Essays in Idleness

My initiation of National Ranting Week — for the last week of January — has not proved very popular so far. Less so than Mr Biden’s Executive Orders, if Fox News polls are to be believed. But great things often have small beginnings, so I will stick to blathering — forever, or until tomorrow; whichever comes first.

My proposal applies only to Canada, anyway. Natted States Mericans have no reason to rant at the moment. A modest description of reality would be adequate. A country in which at least 74 million people are designated “rightwing terrorists,” by the incoming administration; in which free association becomes the crime of “incitement to violence” — unless you actually are a violent, revolutionary terrorist — is hardly in need of rants. Simple reporting will do.

As a Czech correspondent reports: it is a country where one may consult the Bible and the New York Times every day, to see what both sides are saying. Whereas, up here, we do not even read the New York Times.

Up here in the Arctic, or down here in the banana belt of the Arctic as an Eskimo might say, we have reached a point of catatonia where, as a lawyer might add, some ranting “would be indicated.” Our Liberals have done what those Democrats do farther south, except, our Liberals generally did it not only first, but unconsciously. The opposition up here does not need cancelling. There is no evidence that it actually exists.

Perhaps we should call the country, “Catatonia” — from sea to sea to sea to sea, and then some. The Liberals once endowed it with an appropriate flag: one dried-out, red maple leaf, between two prison bars. I think it expresses the neuropsychiatric disorder in both its delirious and frenetic forms; for occasionally we do get episodes of the “I’m a little teapot” condition. But we don’t get “woke” like some other Americans. Until now, we have remained essentially zombies, even under duress.

My thinking is, that we need, periodically, a national episode of ranting; and in view of the Canadian climate, late January would be the most favourable time. It is the low point for hope, generally; a time when the winter set in months ago, when we look forward to: more winter. This was all very well when we had sleigh bells, and threw snowballs, but in modern urban life the municipal sludge just accumulates. The only fun is watching pedestrians, trying to stay vertical on the sidewalks. Months more will pass, before we dig ourselves out; or rather, we will never dig out. All will, eventually, just go away, while we are not noticing. Then we’ll have heat waves, with mosquitoes and blackflies.

Perhaps we would notice more if we were ranting. It is a way to exercise the brain muscles. One has to think: what shall I rant about?

And therefore I am doing my patriotic duty. If I can just antagonize one person in a thousand, perhaps I could get some ranting kick-started. Call me an optimist, but that is my plan.