Uncategorized – The Hungover Pundit

Golden Globe

After a couple of weeks of crises, a serious illness in the family (thankfully not my illness, but sadly still my family), a plunge into the deep-freeze and general all-round aggravation, I’m taking a bit of a break from the heavy politics and write about something I’m actually quite passionate about: Sailing in general and specifically the 2022 Golden Globe Race.

Those who know me know I’m in love with sailboats. I cut my teeth on a friend’s little Hunter 23.5 trailer-sailor more than twenty years ago and I’ve had the bug ever since. I used to crew on race nights out of the now sadly-defunct Port Hope Yacht Club on a variety of boats and it was a lot of fun… not to mention a great way to get out on the water if your sailboat budget is (as mine was at the time) only in the double digits. Last summer, as the first step in getting our own boat, my spouse and I registered for a keelboat program and passed the Sail Canada Basic Cruising Standard exam. The buy-our-own-boat plan has taken a bit of a financial hit recently, but it’s definitely still the long-term goal.

Priorities

I did a survey the other day. I still hadn’t received my voter information card for this election, so I went to the Elections Canada website and double-checked that I was registered. (The card ended up coming in the mail that afternoon, so no worries.) After I went through that process, I was prompted to do a survey, so I figured “why not?”

One of the survey questions has stuck with me: What are your priorities for this election?

I’ve found myself thinking about that one a lot in the last few days. There’s a lot of stuff that I’m concerned about… but priorities? How do you choose?

I’m reminded of a job I used to have in IT where one of my co-workers had the habit of flagging every new ticket with “priority.” Eventually I had to explain that if everything is marked as a priority, then effectively nothing is a priority. You have to put some thought into it, and ticking a little box on an internet survey doesn’t really address the nuances.

Another Damn Election

It’s 2021 and Canada is having an election. Again. For the third time in six years. In the middle of a global pandemic.

So yeah, I guess I’m writing about that this week.

Never mind that the world is literally on fire. Never mind that fascist terrorists are shooting up American cities and their Canadian wannabes are saying “get us some of that.” The total count of unmarked graves at former Residential schools is approaching 6,000. Never mind that schools are opening in two weeks and the delta variant is going to kill and cripple a lot of kids and as far as I can tell there’s not a single level of government in this country with a better plan than “Meh.”

Yeah, another election only twenty-three months after the last one is exactly the best way for our elected officials to be spending this September.

On Pain

Pain sucks.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past year, it’s that being in constant pain absolutely sucks.

It’s not an original thought, I know, but there it is.

What should have been a minor soft-tissue inflammation issue turned into a year-long medical saga which has been vastly complicated by the COVID pandemic.

Lockdown

Today marks the one-hundredth day since my family went into voluntary self-isolation in response to the global coronavirus pandemic. During January and February I’d been following the outbreaks in China and especially Italy very closely (I’m something of a news junkie) and we had been mildly concerned… but when Italy began a lockdown of its northern provinces in early March, we realized that it would be a good possibility that we’d face a similar problem.

The threat of a viral pandemic, especially one that appeared to be spread by contagious people who were non-symptomatic for the first stage of the infection, is one that my immediate family had to take seriously: One member of our household has a compromised immune system. In early March we consciously began to start stocking up on essentials.