Buoyant blog of septuagenarian Kanadian poet and haikuist Chris Faiers/cricket. People's Poetry in the tradition of Milton Acorn, haiku/haibun, progressive politikal rants, engaged Buddhism and meditation, revitalizing of Callaghan's Rapids Conservation Area, memories of ZenRiver Gardens and annual Purdy Country LitFests (PurdyFests), events literary and politikal, and pics, amid swirling currents of earth magick and shamanism. Read in 119 countries last week - 5,387 readers last month.
My friend Doug lives on the edge of a huge tract of unspoiled southern Ontario bushland. He has exclusive permission from the landowner to explore the wild property at will, and Doug has become the craggy woodland’s unofficial steward.
This week two years ago Doug took me on a chilly and overcast hike to his tipi retreat. It was difficult for me to walk from the dirt road at the north end of the lake through the late winter woods to this special spot high on a rocky ridge above one of the five local beaver ponds. I knew there might be something wrong with my health, but at age 73 I thought the lack of strength was just old age. It was a difficult hike and a trial for me to walk the kilometre or so. The short hike took us abut 45 minutes to reach the tipi.
We rested on the rocks around his tipi. Way across the valley, with the series of beaver dams far below, Doug pointed to an even higher crag. He said he’d like to take me there, but as this much easier route had exhausted me, I thought I’d never reach the distant summit in this lifetime.
Two months after this initial hike I checked into a hospital emergency. Blood tests showed my red blood count was 40, while an adult male should have a count four times higher of 160. Medical staff were amazed I’d driven myself into the hospital.
I was immediately placed on IVs and given several blood transfusions. Several days later I had a foot of my colon removed containing a grade 2 stage 2 cancerous tumour.
Last Tuesday Doug and I hiked to the crest of the “ridge too far”! Advancements in cancer treatment are beyond amazing, We reached the ridge, the highest point in our county, with a survey marker on top to prove this, in just over an hour. We picnicked on a turkey sub and non alcohol beer at the crest.
On our return Doug took a picture of a fallen branch which resembled an antelope skull in some mythic desert. Doug summed up our expedition with - you shouldn’t have been able to do this!
Doug is an excellent videographer who has been encouraging me to relearn photography. As something of a Luddite (technophobe) I've never used photography in the digital age, except to cut and paste from other people's pics. Over the Easter weekend Doug has helped me buy a spiffy little used Fuji camera, and to check that it works, Doug took these pics with it. Now it's my turn to learn how to use it and to start adding pics of my own to riffs & ripps. Thanks, Doug!
Up to one month ago we were still able to hear a litany of pro-Israel apologists on radio, on TV, on the news, everywhere. We heard about Jews who were the eternal victims. We heard about Jewish suffering during the Holocaust. Israel bullied its way into the 2024 Eurovision song contest — despite being denied because of its war on Gaza. Israel managed to bully Eurovision which had also criticized the political lyrics of the original song. . We heard about the hostages and how their release had to be a precondition for stopping Israel’s war on Gaza. We heard about Israel’s agony about being “forced” to murder 14,000 children in Gaza . We heard the outrage from diaspora and Israeli Jews who refused to allow Israel to be disparaged by the world community, despite the preliminary finding of possible genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). We saw scores of people, from waitresses at Moxie’s restaurant who were fired, to a retail clerk at a grocery store, to a nursing student in Winnipeg, to medical doctors and residents who were suspended or disciplined because they supported Palestinian human rights. Some establishment Jews had the power to ruin other people’s careers and futures.
Yesterday, CBC-TV’s Adrienne Arsenault, while flying over Gaza, said, “I can’t get over the speed of change.”
She’s right.
But she could have just as easily been talking about what’s going on in Canada, in some of our media, in our public squares – even in Canada’s parliament. Suddenly – almost no one wants the predictably pro-Israel voices to dominate public discourse as they did before. The tide is changing.
Malnourished child being treated in a Gaza hospital (credit: Mohammed Salem/Reuters)
Mark Regev: South Africa has become “Hamas’ lawyers”
Israel’s PM Netanyahu, at one time ubiquitous in his appearances on the TV news, is no longer. We rarely see Israel’s minister of defence, Yoav Gallant a retired military general—but we used to see him interviewed with regularity. Mark Regev, the Israeli diplomat and former foreign minister to PM Netanyahu, told LBC (British TV news) in mid-January that South Africa’s charges of genocide in Gaza were ‘preposterous’, and that South Africa has become “Hamas’ lawyers”.
I haven’t seen or heard Regev on Canadian news outlets since then.
Eylor Levy, Netanyahu’s silver-tongued English-language spokesman has been dismissed. Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari, the head of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, used to be at the media briefings even into January and February, and now is rarely seen..
It used to be that our media gave play to Israel’s demand that the hostages had to be freed before Israel would stop the killing of civilians. But suddenly our media realised that there are just over 100 hostages in compared to almost 32,000 dead Palestinian civilians – among them more than 14,000 children. Some in the media are now discussing Israel’s efforts to cover up the reality that a number of hostages were indeed killed by Israel troops, and airstrikes – not by Hamas.
Claims of antisemitism as a cover for Israel’s murderous rampage in Gaza & West Bank
Canada’s CIJA (The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs), realising how unpopular and hated Israel’s war on Gaza has become, has attempted to keep the spotlight on antisemitism in Canada. The establishment Jewish community has fostered the very wrong idea that all Canadian Jews support Israel and that the interests of Jews and Israel are inextricably linked. The establishment Jews who run CIJA, B’nai Brith and the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre are desperate to amplify the spectre of antisemitism in Canada. But much of the antisemitism is backlash against Israel. Considering the bloodshed in Gaza and the West Bank, I’m surprised that most people are willing to condemn Israel, but not Canada’s Jews. I am shocked there is not more outrage against the establishment Jews—as they continue to conflate being Jewish with blind support for Israel.
Several journalists, myself included here, here and here , have noted the scores of Canadians – disproportionately people of colour — who have been fired, disciplined, laid off or had their careers curtailed because they criticized Israel, or signed a pro-peace petition, or attended a rally for the people of Gaza.
All of us who criticized Israel were frozen out or on the outside from the start. For four months, the Canadian media was relentless in its defence of Israelis as beleaguered victims of an attack that was unexplainable, and antisemitic. Suddenly that’s not so. Somehow a threshold has been reached. Beyond 30,000 Palestinians dead, and 70,000 seriously injured, beyond 1,000 child single and double amputees and thousands of Palestinians still missing or buried under the rubble of their destroyed homes– the media’s interest in comforting those who defend Israel, and defendingits apartheid state is waning.
Starving Kids by Livia Burchianti (Sao Paulo, Brazil)
The NDP motion Monday night was further proof. Even with the amendments, which watered down many concerns and the demand for a ceasefire – 204 Parliamentarians voted yes. Only three Liberals voted no which signalled an historic shift. True, the motion was not binding, but it signalled that MPs have listened to the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have protested nearly every week for five months for a ceasefire. Moreover, the MPs have suddenly had to listen to their own consciences.
This is happening now, when the blood of the tens of thousands of children finally comes pouring into our daily newspaper, or breakfast TV. It was bound to happen. Sooner not later. Just after 9-11 the world sympathised with the US for its loss of more than 2,700 people in the attacks on the World Trade Centre. Within weeks, that sympathy changed to bitterness and anger as people throughout the world saw the bombings and revenge the US took on Afghanistan (and later Iraq), and the tens of thousands of civilians killed plus the thousands taken hostage and kept in illegal “black site” prisons and then cages at Guantanamo for years.
Israel, which for a few days in October received the world’s sympathy in the wake of the Hamas attacks, is now all but a pariah state. With Israel’s refusal to allow the necessary food, water and medicine into Gaza, Israel’s shelling and killings in hospitals and schools — plus green-lighting more than 1.5 million Gazans to suffer mass starvation — Israel’s standing in the world will further deteriorate.
Featured photo at the top: Palestinian fisherman holds a crab, part of his miserable catch in Gaza City, 20 Feb. 2024. (credit: Omar Qattaa/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images).
NB: The Hinge of Fate, is book four of former British prime minister Winston Churchill’s series of books that detail the dramatic account of how the Allies turned the tide of World War II.
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Driving back to London in a borrowed mini, wearing only light cotton shirts with the breeze whipping by, gave me a bad dose of flu. Somehow Scotch John and I ended up living with a bunch of students in a commune / residence / crash pad in Kingston. The flu was so bad I was knocked out for several days, and even had mild hallucinations. One day I woke up feeling better, and as I hadn't eaten for several days I wandered out into the streets of Kingston. I bought a carton of milk and wolfed it down.
I decided at that moment to hitchhike through Ireland, with fantasies of finding a croft cottage to use as a home base. I hitchhiked to Liverpool, where I met a seedy character on a back street who wanted to trade his leather shoes for my runners. I stumbled into the Liverpool ferry docks, and caught the all night ferry to Belfast. There were some Irish nursing students on the trip, and I stayed up all night flirting with them. One of them gave me her school address, and told me to look her up.
We docked in Belfast in early dawn light, and I stumbled off groggy from lack of sleep into the war torn streets. There were signs of the violence everywhere, although the shopkeeper in the little grocery where I bought some food was very friendly.
Belfast was no place for a longhaired pacifist, and quickly I hitched a ride with a respectable-looking young guy with short hair and a suit. As we were pulling into the outskirts of Belfast, we got stuck in traffic behind a lorry load of British troops. To torment us, they aimed their mounted machinegun at us. Perhaps we looked like a mismatched couple of guys, but my feeling was that they were doing it for enjoyment rather than for their protection.
The young businessman was only going as far as Armagh, the notorious border county which had been the scene of many IRA and counter IRA bombings and shootings. I was let out by a truck stop, and although it was early evening, I was exhausted from the ferry ride and the experiences of the war zone which is Belfast.
I crossed the road into the brush at the edge of the truck stop, and curled up to sleep about twenty feet from the road. As I was dozing off, I noticed a sinister omen next to me, the skeleton of a bat hanging from a bush. Despite the clinging bat skeleton, I fell into a sound sleep, only being awakened once when a truck motor started up. Then in the dead of the night a screaming howl woke me up with the shivers! It was like nothing I had ever heard. It was longer and louder than a human scream, more painful and mournful and dangerous. All I could thinnk of was a Banshee! I quivered in my sleeping bag, not daring to move, and not feeling secure hidden in the bushes with the hanging bat. Thank God the scream didn't repeat, and I finally fell back asleep:
Bat skeleton hung on a shrub banshee scream!
The next day I got a lift to Sligo, which is on the west coast of Ireland. My lift took me into a pub in the small town, and got me quite drunk on just a couple of pints of real Irish Guinness. After saying goodbye to my benefactor, I wandered into the black night and fell asleep in a field. Minutes later the Guiness curdled, and I puked my guts out. I wasn't a pleasant sight to behold the next morning:
Rocky Irish field waking to the smell of vomit and Guinness
I began walking the narrow road - it was almost more of a cart trail - which was the main highway connecting Sligo with Galway. Past hilly little graveyards and quaint cottages beside trout streams. Mile after mile I walked for days, with only a car passing every couple of hours. In my deteriorating state, I didn't look like much of an attraction for good conversation to the few motorists, and so I walked four or five hours a day, and then slept besides the Sligo road at night.
Finally a car stopped for me. Two sexy Danish hitchhikers had insisted that the young Irish lad driving stop for me, and they drove me into Galway. The girls and I headed for the nearest pub, and had a pint. All the locals gathered round, and several of them performed their pub tricks. One played the flute, another sang, and one even danced for us. They were disappointed that we didn't have any special talents to show them, and they seemed sad that their exotic looking visitors weren't really very entertaining.
The girls and I headed for the outskirts of town, and I thought a very exciting evening was shaping up. Unfortunately every male hitchhiker for miles around had the same idea, and we all crowded into their little tent like good brothers and sisters of the road, and nobody got lucky.
The next morning we all started hitching. I got a lift on the back of a motorbike for five or six miles, but it turned out to be my next to last lift in Ireland. For days I walked the central road crossing back from Galway in the west to Dublin in the east. At night I slept in ditches, except once outside a town halfway to Dublin I slept in a tent with some local schoolboys.
I wandered on along the lonely highway. Althought it was a major road, there wasn't a lot of traffic. The few pounds I had started with had run out, and I hadn't eaten a full meal in weeks. Just as evening fell, I met a nice middle-aged lady who took me to her house and fed me dinner. I think it was some sort of retribution on her husband - I probably got to eat his dinner while he was in a pub. Luckily for me he didn't materialize, or my bones would probably be in an Irish graveyard.
I thanked her for the very welcome meal, and ambled to the outskirts of town to find my usual resting place in a ditch. I chose a spot several hundred yards from a deserted-looking house, and fell asleep with a full stomach. Around midnight I was awakened by the noises of a loud party from the house. For a moment I even thought of joining the wild goings-on, but I was so stuffed I fell back asleep.
When I next awoke it was dawn. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and peered through the thinning mist at the house where the rowdy party had taken place all night. It was deserted! No cars, no drunken bodies strewn on the lawn, nothing. The house was as deserted-looking as when I had first seen it the evening before. God knows what had transpired all night in the old house, or had it all been my imagination, the result of indigestion caused by my first real meal in weeks?
Chris circa 1970-71 Eel Pie Dharma is protected by international copyright laws. Individuals may print off a copy of this work for personal use only to facilitate easier reading.
the corner table closest to the river is where I ate
With the ongoing genocide in Gaza, it’s hard to stomach life. But we need to eat, and we need distractions. The poetry calling I’ve accepted, a people’s poet in the broadest sense, sure doesn’t pay and often makes me enemies of those in power, even petty power like local library boards. So often I've used my creative writing for non creative efforts, even the occasional restaurant review. In fact the most “pay” I’ve received for my writing was for a review for the Beaches community paper when I lived in Toronto. It was for The Caravan Treats, a small cafe which served delicious food. It was on The Danforth in a relatively downscale neighbourhood, but when the trendy Beachers read the review, Caravan Treats was swamped and firmly established as the unpretentious but delicious restaurant it was. The owner, Milana, thanked me with free meals for a full year. I ate there almost every night, and even took dates who also enjoyed Milana’s excellent Hungarian recipes. So with that memory, here is one of my favourite area restaurants and a backroad trip.
Yesterday was so sunny and warm for March here on the edge of The Kawarthas that I fired up my old Miata and drove from Marmora to Campbellford for lunch at The Dockside Bistro. The owner couple, Sandy and Sarah Sanyal, are also from Toronto, and they provide food and service which is at least on a par with the food I ate when I lived in TO’s Little India. The building is a renovated stone church on the Trent River, and I was first to grab a table on the outdoor patio. Mallards were swimming towards me from downstream, and their slow approach amused me while I sipped my craft pale ale. Soon a couple also touring this beautiful spring-like day sat at the next table with their gorgeous golden retriever. They had called ahead to check that Dockside is dog friendly. They were from Newmarket, and had driven to Campbellford to cross the newish suspension bridge over The Trent River gorge to hike in Ferris Park on the outskirts of CFord. Their retriever was afraid to cross the high bridge, with its open mesh floor which gives a vey scary feeling of imminently plunging into the far below spring torrent. I remember having to carry my little dog Chase across the bridge, but larger dogs often balk and refuse to cross, so the couple had to go in the park from a different access.
full monty butter chicken
The man asked if I was a regular, and what would I recommend. The quick serve butter chicken was my choice, although the last visit I had the full butter chicken meal with all the side dishes, which was enough for two small eaters! Our meals arrived promptly, and chatting and dog petting had to wait for a while. The couple thanked me for the helpful choice in food, and after some more waterfowl watching, I headed home via the twisting Cordova Mines backroad.
An obituary I wrote for my beloved Norma is in the new issue of Write. Norma was a member of The Writers’ Union of Canada for many decades, as I point out. (Probably most current members were born after Norma had joined.)
I have no idea who may or may not read Write, so here is what I wrote:
Norma West Linder
In memoriam
Norma West Linder was born in Toronto on September 4, 1928, the year before the Great Depression. When the hard times came, her family moved to the tiny village of Mindemoya on Manitoulin Island, where she spent her childhood. Although her adult life would be centred in Toronto and Sarnia, Norma considered Manitoulin to be her spiritual home. She always was an Island Girl at heart, or a “Haw,” as folks from Manitoulin call themselves. Her early memories are captured in her memoir, Morels and Maple Syrup.
During her long life, Norma published seven novels, sixteen poetry collections, countless short stories (collected in No Common Thread), two books for children, a biography of Ontario’s Lieutenant Governor Pauline McGibbon, and a one-act play. Her eighth novel, Michael Newman’s Summer of Seventy-eight, in press at the time of her passing, will be launched at her Celebration of Life. As a writer of fiction, Norma was inspired by the work of Margaret Laurence; her poetry was sparked by the books of Raymond Souster, who became a personal friend. Impressed by his plain-spoken poetic language, she made it her own.
For many years, Norma was best known for her novels, three of which were simultaneously published in Britain, and her short stories, also internationally published. Her prose appeared in magazines like Chatelaine, and her short fiction was frequently anthologized. Also, she had the distinction of having had her third novel, Woman in a Blue Hat, banned in Moncton, and perhaps other areas of New Brunswick. (As she observed, it probably boosted sales!) Nonetheless, critical attention was increasingly drawn to her poetry after Adder’s-tongues: A Choice of Norma West Linder’s Poems, 1969 – 2011 appeared in 2012, and her poetry found a home in Canadian, American, and English journals. She also wrote columns for The Sarnia Observer and Trends. A long-time TWUC member, Norma joined in its formative days when Pierre Berton hosted occasional meetings in his home.
Norma cherished the outdoor areas in and around Sarnia, such as the Mandaumin Woods, the Wawanosh Wetlands, and Highland Glen, and this love of nature, and the fragile beauty of the world around us, is captured in her poetry. In addition to her many books, Norma taught Creative Writing and English as a Second Language at Lambton College for two dozen years, her ESL students were often refugees from wars in Southeastern Asia. Norma was a caring and compassionate teacher; several of her students became friends. She was an avid swimmer, a Scrabble player who very seldom lost, and a killer ping-pong player (which she insisted was “table tennis”). I simply couldn’t defeat her, not even once. Norma West Linder died in Sarnia on August 26, 2023, just nine days before her ninety-fifth birthday. She leaves three children, two grandsons, three great-grandchildren, many published writers whom she mentored over the decades, and a host of devoted readers.
Published in: Write - Volume 51, Number 4, Winter 2024
It was difficult to explain how truly special Norma was in less than 500 words. I did what I could. Strange how Fate operates. Norma died this past August and my grandson — Felix Girard — was born less than six months later. I wish Norma had lived long enough to see him.
Fraternally,
. . . James
James Deahl
March 14, 2024
Dear Chris,
Here is the information of Norma’s Celebration of Life. Despite being called the Sarnia Golf and Curling Club, it is actually in the Village of Point Edward, which is surrounded by Sarnia. It is located at the intersection of Christina Street & Errol Road. There is plenty of parking.
Norma West Linder
a Celebration of Life
Saturday, June 15, 2024
Sarnia Golf & Curling Club
500 Errol Road West
Point Edward, Ontario
N7V 1X7
Norma was a source of joy and love in my life, and in the lives of many others. She is mourned by all who knew her. I attach the last photo of us. It was taken at a Christmas banquet just prior to the arrival of The Plague four years ago. Hard to believe that pretty girl beside me was 91 years old in 2019.
MARCH 8, 2024JUDYHAIVENThanks for reading Judy Haiven’s Newsletter! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
This is what one parent told the reporter fromAl-Jazeeraabout how he fed his starving family, including four children. But those days are long gone. Now, the only thing available is grass.
Said Faraj Abu Naji, of northern Gaza, “Planes are dropping aid on northern Gaza, and we have become like dogs, running after a bone.”
Before 7 Oct, more than 500 food trucks drove into Gaza every day – yesterday y there were 58. But over the last five months, on more than half the days there were no trucks at all.
Starvation is something we don’t really get. Yes, for years we have heard about starvation in parts of Africa. But officials tell us even in blighted areas of Central and West Africa, just 40-60% of the people will face possible starvation in the spring. UNICEF and the UN claim that getting food to them is almost “manageable”.
Some of us remember in 2006, a senior advisor to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said that Israeli wanted “to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”In 2012 it was revealed that as far back as 2008, Israeli authorities calculated that Gazans needed only 2,279 calories a day to avoid malnutrition. As a result, Israel then decided to limit the amount of food allowed into Gaza– without causing outright starvation.
Palestinians in Gaza are facing a hunger crisis
All of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are unable to meet their food needs. Since December, nearly 200,000 additional people are experiencing catastrophic levels of hunger, a category that now includes more than a quarter of the population.
Half are starving, and another quarter are one step away from famine. As one father asked, “What should we eat, should we eat grass?” Grass is not good for humans as this article explains. A family of 8 got one camp container (ration) of food which was not enough to feed them one meal.
This is particularly shocking when we hear that 135,000 children in Gaza are under the age of two. Officials for UNICEF say one in six children under age two has been starved, and the damage is irreversible. Malnourishment means higher risk of heart disease in when they are in their 30s and 40s, higher risk of strokes, higher risk of cognitive impairment and liver disease. According to pediatricians, if under-twos are malnourished, they start to lose all their body fat, then their organs start to fail the kidneys, the liver, the brain, the heart—the brain and heart are last to go. Then they starve to death.
This photo is from December, 2023; international aid agencies say Gaza is suffering from shortages of food [credit: Fatima Shbair/AP]
Dr Omar Abdel-Mannan is a British-Egyptian pediatric neurologist. He and Gaza Medic Voices, a group of doctors started to travel to the West Bank to help victims of Israeli aggression twelve years go. In the last few years, they have been helping save lives in Gaza. What Dr Abdel-Mannan noted is that children’s deaths are not so related to injuries from missiles, drones and blasts. Children’s “deaths are completely preventable and are from diarrhea, gastroenteritis, chest infections, and pneumonia. Their immune systems are so weak they can’t cope.”
Even when they can get a bit of food in the drops, after a child’s body has been in starvation mode for weeks, there is a high risk for “refeeding syndrome,” if the child eats too much, too fast. “There are dangerous shifts in fluids, electrolytes which can result in heart failure, lung, liver and brain damage that result in coma and death,” according to Dr Abdel-Mannam. He insists that giving dropped food aid to children with no management plan with a doctor or dietician can cause more harm than good.
The World Health Organization (WHO) fears that the 10 child starvation deaths in hospitals in the last days are just the tip of the iceberg.
Dr Abdel-Mannan notes , “The Americans drop aid like a stunt – they give Israel billions in military aid” and drop a fraction of money into food drops. “It is dystopian” and beggars belief. Just to get the food aid, Palestinians are shot at by occupiers.
He said, “As an occupying force, Israel is responsible for food, water, health care and education. But Israel is exterminating them.”
Doctors who work with Dr Abdel-Mannan have said it’s dehumanizing for Gazans to pick up bread from the ocean. Doctors noted, “We don’t want food or water from the West; we don’t want your prayers, your thoughts, your pity. We just want a ceasefire. We want to stop being bombed and live like human beings.” Dropping food packages adds insult to injury.
Happy International Women’s Day
ITEM: On 29 Feb, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin confirmed that 25,000 women and children in Gaza have been killed by Israel since 7 Oct. .
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