December 27, 2007 -- Dear Santa, I hope you are well and Mrs. Claus is too.  I am sure she is cleaning up and complaining about all this work just like our Mommy is.

I liked the things you brought, I really did, and so did my little brother.  But Daddy can't understand why I like the flashlight Grandpa got me better than the $400.00 VSmile Baby you brought.  I had a wonderful day shining my flashlight down Grandpa's throat, into the fireplace, on the ceiling, and under my bed.  Auntie showed me a neat game with my flashlight and a mirror that kept me busy for two hours, until I decided to see what was under the refrigerator.  (Mommy said that was not my best idea.)

Daddy kept trying to take my flashlight away and make me "pay attention" to the VSmile Baby Console.  Daddy thinks I should spend hours sitting in front of a screen and pressing keys when that smiley voice I hate tells me to, or I will never get into Harvard.  Grandpa said for heavens sake she is only three years old, and gave me back my flashlight.

My little brother likes the Brio Train Set and that huge Playskool Lets Learn Colours, Shapes, and Letters Console you left; at least, he will when he can stand up.  Mommy was mad when he would rather play with the tupperware in Grandma's drawer and bang on a pot with a spoon.  She says if he does not learn his colours, shapes and letters he will fall behind and the other lawyers at her office will laugh at her.  Grandma says for heavens sake he is ten months old and let him play in the tupperware drawer.

Santa, I know you mean well and you want me and my brother to be very smart so Mommy and Daddy will not be laughed at by their friends and the cause of women will be advanced.  But could you please drop them a little hint that little girls would rather spend their time learning about refraction and reflection with a flashlight and a mirror and their aunties, and babies would rather bang a pot with a spoon and chew on a tupperware lid, than sit in front of a screen and press keys or repeat colours, letters and shapes when they are too small to even stand up?

And P.S.  next year would you please not bring me another doll?  Because actually I don't like dolls.  Please, if you could write it down in your big book, I would rather have a remote control Corvette --- and some batteries for my flashlight.

love and kisses from your friends, Junior and Susie

December 17, 2007 -- Christmas is a time that is tough on lots of people for many different reasons.  It is also a time to reflect on what made the world the way it is today, especially if one went to university before a classical education became well-nigh impossible to obtain and university became trade school.

Lately the USA especially has been plagued with young men whose idea of problem-solving is to take an array of guns to a "Gun Free Zone" and shoot seemingly random members of the public until some blood lust is assuaged (or he realizes what he has done) when he has the good grace to turn the gun on himself and save the taxpayers a lot of money by making his final action on Earth the infliction of maximum inconvenience, mess, disgust and upset.  The kind of people who immediately blame themselves for everything that goes wrong in the world start agonizing how "We failed this Child" in some way shape or form, generally concluding that insufficient taxpayer dollars were expended to make the little Bleep feel "included."

My instant reflex is to deny all responsibility for anything these brats do, and to opine that they are old enough to make choices and what they did is what they decided to do.

Upon mature reflection and upon Christmas shopping this month, I have altered my opinion and I would like to propose that there is a reason that certain segments of society are indeed to blame for this carnage.  Those are the people whose belief is and remains that no child should ever be thwarted or made to realize his limitations, regardless of how many other children and adults this fiction harms or annoys or in fact kills.  From the children acting as a front for hysterical parents and demanding that all the students in their school be frisked for inappropriate lunchbox items, lest Junior and Susie have to learn not to eat things that will kill them, to those children shrieking and flailing in the grocery store, to the kids who receive a trophy for showing up and sitting on the bench -- the same trophy received by the people who won the game.  Finally, the high schools award a Certificate of Participation to those who cannot pass any kind of exit examination or enough classes to get a diploma.

In the protected environment of Mommy's House or the insulated atmosphere of Public School, this trick works.  I think it is instructive that the vast majority of the young killers are in the age group that has just or is near to graduating into the Real World, where there are in fact winners and losers and you do not get everything you want.  (I recall an employer once commenting in a talk to the Education Board that he routinely had to deal with shocked brats who cried when they discovered they had to work in the summer, and I have heard the sons and daughters of my sisters complain that their retail jobs do not give them Christmas Vacation.)  Now, those of us who grew up with even a modicum of discipline, or brothers and sisters, understand even if we do not like the fact that frequently we cannot have everything we want.  Not so the vast majority of Only Children being born today. 

What's more, a tour through the toy department during Christmastide will reveal in every aisle a screaming tot whose helpless Mommy stands by doing nothing but wringing her hands as Junior or Susie shrieks and flails against the very idea that his or her instant desires are not being met.  Saturday I was privy to both a Junior and a Susie (Junior was Black; Susie was White) in this charming attitude.  Junior was hanging onto Mommy's arm in the Limp Rag Doll attitude, shrieking for a toy telephone; Susie, pretty in pink, was rolling on a muddy, wet floor and shrieking in a voice that was already becoming hoarse from a prolonged tantrum.  Mommy, who was apologetic and totally passive, told me "Oh, she'd like me to open the packages and take out the toys."

If Junior and Susie, aged about 3, cannot stand the loss of an instant gratification without shrieking and flailing, think how long the rage will build within them until, at age 16, 19, 24 shrieking and flailing no longer make their point...now it is necessary to get a gun and shoot up the shopping mall, the church, the school ... whatever public institution they blame for the fact that their instant, insistent "need" is not being met, their desires are being thwarted, their Utter Rule Over All being set aside.

Just like their peers who monotonously repeat f*** and s*** without effect, the prolonged overuse of hysteria has left them with no way to express their frustration when they have reached putative adulthood -- save violence.

And of course the solution to this growing problem is -- parental teaching of self control.  Had it been my Susie screaming on the floor of the store, I would have made eye contact with her and said "If you don't stop that and get up this minute, I will give you something to cry about."  Believe me, if she was my little Susie, she would have stopped.  In the car on the way home we would have had a firm talk about screaming and flailing in public NEVER results in a reward, followed by a nap on arrival home.  As for Limp Rag Doll Junior, a simple "I think it's time we went home" followed by instructions to stiffen his legs and walk beside me or I'd dump him in the buggy and wheel him to the car, probably would have worked.  On the way home, the talk would have been that he might just as well get used to the fact that screaming NEVER results in getting what he wants.

Quite possibly then Junior and Susie would grow up to realize that negotiation, hard work, or charm might be better weapons than tantrums ... and that life is full of occasions on which we do not get what we want; so rather than taking a gun and shooting those whom we blame, we shrug it off, get over it and move on.

If a few more kids were thwarted in their playpens, a lot fewer of them would grow up with the idea that an escalating tantrum ending in gunfire and a hideous death was definitely going to work.

Or, of course, you could continue to encourage Junior and Susie to believe that if they cannot have what they want, instantly and in full measure, terrorism is the answer....

December 12, 2007 -- Today the city of Toronto went toe to toe with a group of anarchist rabble called OCAP and Toronto, as always, blinked.

Fortunately, the average businessman and woman in Toronto's financial district is just as hard-nosed as those in the Buckhead/Piedmont Road area of Atlanta, and the encounter was a net loser for the rabble.

To set the scene for those of you who are unfamiliar with Toronto: the buildings of the Financial Centre (which is where I work) are connected underground by wide, store-lined walking boulevards extending about 10 blocks North and South, and maybe three blocks East and West.  These boulevards are called the PATH, and are owned and policed by the private building owners and the businesses therein.  Absolutely no panhandling or homeless napping, etc. is allowed in the PATH.  There is also, as I discovered, no photography down there.  Security is good, tight, and ubiquitous.  The streets outside are pustular with the homeless mentally ill and alcoholic/drug addled, the grifters, con men, out of town fakers and loafing teenagers all accosting people or sleeping or urinating in the public thoroughfare.  Not so in the PATH.  Down there we can eat, read, shop, visit and walk in safety and unmolested.

Well, last night our office manager informed us that this group, known to be confrontational and violent on occasion, had been given permission to hold a "Mass Panhandle" in the PATH.  Frustrated, apparently, by the fact that we could have a private place where we could ignore them, their leader stated, "We are bringing homeless people and those who support them to panhandle in the very heart of the commercial showpiece they seek to drive people from."

Last night was our firm Christmas party, and besides the usual query "Why don't they take these people and get them jobs?", the question du jour was "How do they think they are going to get more money from us by invading our property and making our lives more difficult?"  Many people said they would undertake to avoid the PATH today and some of us for the rest of the week, and even those who planned to use the PATH would ignore the panhandlers or tell them to get right out of the way.  There was no sympathy expressed, nor was there solidarity.  This was looked on as an invasion of privacy, a definite abuse of private property rights, and a total non-starter when it came to extorting more money (they get $200,000,000 per year from the City now) for "programs", which include free liquor and cigarettes in some shelters.

The protest has now ended.  Despite the lure of buses, free food, and teevee cameras, they could only muster 40 protesters and panhandlers, who were spread pretty thin from the sound of it, and were seriously outnumbered by police, security, and video surveillance personnel.  With not only a lack of sympathy but a flinty animosity toward their cause, and word to the buildings that their tenants did not appreciate the harassment, the whole thing turned into a farce and the OCAP slunk away defeated.

Once during a downtown riot in Atlanta, a Black person was heard wondering aloud why they were burning and looting their own neighbourhoods. "Why don't we go burn Buckhead?" said this enterprising individual.

The answer was swift in coming.  "That's their territory," he was told.  "They gon' fight back."

And that's the name of that tune.

December 11, 2007 --  This is just a note to my readers, if I have any left, that my blog  is still here, however every morning I have to contact the IT department at Town Hall to restore the link between me and it.  They are honestly trying their best, and have admitted that they do not know what causes this link to work only during daylight hours (EST).  If you happen to see a post of mine with an underline, click on it and you will be sent here.  But only during daylight hours on the East Coast, until IT figures out what the issue is.

Long ago when I went to university, back when it was supposed to fit me for life and not for making a living, I took a course in Cinematography and one of the things we had to report after each movie was "What is the Author's Message?"  Being the fun loving group that we were, when one of us spotted it (usually not too difficult) he or she would shout 'AUTHOR'S MESSAGE!  BLINK---BLINK---BLINK!"  I taught this trick to my kids, and before we ever saw MST3K, we were making hash out of Hollywood's less subtle offerings, much to the dismay of other family members who might be in the room.  I mention this because we were in Toronto for the premiere of  Independence Day back in 1996, and as we left the theatre, my oldest boy and I discussed possible Author's Messages for that film.  After jeering at the notion that any Earth hacker could break into any Extragalactic computer system (when a Mac user cannot break into a Microsoft system and vice versa), noting Product Placement, computerwise, and picking up on the HAL 9000 and Jurassic Park references during the climactic scene,  we decided there were two Author's Messages in this film.

One of these was a Message that was clear only to Canadians, as the loud grumbling from the people around us made clear.  "There go the [expletive] Americans," the gripe went, "SAVING THE WORLD -- AGAIN!" ( My fun loving offspring actually made eye contact with one of them and said gravely, "You're welcome.")

The other, which is the Message that was, we decided, planted in the movie by the Author on purpose, was this:  "WHEN SOMETHING GOES WRONG, IN THIS GALAXY OR IN ANY GALAXY, WITH THE COMPUTER, THERE IS ONLY ONE GUY WHO KNOWS HOW TO FIX IT, AND HE IS OUT TO LUNCH."

In 1996 I had little or no experience on the computer, much less with IT departments in general, and the idea that an Intergalactic War Machine would not automatically assume that in case the ship were attacked, the computer system would be the first thing to go, and have a backup system or two and several qualified squads of technicians standing by (for example, the Dutch Chaos Computer Club), made me wonder what planet (so to say) the Author was living on.  In 2007 I am much wiser, and it seems entirely reasonable that a squadron of ravening spacecraft that were suer to come under attack of every kind, foreseeable and otherwise, would carry only one IT guy for the whole outfit, and that he would be in his room playing with his Nintendo Wii and his iPod is turned up so loudly he cannot hear the page.

Some day this situation will either change, or an EMP will wipe out all the computerized binkies upon which we rely and on that day we will hang all the IT people from lamp posts and go get a book to read.  Until that day, alas, we can only wait humbly with our hands folded for the IT guy to make the magical gesture that will connect us with the world.

Stay tuned.  As the Whos down in Who-Ville said, "We are here!  We are here!"

December 3, 2007 -- It is December and outside in Canada it is snowing, sleeting, freezing raining and generally having a temper tantrum.  But that is nothing to what the residents of Kanukistan are doing in reply!  It is a source of great amusement to me that every year when the first storm hits the streets, the citizens of Eastern Canada suddenly wake to the reality that they do not live in Hawaii.  Hardy New York State expat that I am, I used to laugh at the people of Atlanta who ran around screaming and waving their arms when snowflakes were sited in Memphis (hundreds of miles away).  But here in Canada it seems that nobody expects bad weather in November or December.  I hesitate to blame Al Gore (although last winter my sister, who had to decamp to her cottage over a weekend to shovel "three feet of Partly Cloudy" off the roof lest it collapse, threatened that if Al Gore made an appearance in the neighbourhood she would beat him to death with her snow shovel), as it seems to me that this hysteria was going on when I arrived here in 1998.  In fact, in that year there was a monster ice storm that shut down Quebec, pretty much in total, and the Mayor of Toronto actually called out the Army to deal with what looked suspiciously like a regular winter here in TO.  Of course there was the problem that some idiot had decided to put all the switching mechanisms for the subway OUTDOORS, where the bad weather would freeze them solid and make the trains inoperable, and then make it impossible to shut the power down so that when they were covered with snow and ice, only certain Advanced Technical People could cautiously dig down and find the switches and cause them to be operational again.  That is not the fault of Global Warming.  That is the folly of hiring stupid people who cannot read the Old Farmers Almanac.

Nevertheless, we had a big storm blow in over the weekend and Lord Love A Duck, it was like the eruption of Vesuvius around here.  Nobody had snow tiers, nobody had anti-freeze, nobody remembered how to thaw the frozen locks out ... heck, nobody even had boots!  To add to the confusion our mayor (known as His Blondness on account of his campaign that we ought to elect him because he had the best hair) decreed that in order to save money, the City was not going to plow roads and sidewalks unless it really felt that the sun wasn't going to melt it off ... however, in the face of ridicule similar to that occasioned by his plan to slap an extra 10 cent tax on bottled water when people could take the subway outside the city limits and stock up tax free, he backed down adn said weakly that he did not reall y mean it.  Someone also reminded him, I am sure, that the City fines people who do not clear the street and/or sidewalk in front of their own businesses, and that it would be impossible to impose these fines when the City itself refused to clear away the snow.

In my photo album from the 1960s, before I moved South for the winter to a Bible College in Tennessee, I have photos of us girls standing in front of drifts higher than our heads, snow shovels in hand, and I remember well the work that went into piling up those drifts.  Nobody back then, that I can remember, went around screaming with horror when it snowed in December. 

One can only conclude that either Attention Deficit Disorder, Senile Dementia, or too much reliance on Al Gore's predictions has destroyed the ability of Eastern Canadians to remember where they live.

Personally, I love the snow and I moved back here because I missed the changing seasons.  And I never once thought that I was moving to Hawaii.