It’s been reported recently that the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, quietly and behind the scenes told some of his NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) counterparts that Canada would “never” reach the alliance commitment of member nations to spend 2% of their GDP on defence.  If true, it’s not the kind of thing I was expecting to hear, nor is it the kind of thing that will go down well with the folks living on the other side of the fence in the United States.

It’s important to note that NATO member countries are not required to spend a specific amount of money on defence each year. There is, however, a guideline for member countries to aim to spend at least 2% of their respective Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defence by 2024, something agreed upon during the NATO Summit in Wales in 2014.  It’s not a legally binding obligation, but rather a target for member countries to work towards.

My family, over the years, has been involved with newspapers and media, with several family members over the generations taking up their tasks as part of the fifth estate, myself included.  We’ve owned newspapers, travel magazines, and print shops.  We’ve sold advertising, written opinion pieces, and reported on events that were local, regional, national, and international.

We took money from nobody other than subscribers or advertisers, and we were all well-apprised of the golden rules of journalism, even though we were never sat-down and taught them.  We didn’t have to be, because they were self-evident.

Cockleburs, also known as burdock, are one of the most hateful plants I’ve ever come across.  They’re known for their distinctive burrs, which are robust spiky clusters of bracts covered in tiny hooks that cling to fur, clothing, and other surfaces.

These things started popping up along the edges of the property where I live, and the burrs kept getting into the fur of my dog.  And once that happens, they’re miserable sons-a-bitches to get out, and it’s almost always a job the requires a pair of scissors.

So I set out to destroy them.

Elon Musk is a disruptor.

I guess you have to have some smarts to turn yourself into the second-richest person on the planet.  Except for a series of self-inflicted wounds, he could be, and once was, the richest.  And for a guy like Musk, I’ll bet that second-richest tag stings.

He’s an angry little man, that Elon, weird as all giddy-up too, but you’d think being a billionaire would soften the blows.  But no, that doesn’t seem to be the way it works with most of these guys.  It seems like their money serves as a multiplier for any grievance they may be carrying in their hearts.

Today in Louisville, Kentucky.  Late last week it was Nashville, Tennessee.  A few days before that, somewhere else.  It happens with such regularity that you forget the names of the places.

Today a guy walked into a bank and started shooting.  There were fatalities and there were wounded.  A shoot-out between responding law enforcement and the shooter.  The death of the shooter.  

It’s almost a predictability that it will happen again and soon.  Instead of a bank, maybe instead it will happen at a church, or a mall, perhaps a Walmart or a movie theatre, quite possibly a school.  Some deeply troubled human being will walk into some place geared up for war and will shoot it up, systematically murdering other human beings before ending up dead themselves, often by their own hand.

Trust in the mainstream media is currently at an all-time low and this has dangerous implications for the health of our democracy.  

So where did all that trust go?

People have become politically polarized, increasingly dividing themselves into “tribes” based on political beliefs.  As part of this, they tend to consume media that reinforces what they happen to believe and tune out media that runs contrary to those beliefs. Not only does contrary media get tuned out, but it also gets vilified and judged as negatively biased and not worthy of trust.

Outside of fear and hatred, there can be nothing more corrosive to the human spirit than anger.  And there seems to be plenty of it to go around.

Why are so many people so angry for so much of the time?

There’s no simple answer to this as anger can be influenced by various factors, including personal circumstances, environmental stressors, and individual differences in emotional regulation. There are, however, certain things that can be pointed to as a cause.

I see my neighbour Bert at work with all the maple trees along the street as maple syrup season has officially arrived.  I don’t know how many cans Bert has, but the number must be great as I see them hanging from just about every tree as I drive by.

Maple syrup, as any proper Canadian could tell you, is made from the sap of sugar maple trees. Harnessing and harvesting can be a real process, and that’s why it’s better that guys like Bert are doing it and not me.

I think it went up to 11 degrees today.  That’s eleven, mind you.

No howling winds or driving snow or any of that kind of mayhem.  Just a steady as-she-goes eleven, all day long.

It’s a big transition day, because you’re caught between seasons with respect to wardrobe and footwear.  I know, we all get through it in the end, but it’s worth mentioning.  Still, it’s too early to celebrate.  Tomorrow has an expected high of 2 degrees, followed by Saturday at 5.  That’s not spaghetti strap weather for most folks.

Anyways, a lot of stuff is going on right now, like the rain last night and yesterday, the melt, the fallen trees, people with no electricity.  

It was an ice storm.  Not on the same scale as that really big one back in like, 1997, but an ice storm nevertheless.  I watched large trees break apart and come down, and I bet a lot of others saw similar stuff happening.  A very dangerous series of conditions, especially for anyone in close proximity to these events.

But calm has been restored.  Although cool tomorrow and Saturday, temperatures are predicted to rise consistently into the double-digits.  

April can be a brutal month, and not a lot of fun.  Some people say what you get at Easter is what you get for the whole month.

And Easter’s supposed to look not bad.

What makes a husband and wife, father and mother, wrap up their two year-old daughter and one year-old son and attempt to cross the St. Lawrence River in the dead of winter in order to get to the United States?

Desperation I’d suggest.

Eight people were recently found dead along the shoreline of the Akwasasne reserve that straddles the Ontario-Quebec-New York border, some of them children.  These people represented two families, one from India and the other from Romania.  It was only a year or so ago that another young Indian family froze to death as they got disoriented in a winter storm while trying to cross into the U.S. at the Manitoba border.  Leading your family into danger and then not leading them back out is absolutely heart-breaking.