Wow - even more time lapses without a valid update. Shameful. All apologies to all readers. BUT...I do have a really good excuse this time around. Instead of the generic, vague, and often eye-rolling "I've been busy" defense, I actually really have been busy in the last little while. REALLY busy, actually.
I got a new job. I'm still at the trusty Weather Network, but in a newer capacity - as full-time reporter for southern Ontario. Some of you may recall in the summer when I filed reports for Weather Network News for a couple weeks. Well, I'll be doing that all the time now. It's a really cool gig and I'm excited beyond words. We've already done some stories that have aired, and it's been a blast so far getting them together.
Some of you may wonder how this is different from my prior situation. For the past year and a half, I've worked as a news writer for the Weather Network - researching and writing news stories for the network's news segments. It was only part-time, and I supplemented that with various freelancing gigs (some of which can be read on this site). Well now, I'll still be researching and writing stories for the Weather Network news segments, but this time I'll be setting up interviews, voicing the scripts, and even appearing on-camera. Very killer to say the least.
So if you're interested, tune in at :12 and :42 past the hour and you might catch one of my reports. They're challenging and fun at the same time - a truly worthwhile experience at this stage in my career. For that, I'd like to thank everyone at the Weather Network for this awesome opportunity, and I'd like to extend that thanks to you - my friends and family - for all the support over the years.
Keep rockin'.
The Legendary Neil Young turns 59 today. Thanks for everything, especially the song Pocahontas:
Aurora borealis
The icy sky at night
Paddles cut the water
In a long and hurried flight
From the white man to the fields of green
And the homeland we've never seen.
They killed us in our tepee
And they cut our women down
They might have left some babies
Cryin' on the ground
But the firesticks and the wagons come
And the night falls on the setting sun.
They massacred the buffalo
Kitty corner from the bank
The taxis run across my feet
And my eyes have turned to blanks
In my little box at the top of the stairs
With my Indian rug and a pipe to share.
I wish a was a trapper
I would give thousand pelts
To sleep with Pocahontas
And find out how she felt
In the mornin' on the fields of green
In the homeland we've never seen.
And maybe Marlon Brando
Will be there by the fire
We'll sit and talk of Hollywood
And the good things there for hire
And the Astrodome and the first tepee
Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me
Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me
Pocahontas.
A loss experience involves the following five stages of emotional response:
1. denial
2. bargaining
3. anger
4. despair
5. acceptance
This has been one of the saddest and most disappointing days of mine in many years. And I'm not even American.
John Kerry conceded the U.S. Presidency to George W. Bush. While half of the American voting population is rejoicing today, much of the rest of the world is deeply disheartened. I'll spare the leftist "rhetoric". I don't feel I need to list off the reasons why this is bad for everyone outside of the industrial, political, and social elite in America. And I've run the full circle of emotions listed above. I really feel like the world is dying, and any chance it had at resuscitation has been smashed into oblivion.
Everything looks so hopeless now, but I've accepted these new circumstances. In the past, revolutionary thought has flourished in the face of tyranny. If anything, four more years will advance what the American (and international) left has worked so hard to accomplish these past few years.
I don't think it's that hard to comprehend why Bush and his crew won with so much support. What people look for in leadership is strength and protection. The majority are willing to compromise rights and freedoms to stay safe. Although their targets were misguided, this Administration did exactly that in the eyes of the average American. Up here in Canada, it's so easy to say "he's an idiot" and "he's evil" and so on. We saw the debates. We've seen everything that's happened over the past four years - curtailed rights, severed international ties, neglect of the environment - through an unfiltered lens. People who only have access to the major television networks haven't - and I can attest to that, having lived in Ohio (of all states) at the beginning of the Iraq invasion. Bush made people feel comfortable and safe at home exactly when they needed to, and for that, you have to give him credit.
We didn't see the campaign commercials. Or the billboards. Or feel the fear of being a dissenting liberal voice in a midwestern state. Daschle says he might have lost because Sioux voters in South Dakota were intimidated by GOP goons. I believe that. Fear reigns supreme.
So what next? Take a deep breath. Be thankful for what you have. Appreciate that we all still have each other - even here on this vast realm of opinion we call the Internet. We are still united, so we should stick together. It's only four more years. Think of how fast the last four went by. We will be stronger the next time around, and even more organized. Our new efforts have only really risen to prominence in the past year and a half - there's so much capable growth and progression.
I know it's easy for me to say from up here. But I still have faith in the general decency of humankind. And I refuse to acknowledge that as naive optimism - in my lifetime, I have seen my people overcome in the face of the most difficult adversity, and I know it can happen again. After one of the shittiest days I've lived through in recent years, I think I've finally reached the fifth emotional stage of loss.