For several years now, a popular topic has been pondering “what brings you joy?”
And I don’t mean socks neatly rolled and arranged in drawers in color-coded series .
The answer for me is simple — being outdoors in nature.
Increasingly arthritic knees and hips be damned (I have good days and not so good ones in that department), within a minute of being out the front door and on my way down a Byrne Creek trail in SE Burnaby, BC, my spirits soar.
Rain or shine.
Let me see a salmon spawning, an eagle soaring, an owl silently staring, and my aches melt away.
It’s that endorphin surge of excercise and the primal heightening of the senses.
We are blessed here in Burnaby, with many salmon-bearing streams and a variety of parks with varied ecosystems.
It increasingly appears that Putin has lost the war he started. Nothing has gone as he thought it would.
Far from welcoming Russian forces with open arms, Ukrainian men and women have fought back with dedication, tenacity, and furiousness beyond anything he anticipated.
It is clear that Russian forces are not into the fight, abandoning tanks and equipment, and crying on camera when captured.
It is only those who do not see what’s happening on the ground who are still firing cruise missiles, rockets, and long-range artillery.
Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have picked up arms to defend their homeland. More thousands of diaspora Ukrainians are trying to get back to the “old country” to fight.
With bombing and missile attacks on Ukrainian schools and hospitals, even maternity wards, Putin has committed war crimes.
Putin is apparently now taking his frustrations out upon the FSB, the decendants of the KGB where Putin put his psychopathic talents to use in his younger years.
Unfortunately, thousands more will die and be injured in this madman’s quest — for what?
Putin is waking up people all over the world who have Ukrainian roots, those who support them, and those who cherish freedom and democracy.
I was a “Super-Uke” in my youth and early adulthood.
For many years I was in a Ukrainian youth chorus, was an altar boy and Sunday school teacher in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada, was Saskatchewan provincial president of the Ukrainian Students’ Union of Canada, was a teacher at Ukrainian youth camps, and a teacher at Ukrainian language summer schools.
And eventually I burned out and abandoned most of my Ukrainian connections.
I went to Japan to teach English for over a decade, and then do journalism for Tokyo-based English-language news services for a few more years. That was about as far away as one could get from Ukrainian-Canadian issues .
It wasn’t until after I returned to Canada in my 40s that I started gradually returning to the Ukrainian world, assisting an aunt and my late mom in translating and editing some 20 volumes of Ukrainian literature into English.
My Ukrainian is very rusty now, after several decades of little involvement with the Ukrainian-Canadian community.
But, Putin, you’ve inspired me to be more active, to perhaps polish my weakened language skills.
Putin’s treachery, lies, and war crimes against civilians are goading people around the world to stand, and to fight.
P.S. I don’t hate Russians, I love your resistance. I just hate Putin and the oligarachs.
You all deserve better, and I admire your protests.
The world stood by, the world didn’t believe Putin was willing to start WWIII to reimpose a Russian Empire.
So now what is the West going to do? Declarations and condemnations mean shit.
The tyrants are slavering, Lukashenko is also letting loose his dogs of war upon Ukraine from Belarus, like a small schoolyard bully who throws a punch after the bigger thugs start beating the innocent.
And keep an eye on China, this Russian “distraction” may be the perfect time to swallow Taiwan.
Meanwhile Ukraine and its citizens will fight as long and as strongly as they can.
Remember that Ukrainian partisans simultaneously fought both Nazi and Communist forces during WWII.
Yes, there were Ukrainians who supported Nazis, and there were Ukrainians who supported Communists. But to reiterate, there were Ukrainians who fought both to try to maintain their language, culture and religions.
Ukraine survived hundreds of years of being carved up by various empires, survived the loss of millions in WWI, more millions in the Soviet Russian-imposed Holodomor artificial famine in the 1930s, more millions in WWII. . .
Historians have called Ukraine “The Bloodlands.” I’m not a praying man, but I hope this latest incursion won’t result in the deaths of hundreds or thousands. . .
I’m finding the overall namby-pamby Western response to Putin’s manipulation toward WWIII dismaying.
Have we not learned anything? He’s a bully, and thrives on bullying. Perhaps we need some kindergarten teachers to step in where our political leaders will not.
This is bully behaviour, and needs to be nipped in the bud.
You name the metaphor, inch/mile, whatever.
He’s clearly stated he misses the days of the USSR when millions were killed, or enslaved, or sent to moulder in prison gulags in Sibera — by their own government.
The past he seeks to restore was horrific.
The past he seeks to restore benefited the Russian 0.5% — take your era, be it Tsars and the aristocracy, be it the Soviet leaders and their dachas, be it today’s toadies and corrupt “elite.”
The horrors of the Russian-Soviet induced Holodomor/Genocide that purposely killed millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s will reberverate to the end of time.
But tonight, it occurs to me in these troubled times that I’ve never been to the villages in Ukraine where my paternal and maternal grandparents were born.
The closest I got was as a pre-teen in 1972.
But when we got near the village, our 24/7 KGB minder got freaked, and wouldn’t let us go the final few miles. Our entire tour group, who all had family ties in the area, was deported across the border into Romania.
Even in those dark days, I fondly recall the Romanian border “guards” greeting us with bread, and cold cuts, and cheese, and wine, after observing our 12-hour interogation/ordeal at the border.
The damn KGB still owe me several rolls of Fujichrome that they confiscated from 12-year-old me, eh?
But as we were driving through the border town the day before we got kicked out by the KGB, my lingering memory is of an aunt spotting a relative on a street near the family origins (gait and facial features umistakable — an image of grandad), and demanding to stop and being allowed to see if he was really who we thought he was.
He was, and said he’d been told by the KGB to go home because we were not coming.
How cruel.
And to the KGB minder’s dismay he stayed with us for our final night and shared stories of the KGB’s inhumanity, and the Soviet Russian attempts to destroy the Ukrainian language and culture.
He said he didn’t care about what they would do to him, he’d seen so much horror in his life.
He had only a few teeth left, despite vaunted Soviet medical care, and no glasses. . . again despite vaunted Soviet medical care . . . Sigh.
So all of us in our group who had glasses let him try them out and we left a pair.
Through the night he shared stories of horrors upon horrors infilcted upon Ukrainians by Soviet killers, and we all cried.
It appears the fringe truckers and those others inspired to act out are wannabe genocidal racists.
No wonder trucker organizations are trying to distance themselves from this behavior.
Not to mention “freedom convoyers” are now apparently trying to steal from the homeless . . .
Seen on Twitter:
Shepherds of Good Hope
Hi everyone, thanks for bringing this to our attention. Earlier today, our staff and volunteers experienced harassment from convoy protestors seeking meals from our soup kitchen. The individuals were given meals to diffuse the conflict. Management was then informed of the (1/2)
Shepherds of Good Hope
@sghottawa
·
issue and no further meals were given to protesters. Our soup kitchen is committed to providing meals to people experiencing and at risk of homelessness in Ottawa. This weekend’s events have caused significant strain to our operations at an already difficult time. (2/2)
Hope lots of my photographer/nature lover peeps will pitch in.
Become a citizen scientist today!
This summer, we’re challenging British Columbians to collect one million observations of wildlife and natural species in B.C. Click here to learn more.
When you visit BC’s provincial parks and protected areas, collect photographic observation of plants, animals, other organisms and natural features, and upload them to the iNaturalist website or app. These observations help researchers develop a deeper understanding of what parks are protecting and can inform management decisions to sustain these protected areas for generations to come.
The BC Parks Foundation, BC Parks, University of Victoria and Simon Fraser University are collaborating on this project to ensure all British Columbians and park visitors can have a hand in the research and understanding of BC’s parks.
A big shout out to staff, nurses, and doctors at Delta Hospital in Delta, BC.
I had an inguinal hernia repair yesterday, and was very thankful to have what had gradually become a near-grapefruit-sized protrusion taken care of.
Everyone was welcoming, friendly, professional, and reassuring.
The care was excellent, and I am very grateful to have had the procedure. I know many surgeries have been postponed due to Covid, and assume they got me in because the day procedure took about half an hour, plus a couple of hours of monitoring/anesthesia recovery time, so I wouldn’t be taking up a bed.
Thank you for the work that you do! Particularly in what has been a very tough couple of years for healthcare professionals.
Fraser Health was excellent in keeping me apprised of earlier openings as cancellations popped up, and with prep/post instructions.
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