I'm sick of being called...........

..........a "Karen" on facebook.  And it's always the same gang, Black women*.  I am a lot of things, but I am not a "Karen".  Why do some Black women seem to think that all middle-class white women must be "Karen's"?

(*Note:  Before you call me racist, remember there is only one race, the Human race; everything else is culture, upbringing and personal decisions.  Let's just get that out of the way.)

Talk about jumping to conclusions and lumping us all into one group!  Does this label come from envy?  Frankly, I'd call it prejudice and the odious Meghan Markle is a master at being both a Black woman, trashing the White Monarchy, and a wanna-be "Karen" at the same time. 

I do know at least one "Karen".  She and her husband used to invite us up to their beautiful island, Half Crown, on 'Lac des Trente et un Milles" in Quebec every summer for a beautiful week.  This "Karen", I'll call her "J", was so perfect every female guest had to hide her light -- however dim -- under a bushel.  (They only invited us because B had been president of the GF&GC and her husband, then the president, wanted to pick his brain.  Hence, she had to tolerate me.)

When helping out in the kitchen, I was careful not to refer to myself as a sous-chef, or G-d forbid an actual chef!  No, I called myself a scullery maid and  was permitted to do the dishes -- and only the dishes.  Every offer I extended to make something, like fritters for example (which anyone can make from anything), was rebuffed in case they were too good.  We were permitted to make Indian because that was cultural and charming and therefore not threatening.

Me in the kitchen at Half Crown.

That was the only holiday during which I lost weight.  J was always on some fad or other.  One year it was nothing white (Note: don't bother with black rice), another it was no carbs.  You name it, J globed onto it.

Once I had to travel back to Ottawa mid-week and her husband allowed me to pilot one of his boats solo off the island -- something he apparently never let J do.  As I was zooming off, a fellow guest, watching from the window, said in admiration, "Is there nothing that woman can't do?!"

She also fancied herself a brilliant painter and one afternoon sat in the living room painting.  Intrigued, I came over to admire her work.  What did I see?  Gobsmacked, I saw she was doing paint-by-numbers!!!!

For some reason, she stopped inviting us.  Was it the boat ride?  The fritters?  My sense of style?  Who knows, but I will give that place one huge credit:  It was where I first started back swimming seriously.  

Sitting there one afternoon, sipping a cocktail, I saw two other women guests swimming around the island.  Naturally, my competitiveness took over and, having been a serious swimmer in my youth, decided I had to get in that water and do the same.  It was about one km around and I began to do it every day.  When I returned to the city, I joined the local pool and have been pounding the lanes ever since.  I did the math and have since swum about 8,500 kms.  (Imagine how fat I'd be if I hadn't!)

So, thank you, J.  You did me a favour -- even though you didn't mean to.

      

    

  

Well, well, well

All this talk about names and re-naming countries and lakes pales when you realize where the name "America" came from.  Charles Spearin, a Toronto-based etymological historian, has researched the name and low and behold, America is named after someone called Amerigo Vespucci.

And was this guy?  He was a Forentine merchant who kept the books for the Medici family and made a handful of voyages to the New World who deduced, correctly and ahead of Columbus, that they hadn't reached Asia after all.  Thus, Vespucci called this new continent the New World.  

The modern spelling of America came from a German cartographer, Martin Waldseemuller, who was putting together a new map and needed something to call this fourth continent.  Europe, Asia, Africa were all female names, so Waldseemuller latinized and feminized Amerigo's first name and came up with "America".

Who knew!!??

So, America wasn't named after an Indigenous or family name, like Canada which was derived from the Iroquoian word for "village", or "Ontario", a Wendat name for that great lake which pre-dates the united States, Canada and the very idea of either.  No, it was named after an Italian.

Vespucci's mother, Lisa Mini, had a son in 1454 and named him Amerigo, which was a fairly ordinary Florentine name at the time.  Little could she know that half a millennium later, a nation of 340 million would build its entire identity around her son's first name:  America.

Who knew!!??

Well, no one, but with a little research, we do now.  So, who has the last laugh?  Certainly not Trump, who undoubtedly does not know America is Italian.  You have to laugh at the absurdity of the whole mess from the ground up.  

So, next time you hear "American the Beautiful", picture that glowing little Italian bambino, Amerigo Vespucci, and smile.

Little Amerigo Vespucci, awaiting his destiny.

     

Brain health?

I laugh when I see ads for navel gazing seminars on things like 'Women's Mental and Brain Health'.  I think of my Mother, who would never in a million years have  entertained any such notion.  Her recipe for "brain health" was getting breakfast, lunch and dinner on the table every day.

A money-maker if ever there was one.

She didn't use words like "narcissistic", but that's what she would have thought of such gatherings.  The most practical, commonsense woman I have ever known -- except for her two sisters, who were exactly the same -- Lillian did things, she made stuff happen.  She didn't ponder.

She shopped, she cooked, she played in a neighbourhood mixed bridge club, she hosted cocktail parties and ladies' dessert bridge parties, she sewed, she mended, she canned fruit and made preserves, she celebrated every feast day with an elaborate family lunch, she faithfully went to church every Sunday, she took me to the funeral parlour from the age of four to teach me to not be afraid of dead bodies and to pay my respects when an acquaintance died, she played tennis, she did laundry, she ironed everything -- and taught me to iron, starting with my Father's hankies, she was part of a community daycare cooperative, she made sure my Brownie and Girl Guide uniforms were clean and sharp, she enrolled me in ballet lessons and a thousand other things I can't even remember. 

As I said, she did things.  I once asked her what was wrong with Mrs. So-and-so down the street, who it was said, had had a nervous breakdown, and she replied -- without looking up from peeling carrots, "She just took a notion, dear."

And that was that.  No discussion, no analysis.  Nothing.  Kind of the perfect answer.  I asked my scientist father the same question and he said, "It's caused by a lack of sleep."  That was it from him too and when I think about it, both explanations make sense.

To the psychiatrists making millions off nervous breakdowns, I am sure you are not amused, but breakfast, lunch and dinner had to happen, regardless of how you "felt".  Feelings were also a verboten topic in our house.  I never once heard either of my parents express their feelings.  I mean, everyone had them and no one needed to talk, or care, about yours.  

Cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead once said that civilization happens when a society had a reliable source of food.  If you have time for brain health seminars, you are overly-civilized.

$$$$$$$$

I was raised within the bosom of a very accomplished family.  My Father, Thomas Raymond Griffith, was head of the rubber lab at the National Research Council.  He had 350 patents to his name, which made the Canadian government billions.  He just earned a modest salary and didn't care.

Instrumental in the invention of synthetic rubber during WWII, when natural rubber could not be sourced in Burma, my Dad was often loaned out for months at a time to BF Goodrich, Firestone and Goodyear to help them develop and refine their tires for the commercial market.

Whenever you think of tires, think of T.R. Griffith.  He invented them.

He was also the inventor of rubber shoes for propellor planes, which could be switched on to rid the props of ice.  "The most difficult thing," he told me, "Was making rubber electrically-conductive and inventing the glue that stuck it to the propellors."

Every, single prop plane in the world uses my Dad's de-icing rubber shoes.

One of my uncles, Rollie, was a decorated major in the Canadian army and the other, Elgin, rose to be deputy minister of National Defence.  (If you're American, the equivalent of Pete Hegseth's 2IC, but without the ego, boozing and philandering.)

What I remember most about Uncle Elgin was his modesty.  He had but one secretary, Miss Mitchell, a small office, a desk and a runner out from it that sat four people.  No chief of staff for him, no driver, no board rooms, no private washroom, no policy advisors and no entourage.  Elgin used to drive us to Lisgar every morning and then head off to his office around the corner in the old "temporary" buildings.  They stood for decades, where the gargantuan and ostentatious City Hall is located now.

Uncle Elgin came to mind when I was reading about the opulent and lavish gathering of Carney's cabinet in Banff (not Sarnia, or Hamilton or Wawa, of course) was the stark contrast between how our public service was run in the fifties and sixties and how it is now.

Conservatively, each cabinet minister would probably be accompanied by at least four assistants and hangers-on, so with 28 members and 10 junior ministers, that's 152 people taking over the grand Banff Centre at $275 a night.  

Frankly, I bet they're not staying at that lowly dump.  They're most likely at the Banff Springs Hotel at an average cost of $800 per night.  That's $121,600 right there -- not to mention flights, meals, booze and all the rest of the palaver.  BTW, Carney's room would be at least $2,000 per night and so would Zelensky's. 

(Note: I'm lousy at math, so if I'm out by a few decimals, please correct me.) 

In addition to the millions Carney spent wandering around the world signing toothless MOUs, I bet'cha we're talking at least $300,000 for this latest gabfest (not including flights, etc.) which will lead to zero outcome.  In the end, the munificence of this gathering will likely piss Trump off and remember, he's the only one who'll decide the fate of tariffs -- not Carney or the likes of Mélanie Joly, Anita Anand and FP Champagne.  Please.

So, here's Carney, signing an (illegal) 100-year pact with one of the most corrupt leaders in the world, judging by the fact that most of Zelensky's inner circle is either in jail, or facing trial for corruption and money laundering.  He's also courting China, another poised disaster.

AND ALL WITHOUT CABINET APPROVAL!!%$%^#!!  ALLWITHOUT THE PEOPLE OF CANADA GIVING PERMISSION!!#%@%$^@$^

Folks, that's where we are.  This weasel slithered and snuck into the top job in Canada and is now in the process of personally and willfully destroying it.

It is to weep.

No, no, no!

So, Zelensky is coming to Calgary for a "signing ceremony".  The only thing Carney will be signing is a blank cheque to this (allegedly, reportedly) coke head billionaire.

At first it was Toronto, but apparently the head of the Ukrainian mafia (just my opinion) landed in Calgary and was whisked off to Banff, where Carney is meeting with the premiers to discuss which major projects should be "fast-tracked".  Not Sarnia, not Biggar, not Hamilton, not Carp.  No, of course it's Banff.  Folks, it's been 15 months and nothing has even been slow-tracked, let alone fast!  

Carney has treasonously (my opinion) signed a 100-year agreement to basically fund every aspect of Ukraine forever.  I mean, it's insane!!!!!  A 100-year pact.  WFT times a thousand!!@@$%%!$@@#

Canada has already handed $26 BILLION to this crook.  $26 BILLION!!!!!!!  Let that sink in.  Meanwhile, Ukraine has vast gold reserves and a booming tourist industry, while Canadians are lining up in record numbers at food banks, grocery prices are soaring and vets are sleeping in the streets.

Carney and Freeland's foreign policy in Ukraine.

What in Gawd's name is Carney doing??!!!  Is he waiting until our pension, CPP, OAS and GIC cheques start bouncing??!!!

This has to stop!  Why are supposedly "intelligent" Canadians worrying about how many genders there are and what's on the cover of an elementary school scribbler??!!

Carney is been told to form New World Order, with him as the puppet head.  It will be controlled by Soros et al, of course, and in so doing Carney has signed up to ruin Canada.  Who cares about the collapse of the auto industry, the steel industry, the aluminum industry?  Who cares about the thousands of jobs that will be lost?  And he's doing it all without recalling Parliament!  Someone needs to do something!

I grieve for my grandchildren.

Georganne Burke

A conservative political commentator and citizen of both the U.S. and Canada, who divides her time between both countries, Burke is a brilliant and objective observer of the politics of the current trade war from both side of the 49th.  (You can find her on YouTube.)

She points out things you will never hear on legacy media, but should.  Her observations about how voters have to first warm emotionally to a candidate explain why Pierre Poilievre cannot win power, even though his policies are far and away better for Canada than the duplicitous, meaningless word salads Carney is putting in the window.

Carney is actively trying to replace Canada with his 'New World Order' lunacy, while domestically stealing Poilievre's policies to win and stay in power here.  He also shamelessly promotes 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' by lying (just my opinion because he has refused to make the deal public) about why Canada pulled out of negotiations when we had essentially reached a deal.

Give her a look and if you don't agree, you have TDS.  

The other aspect of Burke that impresses me is that she has six kids, 14 grandkids and six great-grands.  This is clearly a woman who didn't rely on the state to look after her kids, made her own arrangements and kept on working.  Not to brag, but that's exactly what I did.  O.K., I'm bragging.  Her kids, by the way, are all very successful in their respective fields.

So, so much for the benefits of staying home and joining a 'Mums' Club'.  When I had kids, there was absolutely no question I would continue working, even though my employer made it very difficult to do so.

Mums' Club-ers paralyzing their minds.  

Never quit work and joined a 'Mums' Club' because you know what a 'Mums' Club' is?  It's an excuse to drink wine and gossip.  It's no Montessori, I can assure you.  And when the kids go off to school, what do the Mums do?  Why, they form a book club!  Guess what the main activity in that gang is?  You guessed it, a generous grog of the grape.

Staying at home causes what I call "personality paralysis".  Daycare provides far superior care for infants and toddlers than any walk in the park or screen time will ever do.  Burke never did any such thing and remains as sharp as a tack in her seventies.

She, not Gloria Steinem, is my idol.

 

42,000

That's the number of jobs our "genius economist" prime minister has managed to wave bye-bye to in just one month, August, as the U.S. saw robust hiring.  The latter saw a gain of more than 162,000.

Our unemployment rate remains at 6.4 percent, with employment declining in 11 of 16 sectors.  Yep, Carney's nailin' it!  A whopping 10,000 Canadians a month are decamping to the U.S.  And, while I'm at it, why do we need a governor of the Bank of Canada?  Bay Street bond traders, who seem to do a better job, are predicting a 60 percent chance of a rate hike in the coming weeks.

Is this where we're heading under Carney's "leadership"?

Maclem's main job is to ensure currency stability and avoid stagflation by monitoring inflation.  Judging by prices at the grocery store -- Carney's sacred pledge to lower them when he ran -- the whole thing seems a tad off-the-mark.

And remember Dominic Barton? He's been resurrected as chair of 'Invest in Canada', something the PM himself doesn't do.  "Dominic Barton has the experience and ambition Canada needs," Carney said.  Really?  Barton's advice has always been to get cozy with China and invest there.  

Apparently, Barton will, "work closely with provincial and municipal officials, as well as with the Major Projects office and Indigenous officials" to get the ball rolling.  Whenever you see the term, "Work with the Indigenous", you know that's the kiss of death because working with the Indigenous produces nothing.

To boot, 'Invest in Canada' has been moved under the bailiwick of Dominic Leblanc, another wildly successful negotiator.

Does any of this make any sense?  I guess, yes, if you are trying to destroy Canada because we are well on our way straight into the economic toilet.