Reports – of boogeymen

Morocco in March: cloudless blue sky and and a strange coolness in temperature. At night the wearing of a fleece or sweater is necessary. The ground as seen from the air is just now greening up. Fields appear to have been farmed since agriculture was invented 10,000 years ago. Snow still clings to the sides of the Atlas Mountains. Signs of human progress are everywhere: new airports, new roads, overpasses, highways, apartment buildings, and a complete absence of troops with machine guns guarding banks and street corners. Rather, the atmosphere is relaxed, francophone, and friendly.

Alcohol is broadly available. The people seem relaxed and polite. The King, Mohammed V, sits secure on the throne. Europeans come here as Canadians do to Palm Springs, to capture some sun and escape winter.

Turning my eyes back home, I confess a complete inability to summon anger at the Liberal governments: they have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing. They are reversing every sound move the Conservatives did:

  • requiring English or French language skills in immigrants;
  • enforcing transparency in union expenditures;
  • enforcing transparency in Indian band governments;
  • softening their stances towards pipelines so as to act as neutrals rather than planners;

and Blair Atholl knows how much more they are doing that is bad and has escaped my recollection. But I cannot bring myself to care, much.

Since I last posted I have been to New Zealand and Morocco. Both places seem to be doing well. The only advice I can give about New Zealand is to get there as soon as you can and stay as long as you can afford. Its summer is well timed to coincide with northern hemisphere winter, which is especially thoughtful of them. The landscape is beautiful, on both islands. Also, I must warn you that the southern hemisphere sun is less shielded by the ozone layer; you will toast more rapidly than you would have thought possible without hat and sunblock. I came back from a five hour excursion peeling and roasted red.

At my conferences I have been enjoying myself being cruel to Europeans and US Democrats about the prospects of Trump as President. What is it that makes Europeans so wimpy? As for Democrats inquiring into Canadian real estate, just tell them they can afford it with a 72 cent Canadian dollar.

They key in my opinion to understanding the US is that, on a scale of one to ten, their noise and hype level is set to 12, sometimes rising to 15. Setting it back to 4 or 5 is good for one’s piece of mind.

gahan wilson

I remain persuaded that Trump will win this thing, despite professional money favouring Clinton. I expect that, for every Republican going Democratic, 3 to 5  previously politically uninvolved Americans, and 3 Democrats, will come over to Trump.

But I can assure you that Trump acts as a boogeyman to the liberal imagination, like a Gahan Wilson monster hiding in the corner of the room. No amount of parental assurance about the lack of monsters under the bed is preventing the bien-pensants from wailing into their security blankets.

Bwa-ha-ha!!