinville.

23. I heard that when opera singers are doing a duet they spit all over each other. Kind of takes the charm out of things. Sorry. It’s right up there with ballerinas bleeding into their shoes. Sorry again. So these are cultured activities?

24. To those people who find joy in suffering, get a cat.

25. I’m suspicious of people who overuse the word ‘love’. It reminds me of elementary school and saying the Hail Mary so often that you could practice your times tables and think about what you wanted for dinner without missing a ‘thy womb Jesus’.

26. The number of angels that can sit on the end of a pin is a direct function of which end we’re talking about.

27. My friend Pat used to break everything he touched and now he’s world-renowned oncologist. I guess people are hoping he’ll break cancer.

28. I think that if Morpheus had offered me the red or blue pill I would have snatched them both from his hand and taken them at the same time just to see what happened. I like to have more than two choices.

29. I always ate the red Smarties last because I didn’t like the taste, not because I was saving them. Saving the best for last isn’t a good idea because you might have an aneurysm or something.

30. I voted Conservative once to get the Social Credit out of office. That’s like hiring a pedophile to whack an Irish priest.

31. see ii below.

32. I used to ride the bus home from the University and fall asleep on the way. One day I woke up with my head on an old lady’s shoulder. She’s probably dead now . . . but it wasn’t my fault.

33. I wonder if homeless people have a hierarchy of shopping carts like, “Hey, did you notice the new Sobey’s that Lloyd’s been pushing? Who’s he trying to impress?” "I don't know but I sure love that new cart smell."

34. I don’t know why networks want to capture the late night talk show crowd. Most of that viewing audience are asleep when the stores are open.

36. I think we all have severely repressed Tourette syndrome . . .; . . . okay, maybe it’s just me.

37. I quit teaching because of teenage girls. Everyday some group or other would congregate outside my classroom and scream/babble about their latest boy or toy or both while holding hands and jumping up and down. It brought me to a new appreciation of 'infectious happiness' where infections are bad things that can kill you.

38. Whoever coined the term "as the crow flies" must have seen a crow on a very good day rather than in its usual course of meandering punctuated by long periods of sitting.

39. Ambergris, also referred to as whale barf and a former a major component of perfumes which still sells for three hundred dollars per ounce, comes from sperm whales. I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere.

40. There's nothing worse than people chewing with their mouths open except if they're eating a hard boiled egg at the time. That's worse.

41. Removed for ageism.

42. Why do people talk about opening a can of worms? Do worms even come in cans? Are there recipes?

43. People used to polish their teeth with urine. Honest. And Portuguese urine was the most sought after. How could you tell it was Portuguese pee? Did it come with a certificate of authenpissity?

44. I bought one of those cardboard shades you put in your windshield in the summer. It had a disclaimer in small print that said, "Do Not Drive With Shade In Place." Another Get Out Of Jail Free card in the game of natural selection Monopoly.

45. I wrote in Brian Jacobs' religion book in Grade 9. I thought it was my book so I captioned the picture of Jesus spreading his hands to the multitudes with the quote, "Honest, it was thiisss big." When Mrs. Demers asked me if I was responsible I lied. I remembered that later when I read a book about wife killer Colin Thatcher called, "Deny, Deny, Deny".

46. When you are in an uncomfortable situation you are on TENTER hooks, not TENDER hooks. Did you think they had the pointy bit rounded off or covered with sponge rubber?

47. At the head of the guillotine there's a basket for the detached head to drop into. It is lined with barley. There's a serial killer joke here somewhere.

48. I just talked with a woman who said, "Let me play the devil's advocate." Listening to her, I knew she wasn't just playing.

49. What does 'going to hell in a hand basket' mean? Is someone going to carry you? Who dreams up these expressions?

50. When you’re a senior you don’t work anymore.

51. Removed because the word 'vomit' rarely induces even a smirk.

52. Our catechism had pictures to display the effects of sin. A white milk bottle showed your soul if you were free from sin, a bottle with black blotches among the white was venial sin, and a totally black milk bottle represented mortal sin. Of course all the pictures were in black and white so it could have been chocolate.

53. I wonder how many people have had their fingers amputated by pull-tabs or by carrying cans out to the recycle bin with their fingers in the hole left by the pull-tab. There’s not even a warning or anything!

54. I used to drink one half dozen cokes per day. When I think about how people used to dissolve nails in the stuff, I feel like apologizing to my digestive tract. I have since found that the nail thing is an urban myth. Considering that it involves nails, it's probably a rural myth too.

55. I know this sounds irreverent, but I wonder if miraculous stuff like toast in the shape of Jesus and melted candles that look like the Virgin Mary has to be made out of virtuous stuff. Like, let’s say I found a piece of doggy poo in the shape of some holy figure – would it be worth a fortune on eBay or would I just get a lot of hate mail from Alabama?

56. There are more than two sides to an argument . . . like a dodecahedron or an outdoor hockey rink or something else with more than two sides.

57. Sticking up your finger to show displeasure is called the fig (honest). If people actually had to hold up real figs there would be less antagonism in this world. And fig farmers would become very wealthy.

58. I used to sit next to this really stupid kid in Grade 6 and I would often look at his math test while we were writing it to see how ridiculous an answer he had written. On one occasion the teacher caught me looking at the kid’s test and accused me of cheating. I said it was only cheating if it gave you an advantage, not ammunition for ridicule. He said that was an advantage.

59. Why do television manufacturers run commercials that show how superior their picture quality is? A guy who’s watching on a crappy set is going to say, “Doesn’t look much better than mine.”

60. You know how people throw money into any artificial pool or fountain so they can make a wish? I’ll bet swimming pools would be treasure troves if people weren’t forced to leave their wallets in the change room.

61. In 1958, when I was in Grade 6, I prayed that my Dad wouldn’t find out that I’d played hooky from school. It was that same evening I began to mistrust metaphysics.

62. I’d like to talk to Shakespeare about his famous soliloquy. I think another interesting question is, "To be or never to have been" or "Why did I just walk into the kitchen?"

63. Dyslexics of the world UNTIE! I wrote this in my Religion book (see #45) in Junior High but most people think that Gary Larsen came up with it. I still don't know how he got his hands on my Religion book. I think Mrs. Demers was trying to get even . . .

64. I cut the crust off a piece of bread. I’m going to put it on eBay because it looks like Wyoming. Unfortunately only people from Wyoming look at rectangles and go, "Hey, that looks like Wyoming." And a lot of them don't have running water let alone an internet connection.

65. I think hockey players should use loaded rifles instead of hockey sticks. It would make stick handling harder and there wouldn’t be as many fights.

66. I got my lip cut open playing hockey. Before I got it stitched up I looked like I was smiling but I wasn’t. Seeing your teeth when your mouth is closed is no smiling matter. Unless they're in a glass. Even then it's not much to smile about.

67. I needed to have my lip sewn back together after hockey. The surgeon used a surgical drape that is normally used for circumcision. I tell people I have a kosher lip.

68. You know how some people say that they climb a mountain because it’s there? They’d never get away with that answer to a three-year-old. Or maybe they would.

69. In high school I carried around Kant’s 'Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics' but didn’t read it until 10 years later. Now the debunking of metaphysics is a big preoccupation of mine. Coincidence? I think not.

70. So “fools rush in where wise men never go”? Most of the fools I’ve met don’t do a lot of rushing. They’re more liable to be the last ones out of a burning building. Wait. That’s rushing out.

71. Another one is “you’re only as old as you feel.” These words are usually uttered by old people in denial.

72. Most of you are too young to remember Ed Sullivan. Imagine one of those Easter Island statues with scoliosis.

73. So Scientologists believe that we are alien spirits encumbered by our attachment to our physical, material being? John Travolta is closer to being an alien spirit than most people. This would be true even if there was no such thing as Scientology.

74. Don Sroka, my best friend for part of Junior High, convinced me (by using a doctored tape recording) that Edmonton mayor Elmer Roper was the Masked Destroyer - a wrestling villain of the early sixties. I told everybody at school. Elmer Roper was 200 years old and looked like he was Gollum's consumptive twin. I was a very trusting person. I didn't know what 'gullible' meant back then.

75. I saw a commercial on television the other day. It was for an antidepressant. The entire 60 second slot had a voice-over that described the various side-effects of the drug. The word ‘death’ came up more than once as a distinct possibility. I smirked all the way through so I guess the stuff really works.

76. I’m glad that the father of my country wasn’t an axe wielding eco-terrorist.

77. It's amazing how deceptively relaxed people look in coffee shops, sipping their java and giving not the slightest inkling of the quivering, hair-trigger synapses that tremble beneath the surface. With all that caffeine I’m sure that dropping a hint would be enough to result in people having to be picked off the ceiling.

78. Why are Americans supposed to remember the Alamo? Didn’t they get even with Mexico a long time ago?

79. The term ‘mechanically de-boned chicken’ has always bothered me. I think it’s the ‘mechanically’ part. It conjures up images of medieval torture chambers. For chickens.

80. Some people feed baby mice to lizards. Apart from being disgusting, isn’t that a betrayal of your fellow mammals?

81. Do people forget they have Alzheimer’s?

82. Roland Nordman asked to leave the room in our Grade 11 English class. We didn’t notice the fire he’d set in his desk until he’d left the room. How do you translate that into future career opportunities?

83. When I was two I nearly drowned in a farmer’s cesspool. Now I live in Alberta. Talk about foreshadowing.

84. The Alberta Government should promote the Tar Sands’ sludge ponds as a future tourist attraction and treasure trove for paleontologists. In a thousand years they could become Canada’s answer to the Labrea Tar Pits.

85. The reason that police aren’t allowed to go on strike is very simple: they would have to club THEMSELVES on the picket line.

86. Say the word 'flush' over and over to yourself, at the top of your voice, 10 times. Make sure you are not in a public washroom or standing behind a poker player when you do this.

87. Why do we still have expressions like ‘throwing down the gauntlet’ and ‘running the gauntlet’? Nobody wears gauntlets anymore. Especially in Canada because we often wipe our nose with our mitts in the winter.

88. Speaking of freezing stuff to iron, I never did the tongue frozen to the monkey-bars thing. There are some potentially painful life experiences like defusing bombs, free climbing and base jumping that are better left to adrenalin junkies. I’m saving my adrenalin for running away.

89. I wish Alex Trebec wouldn’t keep reminding people that he’s Canadian. Does he really think that people believe he knows the answers that contestants miss? He’s a game show host! How smart do you have to be to get that gig?

90. Why is American Football called Football? The foot and the ball rarely meet and are definitely not in a compound word relationship. They could call it ‘Tossball’ but then nobody would come to the games. Except the sexually ambiguous.

91. If a rolling stone gathers no moss, what’s that green stuff all over Keith Richards?

92. My father once told me I could find sympathy in the dictionary between ‘shit’ and ‘syphilis’. It’s a lot easier just to Google it but then it’s not as much of a fatherly advice sort of thing.

93. Some people have no sense of humour. I was the only person in the theater to laugh when Paul Newman got shot in Cool Hand Luke. Lighten up people!

94. I taught a Phys Ed class to some 8 year-olds. I had them running laps in the Gym after lunch. A number of the kids slipped on what I had presumed were raisins that someone had dropped and forgotten to pick up. Turns out one of the students had had an ‘accident’ before the rest of them did.

95. Lying to children is the worst thing that anyone can do. Unless you’re a teacher. Then it’s called ‘curriculum’.

96. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Tell that to Mrs. Lemp, my Grade 3 teacher. All the other kids thought it was funny, though.

97. I worked with a woman who kept Kleenex up her sleeve. She would blow her nose and stuff the tissue back in her sweater. I was waiting for someone to say, “I bet she’s got something up her sleeve” like she was plotting something and I would have said, “Snot’.

98. I think Ogden Nash’s poetry style was a result of his parents naming him Ogden. With that kind of start it would be hard to take anything too seriously.

99. I used to have this irrational fear of needles. Now that I have diabetes it has become a rational fear.

100. We all get to live for eternity; some eternities are just shorter than others.

101. Religion is not about giving meaning to life; if you need to search for meaning you've got too much time on your hands.

102. The question “Why?” has spawned both Religion and Science: one to maintain it has the answer and the other to keep finding more questions.

103. Comfort breeds stupidity; stupidity just breeds.

104. The dodo became extinct because of the introduction of pigs to its habitat. There’s a lesson in there for human beings.

105. Never send a boy to do a man’s work unless you’re embroiled in a war.

106. Shakespeare got it wrong when he wrote, “Kill all the lawyers.” Who’s going to defend you when you kill all the bankers and CEOs?

107. It’s hard to write a rant about grammar because no one really cares that much and they’ve heard it all before from Mrs. Simmons in Grade 5.

108. Old people don’t really experience flatulence more than young people; they just have a sense of senior gastrointestinal entitlement.

109. When people rummage through their wash and find an unmatched sock they haven’t lost one – they’ve found one and just haven’t found its mate - yet.

110. Grammar checkers don’t keep people from finding out how dumb you are - they just allow you to dig the hole a little deeper.

A. I think athletes should get the gold medal for finishing fourth. Think of the strategy involved. What would happen in figure skating?

B. I think Wiebo Ludwig should have lit the Olympic flame in Vancouver.

C. I have a friend who has been married and divorced so often that his lawyer suggested next time he forego getting married and just buy her a house.

D. How did Paul McCartney wind up with Heather Mills? Maybe it was more Beatle destiny like George dying of cancer and John getting shot in the back.

E. During the cold war, espionage agencies used sensory deprivation to brainwash enemy agents. Canada locked people in a room and played Anne Murray until they cracked.

F. I’m not surprised that Tiger crashed his SUV. Driving accuracy was always his Achilles heel.

G. Life expectancy in Canada is up to 80.4 years. Before you get all excited, you have to look back at what it was when you were born. In 1971 it was 72 years. In my case it was 67.2 which is just around a very short corner. Damn statistics.

H. I think Steven Harper looks like a mortician. Or his client.

I. Death is something that happens to other people. Until it happens to you. Then you become other people.

J. The concept of ‘Death warmed over’ has always bothered me. I mean, who would DO something like that?

K. I’m going to get one of those vanity plates that seem to say something. Mine will be ER8W1UC (which means nothing that I know of) just to watch other drivers try to figure it out.

L. Of all the euphemisms for death, ‘passed’ is one of the more intriguing. You get the sense of someone going by in a hurry or giving up their turn in Bridge or peeing. Wouldn’t it be totally ambiguous if Joe Namath passed?

M. I don’t want to will my body to science because I know the kind of sick humour that med students have. Besides, what if I wind up in the Physics or Chemistry department by accident? It’d be, “Someone get me a HUGE frickin’ Erlenmeyer Flask.”

N. My grandmother, in her early nineties, came to Canada to live with my mother. One day she confided in me that this was a strange country because the sun traveled backwards through the sky. I asked her what made her think that. She said that, in Austria, when she looked out her kitchen window in the morning, the sun was coming up. When she looked out my mother’s kitchen window she could only see the sun when it was going down. I explained that her kitchen window faced east and my mother’s kitchen window faced west. She said, no, when she walked in from her back door, the kitchen was on the left and her bedroom was on the right, just as it was now in Canada. I said, yes, but imagine that your house has been turned around. She said, the kitchen is still on the right. I said, you’re right – the sun does come up on the wrong side here.

i. I just bought some Girl Guide Cookies. I used to think girl guides actually baked them as a good deed. I thought a lot of other stupid things too.

ii. I also used to think babies came out of their mothers' belly buttons . . . kinda like puffballs but not atomized like that.

iii. My 97 year old mother says that, once you get really old, nothing pleases you any more. So I said, "How about 'being a burden on your children'?"

iv. I've never believed in God, the Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus. I still don't step on cracks in sidewalks but that's more O.C.D. than metaphysics.

v. I like spoonerisms. My favourite is wishdasher. I can't decide whether Dr. Spooner was an eccentric figurative language pioneer or just an idiot.

vi. When Romans went to the grocery store, did they ask for XII buns. Did they say "Happy XLVIIIth Birthday" to people?

vii. I watched a rather corpulent lady at a buffet in Vegas loading up her plate with a giga-calorie worth of food. Then she poured herself a diet coke. I’m wondering, was that denial or alternate reality?

viii. I don’t think that e-books will ever catch on. How would you prop stuff up and where would you keep your lottery and traffic tickets?

ix. My sister is ‘into’ mysticism. She is trying to tap into the cosmic flow of universal consciousness. I tried that in the sixties but it just made me really hungry and sensitive to bright lights.

x. Steven Harper wants to put more criminals in prison. Bankers, CEOs, and the captains of industry get a pass but environmental activists and university students had better watch what they’re smoking.

i. At the head of the guillotine there's a basket for the detached head to drop into. It is lined with barley. There's a serial killer joke here somewhere.
ii. I just talked with a woman who said, "Let me play the devil's advocate." Listening to her, I knew she wasn't just playing.
iii. What does 'going to hell in a hand basket' mean? Is someone going to carry you? Do you get to use the '5 items or less' lane?
iv. I just bought some Girl Guide Cookies. I used to think girl guides actually baked them as a good deed. I thought a lot of other stupid things too.
v. I used to think babies came out of their mothers' belly buttons . . . kinda like puffballs but not atomized like that.
vi. My 97 year old mother says that, once you get really old, nothing pleases you any more. So I said, "How about being a burden to your children or slopping on yourself when you eat soup?"
vii. I've never believed in God, the Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus. I still don't step on cracks in sidewalks but that's more O.C.D. than metaphysics.
viii. I like spoonerisms. My favourite is wishdasher. I was doing an Aesop Fable with my third graders and naively called it the Grant and the Asshopper - I spent the rest of the period trying to pick them up off the floor and trying to induce amnesia.
ix. When Romans went to the grocery store, did they ask for XII buns. Did they write "Happy XLVIIIth Birthday" on their cakes?
x. I think another interesting question is, "To be or never to have been" or "Why why did I just walk into the kitchen?"