Miscellaneous...

I can't believe that I've written nothing here for a month! My apologies. Lots of stuff happening, too, literary, ecological – and illogical. I'll start with the last first. I thought the idea of tasers was that they could be used to subdue people in such a way that no harm would come to the person. Seems that there have been eighteen deaths in Canada occasioned by the use of tasers since 1999 when they were introduced. Today, a famous case of that use made the news internationally. The tale involves four policemen at the Vancouver airport, and the use of tasers on a passenger, who started acting up, and ended very down, i.e., permanently subdued, i.e., dead. Someone in the airport recorded the event on digicam, which he surrendered to police for their investigation. The police originally said they would return it, then said they couldn't but would give the owner a copy, then refused to do that because the matter was under investigation. The owner retained a lawyer in an effort to recover the tape, which was eventually handed over. The tape is currently on the CBC News website, as is a report of the event. 'Illogical' does not of course describe the event, just the disjoint between avowed and actual use of the tasers – and it's a deliberately understated characterization. Is it that we are now in a state of war at home – a 'shoot first and ask questions after' regime? Is it that our 'freedom' and 'security of person' are whimsical things, depending on whether the guy with the taser is trigger-happy when you and he encounter each other? Is it that we are unwilling to pay the price of freedom, that oft-iterated 'eternal vigilance', because we are too busy gassing our SUVs and driving off for our ski vacations? Or hopping on to planes to pursue the normal (ha-ha!) business of our lives, jet streams being an uglier source of pollution that the SUVs? Of course, when there's no longer any snow, nor any 'normal business,' it will serve us right. So segue to the ecological news, a further sign of impending apocalypse... BC salmon refusing to return upriver to spawn. I keep wondering at what point we quit fouling the environment. Perhaps only when we start falling dead in droves, and simply have no strength to do it any more? It wearies the spirit, and all for the sake of mammon! The literary news, I'm glad to report, is cause for cheering. Olive Senior's new collection of poetry, SHELL, was recently launched by Insomniac Press. I was happy to be reading read with her at a venue in St Catherine's on Tuesday night – perhaps I'll write more about that in due course. Today, I met with some great folks (Stephen Colella, ahdri zina mandiela, Allen MacInnis) at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People to talk about a workshop of my play, THE PIG FROM LOPINOT. Allen, who is Artistic Director at LKTYP, says it'll be on in the '08-'09 or '09-'10 season. It'll be great to see it when it happens, but the lead up so far has been a tremendous experience. Thanks so much, Allen, Stephen, Joan (Kivanda) and now ahdri. Start walking and taking the train and public transit, folks, if you love your children and grandchildren.