Untouchables

Hey hey… U guessed it. It’s U-day, and the fine upstanding, unsinkable, upbeat, uncensored (and unbalanced of late due to foot injury - oh and on that note, ulcerated and under-utilized) Urban Bard (a.k.a. the Flaming Liberal) has unleashed this upon us:

Restorative Justice

I know. I know. Only one U in there and it’s not even at the beginning. Also not much of a challenge since restorative justice is so ubiquitous in my life. But here’s a brief story which I think says something important:

Soul Man and I addressed a small class at Redeemer University. Let’s face it, it was his presentation and I was little more than his driver. On the trip there it occurred to me that I might be asked why it is I do what I do; volunteer my time with such pariahs of the community; such monsters. I gave it some brief thought and found no immediate answer and was distracted by something else.

After the presentation I was asked that very question, and by a particular girl who had been coming across as being perhaps less than comfortable with our perspectives. It was phrased “Why would you want to work with these people?”

The irony occurred to me immediately. This was Redeemer; as in Christ the Redeemer. Was redemption really a foreign concept here?

This may seem strange, but working in this community, in order to keep the greater community safe for children (for that IS the prime factor here) has not felt like the morbid chore that many people seem to assume. It in fact feels like a privilege!

In an environment that is draped in shadows of victimhood and flawed justice and brokenness and where great barriers loom against healing and trust and happiness and normal relationships and normal pursuits and mental well-being, where one of the nations largest institution flounders in vain attempts at insight and justice… where we celebrate each small victory with profound lovingness and where even in the rarer moments of failure and in the very rare moments of tragedy, all hands report on deck and immediately care for one another; and where the lines between offenders and volunteers have been made irrelevant…

… in a place where every day, humanity has all the cards stacked against it, it is a privilege to find in this place that somehow or another, every day, humanity wins.

100 Must-See Films! -- Awakening

Can the forgotten ill breathe new life? Can captives of technology recognize the real world when it confronts them? How does childhood cope upon opening its eyes to the dark side of human society?

“A boy raised a question, a man answered, and the whole world paid attention.”

1. Amazing Grace and Chuck (1987, USA)

Joshua Zuehlke, William Peterson, Alex English, Jamie Lee Curtis, Gregory Peck

NBA all-star Alex English makes his acting debut as fictional Celtic Amazing Grace Smith with a low-key performance in a gentle, understated yet ultimately powerful movie. Described by some as a sort of fairy tale, it suggests something that is wonderful to ponder which stems from the question: Can a regular person change the world just because they care? And the simple fact is: nothing happens in this film that isn’t actually possible.

I first saw this movie when I was barely out of my teens and I still find the concept fascinating to contemplate. And the central idea of the film is now more relevant than ever. Never has so much in this world needed to change and so fast.

I like what these guys had to say about it:

President: “The constitution gives you the freedom of speech but that doesn't mean you can walk into a crowded movie theater and yell fire."

Chuck: “But sir, what if there really is a fire?”

Writer: David Field (Passion of Mind)

Director: Mike Newell (Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire)

Budget: unknown

IMDB rating: 5.9

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC8go9VlhKo

“There is no such thing as a simple miracle.”

2. Awakenings (1990, USA)

Robin Williams, Robert De Niro, Julie Kavner

This is simply a magnificent emotional ride made all the more intense by the knowledge that it’s based on actual events. In my opinion, De Niro’s best ever performance, and Williams is delightful as always; convincing as the socially awkward Oliver Sacks (fictionalized as researcher Malcolm Sayer M.D.) They were nominated for best actor Oscar and Golden Globe respectively and the project also received academy award nominations for best picture and best adapted screenplay (Zaillian). Roger Ebert gave it four stars out of four. Keep the kleenex tissues handy.

Beth: “Miriam! I have to take your blood pressure!” 

Miriam: “I was sitting still for twenty five years. You missed your chance.” 

Writers: Dr. Oliver Sacks, Steven Zaillian (Schindler's List)

Director: Penny Marshall (A League of Their Own)

Budget: $31,000,000

IMDB rating: 7.8

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAz-prw_W2A

3. Disconnect (2012, USA)

Jason Bateman, Jonah Bobo, Alexander Skarsgård, Paula Patton, Andrea Riseborough, Max Thieriot, Hope Davis, Frank Grillo

This movie is an emotional firestorm of ever-increasing tension in which a great number of interconnected characters are strongly developed and very real; a feat that is rare with such a wide cast.

Does the title refer to a space? A disconnect between circumstances?  Or is it an imperative? We must disconnect or else! It is surely a cautionary tale and while the lessons in this film are derived from seemingly uncommon circumstances, they are a caution to us all. We are all in jeopardy, both internally and socially, when we attempt to engage through phones and laptops devoid of expression, sound, touch and accountability;  when we sift our identities through the filters of the wired world. For we are human. We are not ones and zeros. I believe this film should be required viewing for every first-world citizen. I cannot understate its importance!

The picture’s climax is nothing short of stunning; unforgettable.

The film scored four stars out of four from Richard Roeper  (Chicago Sun-Times) who wrote:

 "Even when the dramatic stakes are raised to the point of pounding music accompanying super-slow motion, potentially tragic violence, "Disconnect" struck a chord with me in a way few films have in recent years. I believed the lives of these people. I believed they'd do the drastic things they do in the face of crisis. I ached for them when things went terribly wrong and rooted for them when there were glimmers of hope. You should see this movie. Please...There wasn't a moment during this movie when I thought about anything other than this movie."

Writer: Andrew Stern

Director:  Henry Alex Rubin

Budget: $10,000,000

IMDB rating: 7.6

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nYbj2jNzlc

4. The Hounds of Notre Dame (1980, Canada)

Thomas Peacocke, Frances Hyland, Barry Morse, David Ferry

Father Athol “Pere” Murray was a Catholic priest, well educated in Ontario and Quebec, who was “loaned” to a Regina Diocese where he immediately formed a boys athletic club. In 1927 fifteen of those boys followed Murray to his appointment at the then-seven-year-old Notre Dame of the Prairies Convent and co-ed residential elementary/high school in rural Saskatchewan.  Those boys immediately became the original Hounds, the school’s junior ice-hockey team.

Pere was an atypical priest, fond of tobacco, hard drink, and anti-socialist political activism, but doubly fond of his students and staff, just as they were of him. He once said, "I love God, Canada and hockey -- not always in that order." Until his death at age 83 he remained at the school where he is widely credited for building “…one of the finest colleges and hockey programs out of nothing.”

The film portrays life at the little school over two days in the harsh winter of 1940. The characters are charming. The good guys and bad guys are all, deep down, good. The scenery and tones are somehow both austere and idyllic, the story laced with humour, economic struggle and small town solidarity. The immediate conflict involves a new student; a city boy with a hostile attitude, but the greater threat looms in the background: world war two has already taken the lives of some of the school’s alumni and cast its long shadow over their present boys.

The film captures Murray’s penchant for charity and strong paternal leadership as those around him embrace his life-long motto: “struggle and emerge” (translated to “triumph over adversity” in the film).

In the film, Murray fondly refers to his charges as “little muckers” and one has to wonder whether this too, is the result of translation!

The war eventually took the lives of 67 Notre Dame graduates, while more than a hundred have gone on to play in the NHL, including some of pro-hockey’s hardest working stars. Murray has been awarded the Order of Canada and was posthumously inducted into the NHL Hall of Fame as a hockey builder.

He was here portrayed by actor Thomas Peacocke whose inspired performance earned him the 1981 Genie award for best actor. The film garnered eight other nominations including best picture and best original screenplay. This was a delightful movie about a beloved historic Canadian, and thanks to eternal Hollywood extortionism, probably one of the finest movies you’ll never get to see.

Writer: Ken Mitchell

Director: Zale Dalen

Budget: $1,200,000

IMDB rating: 7.6
Trailer: Harder to find than the city of Atlantis

Short List:

V For Vandetta (2005, USA) Hugo Weaving, Natalie Portman

academic ˌ/akəˈdemik/

One of my former writing students, Arrawyn, once said to me, in regards to her grade eight exams: “They’re not testing my skills or knowledge, you know. They’re only testing my memory.”

“Worse,” said I. “They’re only testing your short-term memory. You’ll soon forget most or all of it. But at least you’re exercising your brain, which is useful.”

ablaze /əˈblāz/

From Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. The father lies on the ground, apparently dying:

You have to carry the fire.

I don’t know how to.

Yes you do.

Is it real? The fire?

Yes it is.

Where is it? I don’t know where it is.

Yes you do. It's inside you. It was always there. I can see it.

I don’t have the novel with me presently. I pulled this quote off the internet. And no one has neglected to copy quotations or dialogue attribution because there are none. The writing is so utterly precise that the usual aids are not required.

If I correctly recall, this is the father’s response when the boy hints that he wishes to go with his father into death. And perhaps that would have been a mercy, for both of them and for the reader too, to grant that wish, but the father is a true hero. Despite his magnificent love for his son he is delivering him (he hopes), just like the flame from the expired Olympiad to the new, to a new humanity; the improbable rebirth. The new garden of Eden perhaps.

The old humanity exists in the sparsest numbers, their last puny cannibalistic soulless inhuman hurrah in a world gray and crumbling, barren of resources. But the boy is a rare innocent; a singular beacon of empathy; a last spark of humanity if you will, and recently they spotted something in the water; some tiny living thing: the only hint that the planet has not quite entirely died; that such a garden might still be possible. If not for that sighting I think they would have chosen to die together.

Yeah, I’ve blogged about this book a few times already but it is so hugely important. It’s hard to find a novel so relevant as this. On a linear level, this scene tore me to pieces. He is sending the boy on alone, with no food, no destination and little hope. But it moves me tremendously on another level. The book addresses the question of species mortality linearly and also as a microcosm and then metaphorically too!

It is so clear to me that this scene is exactly where we are headed; that this critical juncture is coming and relatively soon. It doesn’t matter to me what form it takes. We are hopelessly, inexorably aiding and abetting all the forms. It doesn’t matter because it is in our DNA: a hopeless genetic formula; a formula with no contingency for a future.

We are, most of us, 99.9% instinct robots. It is so magnificently easy to not see that; to assume we are something better, and some few are better, and for some of us, there is hope to be better as we’ve grasped the functionality if only we would employ it. But human societies have only ever existed as slave systems and we are no exception. The corporate-political-religious-military-greed system has us in a stranglehold and all our innocents are delivered into that prison on the conveyor belt that is formal education. I don’t say these words with the carelessness or bravado that writers typically do in this society. I have studied this intently for a long time. I could write a set of encyclopaedias about it. Actually I have begun that very process and the project has swiftly grown into a monster and makes a fool of me. If only I could learn how to talk about it effectively in plain English.

For now I am working much harder than usual to get my shit together: to save this softening mind and softening body (last chance?) in order to join the fight more effectively. I know a thing or two about the miracle of empathy; that DNA antidote, which few do, and there is nothing left for me to do but join that fight. Nothing else interests me.

Perhaps we will somehow not arrive at that moment; that last-chance last spark of humanity, with the odds stacked against us. Perhaps all our little fights in their various forms, will somehow prevail and democracies will come real and humans will rediscover the difference between intelligence and sound-bites and choose intelligence. Perhaps we don’t have to come to the edge of the cliff. Yes, humanity only arrived here on planet Minerva thanks to miracles. Perhaps we have one left, as vain as that hope looks from here. Like Stephen Hawking said:

Where there is life there is hope.

McCarthy’s father character seemed to think so. “We’ve always been lucky,” he told his son, trying to convince the boy to go on without him. “You’ll be lucky again.”

Yeah, you're not gonna like this...

I kind of hope I don't pull the trigger on whatever the hell I'm about to write because it is sure to be impatient and rantie. Rantish. Whatever.

We have this adorable little shenanigandrum going on in good old Ontario where the All Powerful Army of Stupid is sending out spastic little uninformed parents of children to protest the province's plans to actually teach something useful in school: a little clarity around that super big deal we call sex.

First off, anyone with the first shred of enlightenment has come to realize that SeX is in fact the most boring, ubiquitous, everywhere-you-look, non-big-deal since breathing air, with every mammal on the planet robotically absorbed in it one way or subconscious other, most of their waking moments. Not to say that you don't need to be informed and smart about it. Just like you need to be informed and smart about breathing air. You don't mess around with water safety and you don't go wearing shopping bags over your head if you want your life to go well. Similar concerns around sex. And you also don't need to invent a shit storm of superstitions about breathing air: invented by religion and smooshed all over innocent deranged humans already mired in hang-ups and delusion.

And if you don't realize this then I am sorry, but you are lacking the shred. I have no patience to be gentle this morning.

Oh but no, no, no, FWG! You got this one wrong! Sex is WAY WAY a big deal because it can be beautiful and magical and wonderful if you do it right and all nasty-nasty-spoiled if you do it wrong and then it will fuck up your mind!

Nice try.

Wrong.

I went down that road for years and I've learned enough to see how fucked up I was on that road. Lots and lots and lots of things including sex can be beautiful and magical when you do it beautifully and magically with your beautiful magical chosen one or whatever stand-in suffices for the 99% of you following a relationship model that does not actually work for you. The epic jeopardy you all imagine is all in your heads. Your heads are not fucked up because of sex. Your heads came that way because you are human and by the way, there is a process for unfucking them if anyone is interested.

Let me get to the point.

The Parents Of The World have had the burden of sex education for some ungodly horrific eon now and have done the shittiest job of it in the history of shit. If anyone deserves to be fired from anything it is you. Good riddance.

And gawd bless Kathleen Wynne and the good teachers of Ontario (those many I've met are tres awesome by the way) for taking on this job.

I am sick to all fuck of year after year hearing about young gays and transsexuals killing themselves because they don't feel any love and don't understand that they belong in this universe every iota as much as YOU. Every time they are destroyed, a world is destroyed and so is my heart.

For once the Army of Stupid is not going to get their way. At least not in this particular dip-shit province at this particular time.

Thank heavens.

It's a dangerous world out there

Had to renew my First Aid certificate today, with a full-day session at St. John's Ambulance. I scored 100% on the test despite missing a couple lessons while sitting in the bathroom. My tummy wasn't in the best of moods and I'm sure the colourful amputation videos did nothing to calm it.

The questions were all multiple choice; four options each, of which at least two would be altogether stupid. In every scenario I answered the question as if I intended to be helpful. Had every answer set included "e) Run screaming from the room"  I probably would have scored a tidy zero.

Homework

In my "past life" I was like pretty much everyone. When a conversation arose and I believed myself to hold relevant information or experience concerning the subject, I would be eager to get my two cents in. It was a very normal ego thing.

These days it's interesting that I usually feel no compulsion to do that around most people. I normally expect that my perspectives are now so different from the norm that there is little point in trying to sell them to confirmed matrix-dwellers. I'm in the regular habit of remaining meek and quiet and letting people trust their feelings and their acquired misinformation and remain comfortably unchallenged. It's one of the very joyful and freeing manifestations of an ego that has been diminished by a strengthened consciousness.

Today though, at the Princess of Schools I decided to speak out to a teacher about my view of homework despite the likelihood that it would not be well received.

I told her that never would any theoretical child of mine be permitted to do homework. I explained that I couldn't imagine viewing a school system as my child's primary educator rather than myself, and that, as a secondary educator, it is ludicrous that a school system be privileged to dictate what my child will do on MY time!

And no, I'm not naively thinking that as a parent I would have all the free time in the world to spend every evening with my kids poring over a set of encyclopedias. Whether I was with my kid at any given time or not, I would approve of a tremendous number of useful activities that would be valuable to their intellectual, physical and/or emotional growth while being properly compatible with my own child's particular interests and talents and prefer him doing such activities rather than memorizing so-called-facts and formulas to be regurgitated at exams and then promptly forgotten.

Memories of my own school experiences are of limited relevance, yes, given the time lapse and the inherent dysfunction of human memory, however those memories are dismal enough in terms of what I now regard as an unenlightened misguided curriculum that I can not possibly today generate enough confidence in the Ontario Board of Education to surrender a young human being to their clutches for any more than the 6-hour-per-day sentence imposed by law. What's that? About 15,000 hours through to grade 12? That's somewhere in the neighborhood of a multiple murder conviction, isn't it?

I was surprised at the teacher's reaction. Her own kids, considered "good" kids and disciplined kids by any normal standards, habitually arrive home from school and promptly complete their homework without being asked. Despite that pleasant fact, she is not a fan of homework herself. In her view, as a teacher, homework is a way to give better grades to the students whose parents do their homework for them and punish those whose parents don't. Apparently the cheaters get away with it but without fooling anyone.

As a child and teenager myself, I almost never did my homework and almost never studied for exams. Thus in high school I scored terrible marks for projects and exams but still scored decent grades by acing quizzes and tests. I had all kinds of difficult issues growing up and I got through it all by playing sports, reading novels and engaging myself in a great host of imaginative pursuits. Had I given up a lot of those experiences by doing homework instead I have no doubt I'd have grown up a sadder, less intelligent, less enlightened human being and certainly more selfish and less caring; no doubt whatsoever. I also might have grown up less lazy. Oh well. Can't win 'em all.

Granted, all people are unique. My experience may not have been common.

I wonder what "normal" parents do? Do you question this whole idea of homework or do you just assume it is legitimate because you had to do it when you were a kid? I wonder what percentage of parents have gone to visit a school principal and said, "Sorry, dude. But six hours a day is all you get with my kid. I suggest you make the most of it."

I look at kids who are making their way to school carrying giant textbooks and binders in addition to their lunch, musical instrument, gym clothes and what-not and I imagine they're going to live to be 90 given the medical advancements of their generation but spend their last 60 years with broken backs.

Here's an idea for schools: Why don't you teach kids how to carry things without risking bodily harm?

Want another? How about you teach kids how to not let credit cards ruin their lives?

How about you teach them the realities of the global marketplace and how diabolically greedy our society is for mortgaging the earth out from under the feet of the majority of earth's peoples as well as our own doomed descendants?

How about you teach them the difference between truth (experience) and testimony (traditional schooling?)

How about you teach them the most significant of realities; the stunning miraculous rarities of this planet, life itself and the human imagination?

How about you teach them about the most absolutely vital two criteria for finding any truth in life whatsoever: The omnipresence and omnipotence of cause-and-effect and the absolute necessity of the universal perspective (context) in all legitimate thought?

How about you teach them how to think for themselves instead of what to think?

I got a hundred more ideas if you're interested.

And if you are in fact teaching them these things, than I apologize and applaud you. But if not, you're not qualified to be dishing out homework in any household of mine.*

This said, I hope that none of the teachers and principals I know personally will take offence should they read this. They're all thoughtful and caring people who do the best they can given a hell of a challenging task! I don't know how they even find time to sleep.

*The above writer does not actually possess any households. It's the thought that counts!