I woke up in a super good mood, obviously not because of the weather. It was dark at sunrise as it is pouring rain with gale force winds. Oh well, into each life some rain must fall (except if you live in the UAE hahaha). “This 1842 poem has the famous line “Into each life some rain must fall,” meaning everyone will experience difficulty and heartache at some point in time.” The poem was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. “Longfellow uses the themes of lost and renewed hope, youth and grief to show how much our past and future experiences affect our lives and how though we face multiple struggles in life we can overcome them.” The poem speaks of the day as “cold, and dark, and dreary”. Then these words are used to describe his life as if one is informing the other. The weather is nonstop. There is no light or warmth to improve the mood of the day, the “wind is never weary”. Rainfall means that bad or unfortunate things will happen to everyone at some time. The final stanza of this amazingly touching poem, is a great ending with instructions on how we can live for today, and live like there is an afterlife. Longfellow writes, “Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.”
What is most ironic is that my days in the UAE were filled with difficulty and heartache, but not much actual rain. But now, safe and secure in Canada the land of my birth, I can live for today. Moreover I live like there is an afterlife as I am of the Islamic faith.
Instagram can be, and mine is, full of messages about the Islamic faith. Several women coming to the faith not by birth but by a later awakening call themselves reverts. That sounds too much like perverts to me. Thank you my dears, I shall continue to call myself a convert to the Islamic faith. I am sure that Allah will not mind and He is the only One that counts.
I have to go out in the weather today unfortunately. However, the fortunate aspect is that I am going for a mani and a pedi. Planning, on the way, to stop at a Registry and register for the Alberta health plan. I actually was able to obtain my SIN number from my wonderfully efficient RBC banker.
You: What is a SIN number?
Me: It is the Canadian equivalent of a social security number. I had one as I was born and worked in Canada many years ago but forgot it. Somehow she had it, and when she repeated the numbers knew it was me – it is most easy to remember.
Why not be happy? I have my SIN and a great handy man. A handy man is better than a husband as he is handy and can do many things to help a damsel in distress. Yesterday Stan did everything to make my apartment more livable. Unpacked my fascinating ‘instead of sofa’ which is actually outdoor furniture. It shall be pictured at the conclusion of this blog. But he also hung things on the wall, moved my mattress to the bedroom, replaced a light bulb in the laundry room, put together a globe which shall also be pictured and even put heel grips in my black shoes which are most attractive but slip up and down in the back. We got rid of the cardboard and packing materials with the help of a wonderful employee of this amazing apartment building where I am kept totally safe. Life at this moment is up and doing with a heart for any fate. Another message from Longfellow: “Behind the clouds is the sun still shining.”
But back to the miserable life in the USA, the other country I escaped from. Often the only way to get an accurate picture of what is going on in the USA is going to a foreign press. Despite the USA’s ‘freedom of press’ much is hidden, actually most bad news is hidden and suppressed. A recent source is Al Jazeera, the renowned Qatar ‘publication’. I found the Opinion section particularly revealing, definitely worth a read.
Found an article , written by Belen Fernandez, discussing the lifting of the mask mandates, in the USA in particular. She wryly said about the USA: “To be sure, much of American “reality” consists of pretending that we are not rapidly self-destructing in a corporate-capitalist war on humanity and the planet. But, hey, that’s no reason not to feel and act normal.”
The author continues: “Many Americans view masks as a violation of their personal “freedom” – the same “freedom” that has enabled the US to become the most maniacally armed nation in the world and that has resulted in, inter alia, regular mass shootings of schoolchildren. The US version of freedom is a plague unto itself, casting as it does individually and collectively catastrophic phenomena in a positive light that ultimately benefits – who else? – the rich.” ’American exceptionalism was certainly on display on May 1, 2020, when a 43-year-old security guard at a Family Dollar store in Michigan was shot and killed after informing a customer that her child was required to wear a face mask to enter the establishment. Anyway, the revocation of mask mandates has perhaps at least somewhat assuaged concerns among the US populace that a “communist dictatorship” is being imposed on the nation.”
Then it is off to Cuba for a comparison of the two countries. “Never mind that communist Cuba was able to lift its own mask mandate on May 31, 2022, after vaccinating nearly 95 percent of its people – according to Reuters – with homegrown Cuban vaccines, and registering only two COVID deaths the whole month. I spent February 2022 in Havana, and witnessed the rigorous and unquestioning respect for public health efforts in a society where preventive medicine and a focus on collective wellbeing, rather than elite despotism, have produced impressive health achievements – despite Cuba’s existence under punitive US embargo for more than six decades.”
I do love this cynicism, commenting on the decision to remove mask mandates hoping it would boast airline trade. ”After all, industrial health is of paramount concern. If only there were a vaccine against capitalism.” Powerful ending: “Now, as mask-lessness becomes contagious and normalised in a world that is far from “normal” – in which 15 million people have already been killed by an entirely preventable pandemic – dying still sucks.”
The Al Jazeera Opinion section also addresses the Trump Congressional hearings with an admirable venom, comparing Nixon and Trump. A sentence uttered in the hearing is repeated: “That astonishing sentence also requires repeating: The former president of the United States of America was and remains an existential threat to the teetering republic known as the United States of America.”
The author nails the Department of Justice. “The Department of Justice can no longer take the position of an intrigued bystander.” It can no longer rely on a district attorney in Georgia to empanel a special grand jury potentially to charge Trump after he ordered – in a taped phone call – Georgia’s Republican secretary of state to “find” him the precise number of votes to win a state he lost. It can no longer assure reporters and scholars anonymously that methodical Attorney General Merrick Garland fears no one and is determined to hold another rogue president to account. The committee has already established a compelling indictment that Trump was at the hub of an illegal, premeditated enterprise to steal an election. The Department of Justice must no longer dither and delay. It must honour the duty and sacrifice of Capitol police officer Caroline Edwards who told the committee that she was an American who “stood her ground” on January 6 to defend the US Constitution. Attorney General Garland needs to stand his ground and defend the US Constitution, too.”
Strong words, accurate reporting, telling it like it is. Yeah Al Jazeera! Do admit being turned off of Al Jazeera due to its multiple ads making it almost impossible to read, but nothing in this world is perfect. One does not have to subscribe to read its stories. I do subscribe to The Economist and The New Yorker, although, now, at this moment, not planning to renew the later,
In conclusion an amusing poem by Margaret Fishback also found on the Internet.
Sometimes I wish that I were dead
As dead can be, but then again
At times when I’ve been nicely fed
On caviar or guinea hen
And I am wearing something new
And reassuring, I decide
It might be better to eschew
My tendency to cyanide..
Gentle readers, please eschew your tendency to cyanide as caviar and guinea hen may await you, if not now, then in the afterlife.
Photo of my ‘new globe’, purchased from the Abu Dhabi Louvre, put together by Stan the Handyman. Also the new sofa. Photo of this on Instagram with this caption. “My animals in their new home. The living room of my apartment. They love it here. Finally we are home they say!! There is even room for me on this delightful piece of furniture. Different, I do admit but I always was.”
