Bill's Obituary
I feel that, as I age, I should endeavour to tie "loose ends" together so that when I depart from this life I do not leave a terrible workload for my wife and kids. To this end, I am cleaning the basement, paying off my bills and spending any loose money which might become a source of debate between those I leave behind. They will be so absorbed trying to decide what size Bankers' Box to stow my remains in, and allocating my sock and penny collections to family, that one of the most important jobs, the Obituary, is likely to receive short shrift. So today, I will work on an obituary which is both credible and accurate.
Bill McLeish was born in 1943 and lived until yesterday, when we think he died, but we are not sure. He sleeps a lot, but generally gets up for a washroom visit once an hour. We have not heard the toilet flush for 21 hours now, so perhaps he has left us. We will check!
Apart from his weaknesses, he was a good man! But unlike Adolph Hitler, he could not paint, and unlike Saddam Hussein, he could not speak Arabic. But unlike both of those notables, he was not a commanding figure, and therefore caused less trouble. Throughout his life, he tried a number of occupations, from teaching, to administrative work, then consulting and government work. It was not until he progressed to his last occupation, retirement, that he found success. The hours were perfect, he was constantly meeting the goals that he set, and the commute was minimal. The performance evaluations he received from his wife were less than sparkling, but he rationalized that he was still her best employee (as far as he knew).
He leaves behind a wife who humoured him, two daughters who tolerated his sense of humour, and 6 grandchildren who looked up to him when he was standing.
If you can wake, it will be held on Wednesday morning at 6:00 am at the McDonald's, Hazeldean and Terry Fox, corner tables. A separate service will be unnecessary.. we will use McDonald's plastic service.
A Brother
Life is an aggregate of one's experiences, given the limitation of one's genes. I had the experience of being older brother to one James Alan McLeish, who was born when I was almost 21 and died at the age of 33 of Cystic Fibrosis. CF is an uncomfortable disease, one that eventually rots the lungs, smothering the sufferer. I had a family of my own to bring up, was tending to my own career and education, so did not observe him keenly until the last few years of his life. Up until then, he seemed to me a "nice kid". He staved off the disease with massive doses of exercise and careful attention to therapy. He could play badminton with an oxygen tank on his back and BEAT me. He pedalled a bicycle from Vancouver to Ottawa in support of CUSO and its overseas projects. He knew that "to live is to strive" and practiced it. He married a wonderful girl who enjoyed and supported him for 6 years despite the death sentence the disease cast on him.
But I discovered in his last few years that he was uncanny, unusual. He had SPIRIT! It might have been his faith.. he was plugged in to something upstairs, and belonged to and was supported by Christian churches all his life. My teenaged daughters (with their typical teenaged problems) would visit "Jamie" in the hospital and come out refreshed of spirit.. visiting Jamie was fun. He could love, he could laugh, he could be a friend. Despite living on a small government allowance, he was rich of spirit. Even when close to death, he seemed healthier than the rest of us. He left us almost 10 years ago! I don't think I was "shattered" by his departure as much as I was astonished at his character, and still marvel at it.
He wrote a poem at a time when he was relatively well.. I have always responded primarily to "silliness" and this one wasn't silly, so it didn't really register with me then. As I mature, it now seems as uncanny as he did... I heard that 8 years after his death they were still reading this poem at Cystic Fibrosis Remembrance services they hold every year in Toronto. You perhaps can decide whether it was "faith" or genes who created this person by reading his words:
Free to See the StarsJames Alan McLeishAs Life's dark night comes closer still
the glow of day, beyond a hill
the sunset of my days fulfilled
I warm within its glow
It is a brightly coloured sky
so tasty peach and red that I
am thankful to have been alive
to be the me I am
but lo I turn the other way
and look to darkness, night from day
from here where I would love to stay
to a path I have not tread
where once I felt serenity
my mind is playing tricks on me
to know my heart, not easily
my doubts have sway instead
but only for a moment, lo
comes gallant hope to soothe the blow
to tell me what I ought to know
a sorry body strains to hear
But look upon the sun again
and know the warmth I have within
the touch of one who came to men
has come for me today
The hand I've known for many years
is now the hand that dries the tears
and though the night won't do arrears
I'm free to see the stars.
Maybe some day I'll understand completely what he was saying..the more times I read it the deeper and more meaningful it seems. But maybe that is the definition of GOOD poetry or art.. the more often you look at it, the BETTER it looks. Just a minute and I'll read it again......
On Courage
We have just passed Remembrance Day and on that day we certainly remember the courage of countrymen, generally young fellows, who have been sent off to fight on our behalf, some of whom may not return. They have a job to do.. their responsibility is to ensure they discharge their responsibilities effectively and honourably. Their raw courage demands a huge sacrifice on our part, that we have clearly thought out WHY we have put them there. Given the huge stakes, this should be done VERY carefully, with great honesty and courage, and I would argue we are not doing a particularly good job of it. We have people fighting in Afghanistan. If they are there:
- to ensure females can go to school, perhaps it would be more effective to spend the money building schools in Africa.
- to liberate people oppressed by thugs, then we should be careful NOT to support thugs in our haste to rid the war of terrorists, socialistic governments, communists, etc.
- to counter religious fanaticism, perhaps we should first ensure that it plays no part in our domestic decisions.
- because the US indicates that our trade is tied to their aid, then that should be openly discussed and assessed.
- for reasons of GREED (ensuring that the west has open access to the world's resources), let's openly discuss that as well. The ethics of supporting international privateers is hard to defend, but our presence in the Americas itself speaks to the effectiveness of this strategy. Being honest takes courage.
A friend recently reminded me that the war in Vietnam was a result of FEAR, fear that the war was required to forestall world dominance by the communists. The current wars are fuelled by fear as well.. fear of terrorism such as befell New York City. While basic responses to fear include fighting and flight, there are other options, such as talking, obtaining information, and obtaining respect from our "adversaries" while reducing THEIR fear. The only real antidote to fear is COURAGE. It is we at home who need the courage to do a proper job in support of our soldiers overseas.
Some say it takes courage, BIG courage to fight,
Whether off in a war, or to battle for right
In our courts and our parliaments! I would agree
But that’s only a part of it, it seems to me.
There’s everyday folk who have courage to burn,
The ones who give out and get less in return!
The ones who can open their wallets and share
With less fortunate folk when there’s little to spare.
The ones who give love to unlovable folk,
Who treat grumpy old farts with a hug or a joke!
My wife is a saint! I would say openly
It takes maximum courage in dealing with ME.
Freedom
They say that being retired gives a person FREEDOM...the same way they say that having a good relationship brings HAPPINESS, or having engaging work to do brings FULFILMENT. Sometimes, for example, people rush into retirement anticipating freedom, only to find they had no idea what freedom consisted of. They become bored and find they are free to get sick and die without reporting to Personnel. George W. Bush declared war in order to bring freedom to Iraqis, and it is unlikely that this was the same freedom I yearned for when I retired.
So the first contemporary stop in any investigation of freedom seems to be Nelson Mendala. Somehow this guy managed to overcome the personal outrage of being caged for eighteen years for "terrorism", was liberated and managed to make fundamental changes to the power structure in South Africa without the country following the traditional path of civil war and whole scale violence. Obviously the man had some idea of freedom.
Quoting from "Long Walk to Freedom", here are some of his comments about freedom:
"It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, white and black. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. A man who takes away another man's freedom is a prisoner of hatred, he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity.
When I walked out of prison, that was my mission, to liberate the oppressed and the oppressor both. Some say that has now been achieved. But I know that that is not the case. The truth is that we are not yet free; we have merely achieved the freedom to be free, the right not to be oppressed. We have not taken the final step of our journey, but the first step on a longer and even more difficult road. For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. "
So it is clear that true freedom was not, to him, a selfish notion. Freedom was a shared mindset, and hatred (and probably fear and greed) are antitheses to true freedom. If "freedom" is defined as the "absence of repression or oppression", political or economic goals are reasonably easy to understand. But what about the freedom to EAT, or the freedom to MOVE, or the freedom to MARRY whoever appeals to you (assuming the person is not already committed). Or freedom from war or intimidation? Or freedom to THINK?
It is understood that there are limitations on my freedom. I am not free use your car without permission, or to spend $1000 if I can only scrape together $100 and do not have credit, unless I am Enron. I am not free in this society to marry several wives, which is a relief to women everywhere. Apparently I am not free to question why Muhammed had 11 wives when the maximum set for Muslims who could afford it was four, for fear of being jihaded.
With apologies to the patriotic in our midst, I am sometimes confused by the notion that we "fought two world wars to preserve our freedom". Freedom from Hitler was well worth fighting for, since even his compatriots knew he was a dangerous, evil fool. If he had been assassinated, Germans would likely have won and ended up running the European Common Union! But what about other wars? Did Americans really obtain additional freedom when they vanquished the British in 1776? In retrospect, did the South LOSE freedom when Confederate troops were defeated by the North in 1885? There was of course the well publicised freedom for the slaves, which turned out to be a bit of a slippery slope itself! In both wars, they won the freedom to be taxed by Washington instead of the alternatives. But it is not perfectly clear what other freedoms were involved that might not have evolved had wars not been fought. And of course these freedom assessments are often difficult. The freedoms we enjoy are clearly worth fighting for if the alternatives are those of other times and places! Jews could not own property or enter trades in Germany and many other "Christian" countries for generations. Christians are not free to build churches today in Saudi Arabia. And of course there are a legion of other examples.
"Freedom transactions" are difficult to assess. Quebec sovereignty might provide Quebec, and in fact the remainder of Canada, more cultural freedom with the loss of economic power and security. When sovereignty comes to Quebec, they will be the chaff of North America and we will inevitably become the resource rump and integral part of the United States. Perhaps something worth fighting against.
We do need to be conscious of the "golden rule" in freedom transactions.. that we are not fighting for freedom for SOME at the expense of others. That we are not fighting for property rights for the elite in Central America or Africa at the expense of the vast majority. We need to guard against bringing OUR views of freedom to others. Perhaps the attempt to bring freedom to Iraqis a repeat of the cultural arrogance of past colonial powers in invading North and South America, India, Australia, and Africa in order to bring European values (freedom) to indigenous folk?
In the home of the brave and the land of the free,
We are conscious of freedom, and we all agree
That we'll fight for world freedom! In light of this debt
They will let us determine the freedoms they get!
Many consider "free" a a synonym of "good" without defining freedom. "Free Trade" has been less "free" than had been anticipated. Canada is "free" to send its energy south, but not its softwood lumber. Countries may restrain my freedom to immigrate there to control their ability to deliver on the obligations to their residents which might be in jeopardy if they were swamped. Of course, this also obligates countries from NOT effecting economic practices (such as subsidies) that subvert other countries, or allowing repression or war, forcing people into emigration. The "free world" is often construed as a world where trade barriers have been removed, providing freedom to big companies to sell their goods but in many cases relieving locals of their freedom to make a living and eat.
Mandela suggests that basic freedoms, like the freedom to EAT, are a matter of justice, not charity. Given the inability of structures such as the World Trade Organization and World Bank to provide this economic justice to places like Africa, the world has relied on Bono and Bill Gates to provide charity. Real freedom should be put on a more stable basis.
Perhaps Mandela put his finger on the missing link in the common perceptions of "freedom".. the absence (or at least reduction) of selfishness. The massive increase in "consideration for others" required in business and politics is unlikely without significant changes in people. And where reduction of selfishness is the focus of religions, as opposed to ethnicentricity, or emotional / political power, or conformity to certain (mainly sexual) norms, or love of pageantry, they are making their contribution to freedom.
They said "You're retired! Go on home; you are FREE."
Then this concept of freedom was worrying me.
"Am I free to get drunk, spend the work week in bed?"
"Watch the soaps every day eating popcorn?" I said.
The answer came slowly, " Your values will tell"
" If you are defined by the folks you love well,"
"Or the things you experience, ponder, or do."
"You now have the freedom to simply be YOU!"
On Retirement
Retirement is a great time of life...except that you have time to do a lot of things you should have done all along but which can have deleterious effects on your mental health, like helping with the housework and watching the stock market.
You watch the clock when you are working
And the stock market when you're retired.
When you're working no more and stocks go through the floor,
You may think about getting rehired.
But there's far more of value than money,
A good broker will improve your life;
Since the stocks that you bought that he said were so hot
Have now tanked..you'll see more of your wife.
Well that is one view of our total dependence on the economic system for our welfare.. we work for 40 years to be independent, and some yahoo in the government changes the rules and our investments go down the toilet.. straight flush...
But something seems odd with this income trust decision which wiped out $25 billion of capital in one day. This amount is roughly the equivalent of 100,000 houses.. so say the city of Windsor, with about 100,000 houses was one day discovered to be built on a swamp and the houses all had to be bull-dozed for reasons of safety. No one would argue with the safety order, but it seems obvious to me that there would be a major investigation as to how we got into this mess. Some P Eng or architect would undoubtedly lose his licence.. but there has been NO hint of an investigation as to why Flaherty had to bull-doze $25 billion of income trusts into the ground. Apparently the real estate and investment markets differ in ways that I can't understand.
My brain is in need of a rest.
Things here are becoming quite stressed...
Since Jim Flaherty's gone
Had the tax rules redrawn,
And now income trusts have been depressed.
The stock market is having a cow,
My nest egg's an omelette now..
I'll invest in Labatt
Then I'll drink, knowing that
Beer goes down, then goes up anyhow.
I know that doesn't make much sense, but if you came here, you weren't looking for sense. Nothing really makes sense.. those who look for sense generally understand they are subject to delusions. Nonsense is the only thing that makes perfect sense. Nonsense is the "white noise" or the aether in the universe. Chaos theory which is so prominent today could as easily have been called "Nonsense Theory", everyone trying to make sense produces nonsense. Which brings us back to politics. Oh wait.. we are talking about retirement here. Retirement makes sense, since it releases people to intentionally produce nonsense, without hurting people for the first time.
Which is what I am doing here.
Of course, retirement is the perfect opportunity to pass along some of the wisdom we have accumulated to future generations. Before we forget it! And luckily I have several grandchildren under 10 years of age who still confuse age and wisdom, and listen to my renderings. While they are playing with their GameBoys! But I don't ask for much.. and I continue....
“Now Grandpa you are aging, as you limp and lurch along
I know our time is limited, that someday you’ll be gone!
I’m interested in history, in older people’s lives.
Please tell me your philosophy, and how did you survive?”
“Well grandson we all knew the role determination plays
That grit and ceaseless effort was the anglo-saxon way,
So I took the bull right by the horns, I grappled day and night,
Even when the bull was winning, I would not give up the fight.
Advice from your old Grandpa after living long and full,
Don’t bother wrestling horns my son, just learn to shoot the bull.”
Retirement is a time for summing up one's life - the accomplishments of our generation.. Our generation entered public life as "angry young men"...successfully rebelling against a war in an Asian country, using marches and folk music as their weapons of choice. The US government had a difficult time explaining the purpose of the deaths of 60,000 American troops and almost 1 million Vietnamese, trivializing it with the name of a game, "Dominoes". I have never learned Dominoes, and I don't intend to die trying. But to this day I can't explain what the West was doing there. Perhaps trying to keep the Russians, fresh from their successes in Afghanistan, away. No senior government officials have ever been held accountable for over 1 million deaths, but the war did have some notable successes in propagating Vietnamese restaurants throughout the west, stemming the growth of those communist Chinese restaurants. Interesting to note, my buddy Bob Turcotte does a wonderful rendition of "Alice's Restaurant", a song that asked some serious questions about the morality of killing Vietnamese, and dumping garbage. He has many of the same misgivings about where we are headed as I have, but more intellectual energy, and he can still pull off the "angry young man" routine.. When I try, it comes off as "grumpy old fart"! Silliness, for me, is far easier than analysis. For interesting analysis, Bob's blog can be found at:
http://www.bobturcotte.com/My name is Georgie Bush and I would like to start a war!
We've had some good experience, we've been through this before.
As seen there in my resume, my group called "Uncle Sam",
Has prospered in Grenada, though we fumbled in Viet Nam!
We oft' use local partners as in Nicaragua's case,
Or in Chile. We can interfere then leave without a trace.
But knocking down two towers in the middle of New York
Should require some retribution - now our big guns we'll uncork.
We will launch a big invasion. That Osama was a fool
To send a bunch of Arabs to a US flying school.
You'll go for my proposal? Well if not, I'll have it known,
I'll hire that Halliburton gang to wiretap your phone.
Bill McLeish - a Mind in Transition
This blog is still under construction.
I don't know what it will become!
I'll put my deep thoughts out in public
(Assuming I ever get some).
I may get good feedback from someone
Who has far too little to do..
When I sit down to write in the dead of the night
I'll imagine the reader is YOU!
Well that is an introducton to the depth of analysis one is likely to find on here...although some day when I have little to do I may actually THINK, and write about something deep.. perhaps about poverty, injustice, war , or becoming bald.. although it has occurred to me that I am becoming bald wondering why we have injustice and poverty and war...like the injustice of rich countries selling war machines to poor countries to protect them from neighbouring poor countries who just bought similar war machines, racking up debt that makes these poor countries poorer and the rich countries invent better war machines to kill people more efficiently. Or maybe I am becoming bald due to run-on sentences, or due to injustices such as some poor people becoming bald and others retaining their foliage indefinitely. Life isn't fair. But it's infinitely better than the alternative.
I wondered where the yellow went
When I brushed my teeth with Pepsodent.
I scrubbed real hard.. I had a drink
My yellow teeth were in the sink.
Most blogs stay away from difficult subjects like sex, politics or religion. But I shall blithely wander in...and you may hear such proclamations as "Thank God for gay marriage!" below, despite the fact that God was most likely too busy doing other things like counselling George W or inspiring members of the Taliban to worry about gays committing to each other. I shall not depend on facts in any discussion on religion, since God spends his time in earnest conversation with Ted Haggard, Jimmy Swaggart, Saddam Hussein and George W., and I keep getting passed over ... Anyway given the somewhat disparate views as to what His opinions are on world issues, as announced by the people He reportedly is in contact with..I prefer to get first hand information. I am still waiting for His call.
Now God is quite ambiguous..it's hard to know His will,
Or even if he goes by God, Yahweh, Allah or Bill..
Did He require hijabs placed on women's lovely heads?
And will He send two men to Hell should e'er they share a bed?
His views on contraception seem inopportune and odd,
And depends on who the spokesman is for Allah-Yahweh-God.
I'll tune out His press agents; priests and mullahs I'll replace!
If He wants to tell me something He can tell me to my face!
So Theologically I am not on a strong footing..but then who is?? Sometimes religion does useful things like strengthening individuals for the rigours of this life; but sometimes, when "politics" go bad, it allows people who have given up on this life to dream about another one. Perhaps like dreaming about another planet when we have denuded and bespoiled the one we have.
In politics there are two poles.. justice and power.. Politics tries to find some balance between the two. In a "democracy", power involves information and money.. and if there is some justice in the distribution of both, decisions may be "just"... But in the war on terror, information is sparse, skewed, or otherwise flawed. Sometimes I feel like God is sitting behind one curtain, and terrorists hiding behind another one..and we have intermediaries telling us which countries to invade and which people to shoot based on these curtain calls. So we may be making a lot of "unjust" and unwise decisions. And in a democracy, we can't blame the dictator, unless we are speaking of a quasi-democracy as George W's USA has become.
There's terrorists in Canada, and Cuba has Fidel,
And Chavez is a communist as far as we can tell.
Bolivia is headed left, Morales is to blame,
And Nicaragua too if Dan Ortega's in the game.
Islamists in Afghanistan and in Iraq as well,
Take pot shots at our soldiers and tell me to go to Hell. They hate us down in Mexico; the folks there are incensed
Just because along our property I want to build a fence.
I, George Bush am the decider, and these problems I will halt.
I've decided they all love us, and the media's at fault.
The power of nonsense is obvious in any study of our own Canadian politics. For example, young Peter Mackay landed in some trouble. It was charged that he called sweet Belinda Stronach, a "dog". Now Belinda is a multi-millionaire, and a floor walker. She has walked the floor of the house, as well as Peter's and Tie Domi's, but one would have trouble describing her as a "dog". Canadians, who are familiar with animals, might call her a "fox", or a "muscrat", or even a "beaver", but the chance that Peter mistook her for a "dog" is pretty remote. Anyway, the Liberals got onto the poor boy.. made more noise than if we'd sent our troops over to invade Iceland... and lost. In Peter's defence, I offer up the following:
They said that Mackay had called Stronach a "dog"!
I doubt this is what Peter thought.
He knows that a dog is a fella's best friend,
It is clear that Belinda is NOT.
Anyway, it is gratifying that Mackay has been selected as Minister of Foreign Affairs, since his domestic affairs seem in tatters. Well.. except for his dog!
So having dispensed with politics and religion in the treatise above, we have only one additional sacred cow to deal with.. SEX... Sex is not one of those things like religion that you have to rely on some old, educated person carrying a dusty tome to provide enlightenment. It is not like politics where consensus building amongst a large number of people is critical. It is a hands-on exercise where only a consensus of two is required, and where the goals are generally fairly easy to understand. In this day and age, there are few mysteries left in the area of sex.. so I may not write of it again... however it has been proven that men think of sex every 6.4 seconds, so I might... You never know.
I thought of sex the other night
(The action not the gender)!
It made me hot, I went and got
A stiff drink from the blender.
The buzz I got from drinking that
Brought lovely mem'ries back.
The moral? Think, then have a drink;
Avoid a heart attack!
