Children's Stories

Just a few, mildly interesting stories about the kids. My oldest is a teacher and curmudgeon. He has made so much out of so much adversity. He inspires. My princess is off today for an interview at a major music company. Her passion is music (I hope she brings Shania Twain home, I promised her big bucks if she would) Georgie is back in Budapest and will not be seen for a year (that hasn't sunk in yet. God please watch over Georgie, I know it will be a full time job and you made need help but please try).
The first time we put the baby monitor in Jenn's room I was downstairs and I heard this noise.... the more I listened the more it sounded like a lion roaring. The more I said it can't be a lion, the more it sounded like a lion. Obviously I couldn't leave her alone with a lion so I bounded up the stairs and flung open the door. There was sleeping beauty and no lion...just a jet flying overhead and the window open a tad. (Kelley will like this one) The top part of our house was wood. From time to time we would have this tapping sound reverberate through the house. I kinda suspected a woodpecker but could never catch him in the act, and well we were in Toronto/Mississauga not really woodpecker heaven. One day after a visit to the Science Centre I decided to put up silhouettes of diving hawks on the window to see if the noise stopped. I figured the peckerhead would see the hawk and not come back. Then I was thinking, Hmm what about owls, I wonder what an owl silhouette would do. Don't do owls, ever. I put it up in the window and instantly it was a scene from "Birds". I hit the floor and reached up and pulled down the owl as thousands of birds made a beeline for the window. I stuck with the hawk and never had a peckerhead again. I now have an owl on my address signpost at the street and his eyes glow in the dark. Why an owl? cuz a moose wouldn't fit silly. Brother, that's the oldest, has had a life of crime. The first major incident, after a litany of minor skirmishes with officer Mom and Dad was "THE SLAP". I commuted back home to the village and was told that Brother had slapped a girl on the bus and what was I going to do about it. Now my wife is an absolute wizard when it comes to dealing with the little devils , so why I didn't clue in.... a guy thing I guess. "Now son you should never engage in violence it is the resource of a fool." "By hitting her back you are playing her game and it will just get worse you should ignore her blah blah" The wizard now chimes in that the girls mother had called and was expecting me to call back. Oh god. I got that instant sinking feeling. I could hear it now,"your son hit my poor daughter, boys should never hit girls" I was sure she was going to ask for the death penalty. As my mind was going over how I would approach the conversation, explain that I was against ALL violence, Brother had been duly warned etc. etc., we took this seriously and so on. I asked who the girl was, my bowels emptied and my knees gave way as the wizard gave me the name of the blind girl down the street. My first thought was to disown Brother as that would be the only rational answer as to why a boy would fight a blind girl, "Sorry misses he is not ours he is an alien". I don't know what I said but her father later became my campaign manager when I ran for municipal office. Brother no longer lives a life of crime after he realized that he was too honest to be a criminal, ok maybe not too honest but he realized that he was always the one that got caught and the couple minutes of exhiliration wasn't worth the 4 hour lecture from dad. He did get one free pass. The day of the tornado when I finally arrived back in the village I saw him walking down the street. I was so happy to see that he was okay after all the death and destruction I had just been through that I yelled out for him to come over to the car. All I wanted was to hug the family and tell them how much I loved them. As he approached the car and my heart melted and my mind was filled with nothing but love and relief, he broke into tears and confessed that yes he had crossed the railway tracks and Dad he would never do it again. I think he heard my admonishment as I hugged him tightly and kissed the bejeesus out of him. Then there was the morning we awoke to find the Princess covered, literally, from the soles of her feet to the top of her forehead in lipstick. Every lipstick and nub that the wizard owned now adorned her beaming little being. The tears of laughter gave way to tears of despair when we saw the white shag rug. Nuff said? Or the time Georgie walked into the family room as we watched TV and hurled the most hideous hurl in the world (apparently this is not a Guiness category). I yelled at the wizard to corral him while I went in search of the poison he had taken. I knew in a flash that he had poisoned himself. That was his style. He especially like those little aluminum silicate packs that come in electronics to keep the humidity down. The smell from that hurl permeated throughout the house, instantly, whatever it was it was potent and deep down as I ran to the bathroom then the kitchen I could visualize his poor skinny body convulsing in the wizrds arms, oh please let there be an antidote, god when i find out what it is let our friends at the poison control centre be swift in telling me what to do. There in the front room corner was the culprit, the totally empty bottle flung against the wall. It turns out that drinking a bottle, (large) of vinegar and then hurling will only give you bad indigestion and the worlds most obnoxious hurl. There are more stories of course but I am going to ask them all if they would rather pay me NOT to print them. As they say at The Canadian Broadcorpsing Castration, stay stewed for the nudes.

The New Taleban

I think someone may have been asleep at the switch. It seems that Hamas is the new Taleban. The original Taleban started in disorganised corrupt Afghanistan. The religious fundamentalists were the only ones that people could trust. They guarded the trade routes, provided education (slanted, but at least an education) and generally provided services to the poor who were constantly exploited by the corrupt regional warlords. They charged the caravaners for their services and provided protection. These fundamentalists didn't loot or kill those they promised protection and thus became the party of choice to deal with. Their idealism drew many younger people who were sick of all the corruption and the Taleban used these (mainly) men to run their protection and social service programs. Gradually they became THE power in Afghanistan and provided respite and protection for fellow Islamic Jihadists. Hamas, it appears, learned these lessons well. They also have been providing schooling, charity services, medical care etc for the Palestinians. This has been in contrast to the ruling Fatah party which has been totally despotic, lethargic and corrupt. Hamas learned how to be successful from the Afghani model and then duplicated the results in Palestine. The U.S. pushed for elections without noticing that the common people were sick and tired of a corrupt regime and were becoming more and more reliant on the Jihadists for basic services to survive. Hamas filled their bellies and their minds.
So the U.S. as the main protector of Israel has to figure out how to deal with this new Taleban. Mainstream Arab nations better learn the lesson now before it is too late and they too become Taleban states. The U.S. has just re-committed to Afghanistan, is still embroiled in Iraq, is tangling with Iran, doesn't trust Syria, has Russia and China clamouring to be the main powers in the Middle East and is lurching from patchwork solution to patchwork solution. Bush is probably praying his last couple of years just zoom by. Condi is more sure then ever that she isn't going to run and Hilary just may inherit the presidency as in 2 more years the foreign and domestic affairs of the States are going to be chaos and the Republicans will blame it all on the easy going Democrats who are "soft" on enemies. Now is the time for Europe to get off the pot and do something. Or the U.N. If neither of these 2 groups can be resolute and focused then they will have lost all credibility and have created a destabilised environment for China to step in and be THE superpower. This WILL be interesting!

CRUNCH TIME

Well the polls are closing and it soon will be time to see what our new government will be. I'm scared but not as scared as I thought.
I'm betting that we will have a minority conservative government.
I'm hoping that Stephen Harper won't be as bad as advertised.
I'm hoping that proportional voting will be in for the next election.
I'm hoping our economy will still be good.
I'm hoping Conservatives won't roll back the laws on equality.
I'm hoping that we stay out of Iraq and Iran.
I'm hoping we don't polarize as bad as the U.S.
Well I'm sure it will be as interesting as Canadian politics (yawn) can be!
You can tell when we are really ticked off, we say "shall" instead of "will". I do cherish our strength to be different, to be peacemakers and consensus builders. To be among the leaders of rights for all, to be fiscally conservative, to provide health and education to everyone.
The Liberals blew it as much as the Conservatives did the right things to win it, so it should be a landslide. The fact that Harper is so scary will probably mean it is a minority or slim majority (just slightly pregnant?)
OK, time to go and see. Deep breath stay positive, don't let your dreams get crushed, be a man.