Cruisin’ the Life

Cruisin’ the Life

Only a week after I stepped off the Carnival Freedom, the Carnival’s Mediterranean line, Costa, provided  hours of TV news with the spectacular sinking of its cruise ship, Concordia, including loss of life, missing passengers or crew, and surely for some of the survivors at least, a certain loss of faith in life’s advertised certainties. For truly, what could be safer, possibly to the point of boredom, than a cruise ship? The last thought on my mind as we walked up the Freedom’s gangway, crossing over from land to the world of the ocean and these behemoths that ply them, was a concern for my personal safety. At the time, overeating seemed my biggest health risk.

Whereas the Concordia failed to rehearse the life boat procedures, our ship, the Freedom, held muster almost immediately, before we sailed into open waters. But it occurred to me, even at the time, that should we ever face an emergency, we’d be in serious trouble: no one yet knew where their muster station was and when we were directed to the correct place in front of our lifeboat, we were lined up against the deck’s wall, with later arrivals added in front of us, and still later arrivals in front of them, like a seven layer cake. Maybe there’s a different operating system in a real emergency, but human nature being what it is, surely panic would have set in if the ship were sinking; it is not likely that we passengers would docily line up, waiting for others to take their places in the lifeboats. True, there are always acts of heroism as there were on the Titanic and apparently on the Concordia, but by and large, the ship’s crew isn’t going to have the luxury of half an hour to tidily assemble the terrified passengers of a listing ship.

In contrast to the Concordia’s passengers in full-emergency muster, desperately trying to board tilting lifeboats or scale ropes down slanting sides to escape the ship into the waiting waters, we mustered impatiently, lining up as mere exercise and eagerly awaiting our dismissal so that we could get back to the Lido deck and some serious eating, never once conceiving the thought that this could be real, that in a week, for 4,000 plus souls, it would indeed be real.

I wonder if the musters on cruise ships the day following the Costa disaster were a little more somber, with fewer thoughts of food and more on how to survive now that the unthinkable was all too thinkable.

Near misses are the reminders of life’s irony and fragility; the old adage advises, “There but the grace of God go I.” All that separates us from disaster is a left turn when we should have gone right – taking flight 901 instead of flight 109, leaving at 3:00 instead of 2:59:

In 1989, I took my family on a special vacation to California. After sleeping under the shelter of the mountains in Yosemite, we drove along the Rockies, crossing over the spectacular Oakland Bay Bridge into San Francisco. Weeks later, back home, we watched the news clips showing the crushed cars as the top tier of the Oakland bridge collapsed on top of the bottom tier and the entire bridge split in the San Francisco earthquake. As they say, “Timing is everything.”

There is the old story of the man who tried to escape his revealed destiny, that Death was stalking him, by fleeing to a different city. When he arrived, he found Death waiting there for him, asking, “What took you so long to arrive?”

If we can’t flee, and we can’t know in advance which direction to turn or when to leave, we either hide, ostrich-like, our heads in the sand, or we get on with our lives, trying to find meaning and joy whenever and wherever we can.

And if we get to drink from the glass of fortune, we need to give thanks for that good fortune, never to take it for granted. And we need to extend a hand to those needing our help, out of common decency, and against the time when we also might zig when we should have zagged: against the time when the odds catch up with us and it’s our turn.

The Day after: Christopher Hitchens meets God

The Hitch  is dead.

Thursday, December 15, aged 62. Cause of death: pneumonia caused by esophageal cancer. Cause of cancer: excessive smoking and drinking. Contributing cause? Maybe the vagaries of existence with no intrinsic order or meaning, as Hitchens, ever the devout atheist, even unto death, might have said.

If you knew of Hitchens, then you know all of this and maybe more. If you didn’t, then he might be a posthumous discovery for you.  Hitchens, according to the spate of obits and remembrance columns, is (was?) a preeminent 20th century intellect, journalist, essayist and debater. A sort of modern-day George Orwell. Last year, his blond hair sacrificed to the gods of chemotherapy, Hitchens debated Tony Blair on television, worried only that his mind would retain its clarity, which, apparently, it did. And now the mind, the tongue, are silenced.

The trouble with dying as an atheist is that there is no one to meet: no Maker, no St. Peter, no loved ones waiting to be reunitied.

Worse, it’s a lose, lose proposition: if Hitchens’ denial of god is wrong and God exists, then he’s going to meet a god he’s spent his entire adult life prodding and jabbing. That could be shock enough to kill him all over. If Hitchens is right, and there’s no one to meet on the other side, then Hitchens won’t even have the satisfaction of knowing that his was the correct assumption. As Hamlet so well remarks, death is the “undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns.”

On second thought, did Shakespeare accidentally, or possibly even purposely, leave a loophole there? After all, Hamlet the ghostly father, has returned from some sort of purgatory to exact the promise of revenge from his son, our Hamlet. The ghost visually describes the world in which he is doomed to wander until the wrong is put right. It’s not going to attract too many “Vacation-To-Go” offers, for this is a terrifying place, but Shakespeare describes it so concretely that you have to wonder whether the bard himself made a round trip. And should Shakespeare be waiting, Hitchens might well consider a meeting worth his early demise.

But of course, if there is a heaven, and Hitchens qualifies at least for a preliminary interview, then he’ll have to deal first with a God likely just itching to meet his unruly, prodigal son. What a conversation that might be!

God:     (depending on your interpretation, looks like Charlton Hesston or George Burns; to St. Peter) Take a harp break, Peter, I want to handle the next traveller personally.

Peter:  (looks off through clouds and makes out the figure of Christopher Hitchens ascending) Be back in a couple centuries.

God:    Well, well well! The prodigal son returns. Welcome to North Korea,            Christopher.

Hitch:    You really exist? (caught off guard but only for a second before Hitch goes on the offensive about the North Korea reference.) Nice use of irony there, and you plagiarized one of my good retorts, too. I’ll be damned!

God:    Oh, I can arrange that, you know. You have indeed garnered some sterling              qualifications in that direction.

Hitch.   You refer to my so-called immoralities? You’re not so great yourself!

God:    Indeed I well know your feelings towards me.

Hitch:  Ah yes, the omnipotent, all –knowing god! Eavesdropping on everyone 24/7. Sort of like Santa Clause’s naughty and nice bit, but without the yearly presents.

God:    Yes, well, there is that, I suppose. But also, I read your book. Quite good, actually,  Christopher, if wrong, nevertheless.

Hitch:  Do you deny it then – the violence on your earthly paradise, the death and misery?

God:    How could I deny it.? But contrary to your gem about North Korea, my children have freedom. You can choose your fate, you humans. That is a precious gift and some of you have made fine use of it. Unfortunately, not by all of mankind. But there is still life, and still  hope.

Hitch:  Freedom to choose? Like Adam and Eve.

God:    Exactly so

Hitch:  Oh, c’mon! They didn’t stand a chance. Good god!

God:   Thank you.

Hitch:  You’re pretty funny. Actually. I prefer you this way.

God:   So you do admit of my existence!

Hitch:  Nice try, God, but no, I’m simply speaking metaphorically, clothing an idea in a personified wrap, for how else could we have this debate?

God:   Nevertheless, we are. To paraphrase one of my happier disciples, Descartes, of whom I’m  sure you’re familiar: ‘You think, therefore, I am.’ I rather like that.

Hitch:  I’m not so sure the Descartes would like it, but anyway, it’s not even me who’s thinking. It’s this turgid blogger who fancies that he can write not only a Platonic dialogue, but that he has the intellectual capacity to engage us both in repartee.

God:    He’s my creature as well, Christopher.

Hitch:  Yes, well, I wouldn’t be bragging about that one, you know? You don’t exist, and now I don’t exist either, except in the minds of a few people such as this ill conceiving blogger.

God:    You are indeed a harsh critic.

Hitch:  Exactly how I made my living! And now to put an end to this. Hey, blogger! I’m not playing along for your benefit. If you want fame, don’t try to hitch –  yes, yes, I know, it’s weak, but look who I’m relying on here – I say, blogger, if you want fame, then hitch a ride on your own merit. And you better post this soon, because death is time-sensitive. Tomorrow my death will matter less than today, which is already less than yesterday.

So go ahead and post, because now, we’re….done.

Walkin’ Moxie – or – An Alien’s Persepctive

          The pulling power of a 10 pound Shih Tzu is, frankly, quite fierce…not surprising since the name apparently translates to Lion Dog.  At the afore-mentioned 10 pound weight, or a bit less than 5 kilos in metricspeak which puts her at the low end of the weight category, Moxie nevertheless fulfills her obligation to carry herself with a “distinctly arrogant carriage,” as Wikipedia puts it. If an underbite and large, buggy eyes might be an invitation for human bullying, especially amongst children, the dog world seems blissfully unaware of such human-termed imperfections; moreover, as long as it’s dogs and not people, these characteristics apparently represent good breeding, so to speak.

          So there I am, being forcibly yanked at the back end of a ten foot leash by this miniature tow truck. From my position, of course, I see none of Moxie’s finer front-loaded  breeding qualities, only the end orifice, the presence of which in all mammals really should unite humanity in some sort of realization that given we share this back-end aspect of nature, there’s little sense in worrying about who has buck teeth, a given skin pigment, is short, heavy, or whatever.

           Or maybe there is! Maybe we distract ourselves with such trivia because we don’t want to be reminded about the back end, because it reminds us all too clearly as to what makes us us, and that the only time this biological process stops is not a time to be wished by most sane people. Dogs, once again, don’t much seem to care, not even about this, and have no remorse about exercising said orifice in public.

          Once, while waiting for  Moxie to perform that hind-site action, then bending low to scoop up the by-products of life, specifically breakfast and a couple of treats in this case, it occurred to me, that should a flying saucer be hovering in the stratosphere while scouting the earth, the aliens (who for all I know could be Shih Tzus) focusing a high-powered, super resolution telescope on me precisely at that moment, would see a small animal leading, its servant humbly following a respectable distance behind, stopping from time to time to scoop its poop. What more evidence could a space-being ask for in order to establish racial dominance? The scouting report would most definitely establish that the four-legged creatures on this third planet from the sun are the master race, they being served by a lesser species with but two legs, clearly less powerful, less able, far slower, and given its role as pooper scooper, possessing significantly less intelligence.

Even stranger, however, is that there are moments when increasingly I’m prone to agree with the aliens.

Enjoying a royal rest

The God Complex

For two days the fish tank ran on auto pilot: lights and filter came on in the morning, the motor hummed quietly, oxygen bubbled, and then at 7:00 p.m. everything shut down for the night. Only I didn’t have to descend the flight of stairs to feed the fish several times a day, since, of course, there were no longer any fish in the tank.

The tank was my model, an ocean in miniature, ideal – an underwater Atlantis. Beige gravel with blue splashes flowed in contours around strata of rock while plants framed the outcropping and lined the tank back to hide the wall behind, leaving the front open for the fish to freely swim.

There must be some sort of God complex in people who keep aquariums or create miniatures such as scale railroads. Maybe it even applies to gardeners. What they all have in common is that they get to create. From nothing, hills and valleys  appear on the train layout, and the loco-driven freight train barrels past the sleeping village in the dark; the gardener plants a shade tree here and cuts the bed just so there, uprooting any weeds that would spoil the view.

Essentially, hobbyists create their own Edens, small worlds built for their pleasure, which they can control, not just from the aspect of play, but from the very act of creating them. Nothing happened in my small sea world that I didn’t make happen. At least until disease entered the tank.

Maybe that’s what annoyed God: he lost control of his perfect model. Disease in the form of the serpent entered his magnificent Garden of Eden and suddenly the creatures he had created and shaped neglected his will, disobeying him. “Eat from the tree of life,” he offered Adam and Eve, “But do not eat from the tree of knowledge,” but that is exactly what they did. And so God relocated Adam and Eve and locked the gates of Eden behind them. Genesis clearly shows God’s anger, but the focus shifts to Adam and Eve who now will suffer and, ultimately, die.

But what about God after his creations have let him down and are now wandering  elsewhere? Surely the Garden was desolate for Him, a bitter reminder of that searing event. Surely, the treachery of his small world must have caused Him a great deal of pain. Perhaps He could never again enjoy it in quite the same way.

My fish didn’t exactly disobey me, unless you want to consider their dying an act of civil disobedience. But after all those years, watching them grow, seeing their beauty as they flashed deep orange, mouths gaping at the surface when I came to feed them, suddenly not having them was desolation, and I too decided not to restock Eden.

But unlike a model railroad, or a garden, a fish tank can’t simply be abandoned to lie fallow, turning to dust and gradual decay. It has to be drained of water; gravel, plants and decorations rinsed and placed in buckets; canopy and filter cleaned and mothballed, and finally, the tank, that empty shell that had once contained a world, put into storage.

If God did in fact felt empty after undoing his creation, I can indeed, definitely relate.

 

Andy Rooney and the Goldfish

Andy Rooney and the Goldfish.

Andy Rooney and the Goldfish

“It’s just a friggin’ goldfish” I think, mad at myself for being upset just because an inconsequential goldfish died. I mean, really! The obits are full of people who left for the “undiscovered country,” not the least among them, my curmudgeonly hero, Andy Rooney – and he was curmudgeon enough to go another ten years. Add Smokin’ Joe to this week’s shuffle-off list, and only a couple days ago, the Grabber, who, like Frazier, succumbed after a two year battle with cancer.

Who’s the Grabber? Just a guy I used to work with; brilliant craftsman in all things wood. He helped me with my projects: me with the cheap particle board making a bookcase, him with the real deal: maple, walnut, oak… from which he crafted future heirlooms. Eventually, we both moved on and only saw one another occasionally. But for me at least, it was nice to know that the Grabber was still around. Much is the case, I think, with those who exist in the periphery of our lives and perhaps, albeit at best, he thought similarly of me. But once you share a time and a space together, you have a history which somehow results in an indissoluble bond. At least it seems so to me.

And like most of us, I’ve mourned the loss of far more than strangers and casual friends: close family, loved ones, dear friends…

So why am I so upset about a lousy fish? Dunno, to tell the truth. But I am. This was the last of four, and for one thing, I had a history with them, too. Maybe eight, nine years ago my wife inherited 3 feeder goldfish for her grade 2 classroom aquarium, the kind that usually die within a few weeks, usually due to mismanagement. Naturally, I got the call to become the keeper of the tank. Once a month I’d go up to her classroom at the end of a school day, there to minister to the fish. Summertime, they came home on vacation, tank and all. When my wife retired, no one wanted the fish, which, because they had lived for three years by then, had tripled in size. And so out came the old 35 gallon aquarium, filter, light/ canopy stand and assorted fish paraphernalia. Heckle, Jekyll and Hyde moved in.

I resurrected our small backyard pond that summer and the fish vacationed in their larger quarters where they easily doubled their size in the half year they swam there. Later, a real koy joined the family, and for maybe five years those four fish gave pleasure to family and friends all summer long. Come October, they returned indoors to escape being frozen in the pond, but also to brighten up the house during our long, dreary winters. They were crowding the tank by then, with the largest at about six inches of fish, not counting the fins.

I got a little behind schedule this spring and missed a tank cleaning; the day before I was to take them out to the pond, the runt of the four died. My fault, but I got the other three into the pond where they thrived all summer. Made a similar error in the fall, not cleaning out the pond filter in time. I’d noticed the three fish gulping at the water surface and should have known that the water was foul. Some days, these days, too much needs looking after and my energy is low: the pond filter and pump are a major project to clean and I figured the fish would come inside in a day or two anyway, and then I’d clean everything for the winter. Lightning struck twice: the next day, when I went out to begin bringing them in, two were dead, and only the largest, the toughest, the Andy Rooney of the fish, was alive. Barely. Likely it had hours left at best.

Once in the tank, however, it seemed to recover, and I bought another goldfish to keep it company. That one died in two weeks and then my original fish became sluggish and stopped eating. I noticed the fins were shrivelled: fin and tail rot popped into my mind from the time keeping tropical fish. I decided to buy fish medicine the next day, but in the morning when I checked on old Andy Rooney, he too was gone.

So the tank stands empty awaiting either new fish or dismantling: too many Smokin’ Joes, Andy Rooneys and Grabbers these past few days.

I think for now, it’ll be option 2.

Happy Halloween but watch for the spooks that walk among us

Halloween ghosted by last week, and gave me quite the scare. I was tricked by a canny costume: idiots playing with fire disguised as rational, thinking people. Maybe I should specifically add that they were costumed as rational, thinking drivers. Yes, I was involved in a car accident, a chain collision except that I broke the chain, managing to stop several feet behind a large SUV that obscured any chance of seeing why he stopped short so suddenly. But I did manage to keep from an anal meeting of the cars. Not so the idiot behind me who pounded my bumper, then, likewise belted by the idiot behind him, smacked me again. Naturally idiot one turned out to be a liar also, telling me that he,d stopped in time, only hitting me when hit by idiot #2. Stopped but hit me twice because you were rear ended once? I don’t think so. Eventually it all gets sorted out, despite the car that started the chain reaction taking off while no one was looking. Smart ghoul, eh?

So the insurance companies sort it out, money gets paid, my car gets a new bumper and some paint, but wont really be the same, if only because I know. And if I sell it, when I’m asked, “Has the car ever been involved in an accident….

The night serves as a reminder: once again, we see how fragile is life: a matter of luck and timing. Had I stayed in the middle lane, and not switched into the left lane to be ready for the left turn coming up in 2 lights, tucking in just behind the white SUV…

Had I stopped to get the mail before leaving, or had I not stopped to get the mail…Mere seconds, maybe nano seconds, determine whether we get the bullet or it speeds by on its way to another tragedy.

Fortunately no one was killed, or maimed this night. But at the close of Halloween all the kiddies take off their costumes and eat their chocolates ‘n chips, and go to bed. However, the ghouls are still out there, still disguised as human beings while driving mad, or shooting people, or cheating them, or maybe depriving them of their rights, and you never know when fate’ll bring you face to face with one of them. And when it does, remember – they only appear human, but peel away the human disguise, and you’ll see the real monsters that walk among us.

Cheatin’? No Problem

Cheating anyone? Now you can go for it!

In late October, the east Newfoundland school board adopted its western partner’s two year old cheating policy, which, essentially says, “No problem!” According to a news article, Jeff Thompson, director of programs for the Western School District where the same policy has been used for more than two years, said, “I believe it’s a misguided discussion. In fact, I would argue that academic dishonesty, right now, is being addressed in a more substantial and formalized way with our new policy, than it has been at any time in our history.” He never goes on to state what this more substantial and formalized way is, or what it means, but maybe the reporter simply didn’t require more than byte of information.

Now I took this information from an on-line news report, 99% verbatim. That’s plagiarism, no? If the reporter feels ripped off, I suggest he get over it and just give me another chance to rewrite this blog with no penalty.

Essentially, that’s the policy that Mr. Thompson is referring to, and if it’s good enough for all Newfoundland students, then it certainly should be good enough for me: to hold me personally responsible for cheating is simply not fair!

Radio talk show host and former Ontario politician John Tory aired this topic recently, essentially agreeing with the ‘anti-zero’ policy, but suggesting maybe a partial deduction rather than a complete lack of penalty. I respect Mr. Tory’s opinion, but I was surprised: His reputation as honest human being and politician is impeccable, and yet he seems to be making an allowance for cheating. Likely, he finds it favourable as do others because it seems to be a compassionate policy for children. However, it is then unfair to those who abide the rules. If this teaches honesty, I’m at a loss as to how, though most of the show’s callers agreed with Mr. Tory. I won’t speculate as to why that was so, but I admit to being surprised.

When I’m not writing a blog or otherwise employed, I instruct essay writing at college level. I like to think that most students are honest, but there are always those who plagiarize, and it seems to have increased in the past few years. The other day I discovered one young girl plagiarizing on an informal assignment, one where an informed opinion was just fine. It was not necessary to research the answer and in fact, no outside sources were allowed. Lately, however, I find students consulting them anyway, sometimes buying subscriptions to essay writing websites to minimize the chance of being caught, as was the case here.

When I informed the student that I had discovered the plagiarism, providing evidence of the stolen passages and their source, she e-mailed back that she was ” totally shocked,” to receive “a grade of zero after my hard work doing this response.” Yet, she goes on to “admit I use[d] on line resources just to fully understand the readings.” This is acceptable for her because she was “able to create [her] own response based on that.” This is her justification for breaking the rules.

She then focused on my reporting the outright plagiarism: “You found two instances of the content taken from other resources just to add up with my response but what about the rest? This is unfair for me.”

Apparently, using two quotations with no citations doesn’t really count because she didn’t plagiarize any additional quotations. The student disregarded the prohibition against sources, thereby gaining an unfair advantage, did not cite them in -text, did not include the sources in the Works Cited page, and used someone’s exact words twice with no acknowledgment. But in the new moral reckoning, she is the aggrieved party. It is she who has been treated unfairly.

In an amazing reprise of Mr. Tory’s suggestion, the student asked me to “consider the rest of my response, not just giving a grade of zero (something like a deduction or minus to my grade).”

It is difficult to separate what students write on their own from what was written as a result of the outside source collaboration. How can an evaluator possibly know where the one leaves off and the other begins?

And if I could, how much time must I expend on a non-productive activity? I had already spent half an hour researching the plagiarism, and another half an hour presenting it. How much more time must be spent? Uncovering cheating is depressing and sullies the experience of teaching. I have no wish to reward those who cheat. The other students who failed honestly with 20% or 40% should confess to cheating, even if they have to lie: not to do so is to fail outright; confess to cheating and you get a rewrite.

I don’t know if the following is apocryphal, but a few years ago the story went ’round that a professor discovered that 50% of his students had cheated on an major essay, or exam, I forget exactly what it was. The class in question? Ethics.

And so it goes. (that’s another rip off by the way. Am I allowed two?)

The dictator is dead; Long live the dictator

Today the news features headlines such as “The last hours of a tyrant,” covering the capture and death of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Pictures show a normal human body, not especially powerful, rather soft, bloody and as one poem I read long ago described the victim of an accident, “ridiculous in death.” This dictator, like others before him, looks more like the weakling than the bully. Who would not stand up to him in a street fight, or a work place argument? And yet….and yet. He was indeed the bully, commanding millions, a being whose word was feared, a bringer of death not just in his own land, but across the boundaries of the world’s nations, who had the honour, hollow though it has become, of being treated like royalty and addressing the leaders of the world, many no better than he, in the General Assemblies of the United Nations. His presence helped to shape the ugliness of our world and contributed to the lurching path with which we plot our present course in history. Like so many others of his ilk, his name and fame will live beyond his puny self for years to come: not so for my mechanic, my doctor, my teachers, my parents, all of whom advanced the cause of humanity quietly by living the life of the decent, hurting few and helping loved ones and friends. They lived their modest lives and became quiet clay. Why not them, instead of the monsters, to stride, colossus like across the pages of history? Instead it is they, blighting civilizations until in Ozymandias fashion, their legacies collapse and, are ultimately buried in the graceful sands of a healing desert. But even before the sands can do their work, lo and behold, a successor arises, and we forget that underneath the phony medals and the cloak of invincibility, there is just another weakling, and once more, we allow him to become the bully.

Beginnings

All beginnings are hard. It’s late, I’m tired and I don’t know what I’m doing, but, for whatever the reason – and I think I know what it is -I’m going to push through, so this is something, anything,  to see what happens when I click the publish button.