Essays in Idleness

God, according to Josh Alexander, and sundry others including all Roman Catholics for the last two thousand years (excepting a few heretics recently), created man in male and female versions. These two sexes may also be found elsewhere in nature, indeed in all those creatures visible to us; and even attempts to name some hypothetical third sex has resulted in much unintentional comedy.

Mr Alexander is (or was) a Grade XI student in the publicly-funded St Joseph’s High School in Renfrew, Ontario — by reputation one of the more conservative and rural parts of the country.

The lad gained the quiet admiration of many of the girls in the school, and I should think many of the townfolk, too, by protesting the admission of biological males to the girls’ washroom. These would be soi-disant “transgendered” males. Several of the girls had told Josh that they felt uncomfortable, being displayed before these intrusive voyeurs.

The school board, however, took a different view, and told Mr Alexander to stay away, in November. When he continued to report for classes, they had him arrested — apparently for bullying, which, in their view, is identical to expressing an opinion. It is a low-intelligence environment. They have cited a policy statement by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, to complete the absurdity.

Mr Alexander explained to media inquirers: “They encourage anything that goes along with the woke ideology that they’re pushing in the education system, but if you dare speak out with anything contrary to it, there will be consequences.”

I recall my own experience of Grade XI, in a low-quality (but extravagantly funded) Ontario high school, more than half a century ago. I tried several times to get myself expelled, by skipping classes, &c; but failed, apparently because I was too polite to the administrators. The truancy laws prevented me from leaving until my 16th birthday. When that came, I promptly left not only the school but the country.

Of course, in those days the majority of teachers, students, administrators, and even members of the school board were at least partially sane. My departure thus required a “judgement call,” which, in retrospect, still pleases me.

The world had not yet gone mad, in the way we see exhibited in Renfrew; although there were signs that its hold on common sense was relaxing.

Now there is a boy old enough to be my grandson. He has disappointed me by trying to get back into the school, but in other respects, he wins my admiration. Felicitations!

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POSTSCRIPTUM. — One of my most faithful readers counts that school as his alma mater, “back in the age of slide rules, typewriters, and the Sisters of St Joseph.” He has sent me “before and after” photographs, of his fellow students, then and now. The Sisters instilled a spirit of redemptive Catholicism, around which they still congregate, all these years later, to “lick their wounds” and to be assuaged. I was invited to be with them in the Ottawa Valley, Friday for St Paddy’s Day; what a paradise that would be.