Misperceptions And Reality

I'd expect reality to appear real at the very least ....  not just a little bit real or largely real or sometimes real and sometimes not. This came to mind for no discernible reason other than that I had recently encountered another unenlightening fiction from a Minister of the Crown while surfing www.news.google.ca.

Wondering if in politics there is any measure for real? .... or in life outside of politics for that matter?

Curious question .... since so many of our accepted realities appear to be derived from misperceptions of some sort of something which is not of itself necessarily real and likely inherently unmeasurable in any event.

Today's reality has me finishing off a blog to myself which began with a wandering thought that I hoped to capture. Well ... I sort of caught it, with not much gained! Last evening's wandering thought impinges upon my day.....

The roaring outer edge of a so-called 'storm bomb' (high winds, blasts of thunder, lightning, and falling trees) cut off our electricity for 21 hours Wednesday-into-Thursday (my auxiliary power generator ran for five minutes and then quit) .... all of which was quantifiably the reality of the moment.  A wakeup call for the winter and a demonstration of the real virtue of equipment maintenance.

Cartoon Junkie

Political cartoons can be downright nasty and mean-spirited, but the wit and satire that mark the best of them are like my really great curling shot in the Tuesday Senior's curling draw that ensures I will be back on Thursday.

Cam Cardow in the Ottawa Citizen has those moments more frequently than I do, but I do not begrudge him that, for it is his living and my real gain. Were I to admit to a private passion, it would be for the ubiquitous works of Cardow and his colleagues and their forerunners / Jim Borgman / Roy Peterson / Daryl Cagle ..... numerous others. They have been there throughout my life and really underpin the particularly skewed, bemused and bruised view of politics that I hold to today.

John Diefenbaker collected numerous originals of cartoons portraying him in the most unflattering ways ... which, perversely he enjoyed displaying prominently among the large, eclectic collection of artifacts in the basement of his Ottawa home*. I encountered them down there on a rough-framed wall just across from a large bronze bust of Laurier supported for the moment on a severely sagging 1x8 board directly above a beautiful big ivory model of the Taj Mahal. But that's a tale for another day. For me, the moment lay in touching a Roy Peterson drawing .... and seeing the white-out that spoke to our common humanity.

*Dief's cartoons are now in the collection of The John G. Diefenbaker Centre at the University of saskatchewan.

The Expert Chimpanzee

Chimpanzees with darts as experts is an interesting proposition, since being chimpanzees with darts they could predict on any subject with the same probability of accuracy as expert opinion might provide, but without the weight of opinion cum knowledge that handicaps expert prognostication.

An Afternoon With Larry

 I continue to struggle in amazement not merely with the concept and the depth and breadth of the internet, but with my inability to remember which email address and password I must use to sign in to view or post a blog.

About Larry. Today the turntable on our microwave stopped its turning and, having realized the accumulated costs to date of a Sears maintenance contract and having not renewed it, I turned to the internet ... and discovered Larry. Google search turned up Answer.appliance where I filled some blanks and authorized PayPal and was introduced to Larry. We engaged in a flurry of email questions and answers leading to a Larry prognosis that I must replace the turntable motor with part #W10143959, and a simple description of how I might go about it. I ordered the part on line from Sears within minutes and early next week the new motor will be delivered to the Sears' pick up here.

A few minutes ago Beverley put some parsnips in the microwave and pushed start, which it did, rotating quite nicely. The next time .... it gets the new motor if I can remember where I put it after it arrives, unless maybe Sears doesn't have the part in stock. I'll be informed by email within 24 hours.

A Good Thing To Have

I'm thinking that a blog might be a good thing to have ,,,, a convenient place to mould randomly wandering thoughts into some semblance of cognitive reasoning. A blog, after all,  can be held on standby all day if need be, grabbing thoughts as they pass by ....

Oddly Old ?

Life is funny. Here am I, odd and old enough to be likely to have some perspective on life, committing a full morning to creating a blog space essentially for the purpose of writing to myself. The why and when and what are presently left in the hands of the gods, but this is the where; the place where my good intentions of the past two years may or may not bear fruit. We/I shall see.