Tag: Politics

Posted in Blogs, Chocolate, social media, Uncategorized

Two Can Keep A Secret…If One Of Them Is Dead

Posted on by D. Parker
https://yadadarcyyada.com/2019/01/26/two-can-keep-a-secret-if-one-of-them-is-dead/

“Listen do you want to know a secret
Do you promise not to tell woh woh woh closer
Let me whisper in your ear…”

https://yadadarcyyada.com/2019/01/26/two-can-keep-a-secret-if-one-of-them-is-dead/

  • The irony of that Beatles song and everything else, once you’ve told a secret, it’s no longer a secret because, really, two can keep a secret…if one them is dead. “Pretty Little Liars”, huh, more like Petty Little Liars for many politicians and too many others https://yadadarcyyada.com/2019/01/14/your-genius-is-showing/. But not everyone!

https://yadadarcyyada.com/2019/01/26/two-can-keep-a-secret-if-one-of-them-is-dead/

  • Some wear their secrets as armor, others to get away with things, others to avoid embarrassment, but no matter the reason for your secrets, they’re toxic.

https://yadadarcyyada.com/2019/01/26/two-can-keep-a-secret-if-one-of-them-is-dead/

  • I get that secrets and lies are a thing, have been for as long as humankind has existed.

https://yadadarcyyada.com/2019/01/26/two-can-keep-a-secret-if-one-of-them-is-dead/

  • I naïvely thought social media would make it better. Wrong again, it’s worse (or just more obvious…more visible?). Now it’s all denials, proof, more denials, more proof…and so on.

https://yadadarcyyada.com/2019/01/26/two-can-keep-a-secret-if-one-of-them-is-dead/

  • Me, I’m an open book, what about you? Of course, at any given time only those two pages are really ‘open’.

https://yadadarcyyada.com/2019/01/26/two-can-keep-a-secret-if-one-of-them-is-dead/

  • When someone tells you another person’s secrets, red flag wavin’, don’t trust them with your secrets (or anything else).

https://yadadarcyyada.com/2019/01/26/two-can-keep-a-secret-if-one-of-them-is-dead/

“The best way of keeping a secret is to pretend there isn’t one.”
~ Margaret Atwood

https://yadadarcyyada.com/2019/01/26/two-can-keep-a-secret-if-one-of-them-is-dead/At least chocolate never lies or keeps secrets…or maybe it does, who am I kidding, I don’t care.

https://yadadarcyyada.com/2019/01/26/two-can-keep-a-secret-if-one-of-them-is-dead/

 

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Posted in Blogs, Books, Canada, Chocolate, Christmas, Environment, Family, Food, Holidays, Jane Austen, Movies, Music, Political, Televison, Uncategorized

You May Say I’m A Dreamer

Posted on by D. Parker

1apeace22All that peace and love stuff, it’s just idealistic mumbo jumbo, right?

Or is it?

While I admit I don’t understand a lot of stuff, but as long as it’s not really hurting anyone, why would I care?

Too often, the commonly held view seems to be that if we don’t agree, we’re at odds.

Like somehow 7 billion of us are suddenly going to start agreeing, or we have to battle it out Star Trek style.

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For example, I find the rise of pumpkin spice alarming – apparently pumpkin spice is a season now, so the pumpkin spice must flow.

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Here’s a completely incomplete list of stuff people do that I don’t ‘get’, or want to (no particular order):

1. Touching wet paint or wet cement – yes, it’s wet, move on.
2. Running water after going to the bathroom instead of actually washing your hands.
3. Lying, lying, and what was that other thing, oh yeah, lying.
4. Judging a person based on their skin tone, religion, race, nationality, whom they choose to love, clothes, home, family, etc.

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5. Walking into traffic looking at a cellphone.
6. Bad driving.
7. Hurting others, especially children.
8. Loving something just because it’s endorsed by or has the name of a celebrity.

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9. Using racism as a political strategy.
10. Fat shaming, and also those who say fat shaming is wrong, because they’re also calling people fat.
11. Having fictional conversations in your head with others (ok, done this).
12. Not smiling back at a child or being impatient when an elderly person is slowly walking down the stairs in front of you.

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13. Yelling at furniture that jumped out and stubbed your toe (ok, I’ve totally done that).
14. Wearing uncomfortable shoes (especially with stubbed toes).
15. People who pretend they don’t fart (you do, we all do, own it).
16. Reading the instructions after you’ve done something.

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17. Saying “I’m sorry” when you’re not sorry.
18. Unenvironmentalists (you know that should be a word).
19. Buying non-orange pumpkins.
20. Pretending you don’t wish some cool movie-like thing would happen to you today instead of just the usual stuff…come on, you really haven’t done this?

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I can’t understand how people find the time or energy to judge, fight, or generally care so much about everyone else’s business. Does this have to do with our fight or flight response? Not running from sabre-tooth tigers (mostly), our fear response is now triggered by shopping (prices are terrifying), finding info on the internet (bloodcurdling), and politicians (I’ll take the tiger). Obviously our fear of scarcity has survived, so maybe those who are different or disagree feed into that fear. I’m just guessing, frankly, I’m baffled.

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The internet just seethes with fear and loathing which is why I’m happy when I find bloggers who make me smile. David Prosser, a wonderful, funny, and caring blogger from Wales offered the world his Buthidars philosophy https://lorddavidprosser1.wordpress.com/ – a hug, a good deed, a simple gesture, a smile…forging a path toward peace.

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And he shares his life each week at: https://barsetshirediaries.wordpress.com/ and kindly shared one of his novels, The Queen’s Envoy, with the caveat, it wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Perhaps, but I emphatically enjoyed the fanciful flight of fictitious foibles. It reminded me of watching Bond movies with my Dad. As a child I didn’t understand what Pussy Galore, Holly Goodhead, and “Oh James!” really meant, but the spirit of adventure always made me feel like anything was possible. I like that feeling, wherever I can find it.

It’s Thanksgiving this weekend in Canada; I’m thankful we can all agree to disagree, eh. I don’t tell people they’re stupid for their beliefs and I don’t expect them to understand my complicated relationships with: chocolate, spiders, TV, sleep, housekeeping, kale, Jane Austen, gravity, technology, toenail clippers, Christmas, pools (you know, cause of sharks), clowns, Thanksgiving, meat, and life in general.

We don’t have to agree to have fun, be respectful, and add love and hope to the world.

All we are saying is give peas peace a chance.

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Posted in Books, Canada, Cats, Chocolate, Food, Internet, Jane Austen, Movies, Political, Televison, Uncategorized

Support Bacteria – It’s the Only Culture Some People Have

Posted on by D. Parker

1funny778The occasional broken heart (some courtesy of good-for-nothing teen heart-throbs leering suggestively from glossy magazine covers), the enforced cleaning of my room, scrapped knees and elbows, the tedium of school, bullying, losses…still, I consider myself lucky to have grown up in a time where we knew little.

Sure, pesky facts sometimes showed up, but we were quick to scare them away and defiantly let our ‘ignorance is bliss’ flag fly!

Of course, I knew horrible things had happened and were happening, but for inexplicable reasons (I blame chocolate and kittens), I seemed to believe things would get better.

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I don’t know, maybe it was growing up in a small town, but even with all my extensive sci-fi reading and viewing I could never have imagined this strange new world I would someday live in where Donald Trump could be President of the United States; someone would list their dog as a job reference; Kardashians are deities; people fawn and argue on social media over food while many don’t have any food at all; we would still believe governments and corporations who regularly and flagrantly lie to and cheat us…where fiction is fact and fantasy masquerades as reality.

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The news, entertainment, internet, politics, business, sports, relationships – it’s like we’re watching The Tudors or The Borgias and the only thing that has changed are the outfits…and the quality of the acting. Lies, intrigues, shifting alliances, hypocrisy, machinations, double standards (like when someone does whatever they want, but when someone else does the same thing or less, they’re outraged, shocked, appalled – insert Fox Newsworthy propaganda rhetoric here).

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Tired of the daily circus, I eagerly plopped down on my couch, green tea in hand, sore feet on the exercise ball (hey, it has to be good for something) to distract myself from the distractions and marvel at Colin Firth’s magnificence in Magic in the Moonlight.

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But alas, I found the movie full of philosophical questions about the meaning of life. Sigh. Is nothing sacred? While enjoying the witty banter, I also had to think about whether this is all there is. This day-to-day, this cycle of life, the collective cultures, religions, the systems and wealth of knowledge obtained from human history and common experiences…Or is there more? A higher power, a divine plan, magic, a metaphysical world beyond the rational. Are there plans or is it all spontaneous and just happening as it’s happening? Perhaps I should have just revisited the pastoral peace of Pride and Prejudice, but then, I’d probably wonder again whether I would really like Mr. Darcy if I met him, or think he was a rich, pompous jerk.

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My brain was awash with questions…and green tea. Do we need illusions or even delusions to survive and then more and more as stress levels build?
Is that why the world is looking more like the final days of an empire?
It might also explain why pop culture has become an avant-garde-Spanx-clad-Salvador-Dali-painting-on-Viagra.

Oh well, off to Outwit, Outlast and Outplay another day.

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Posted in Books, Canada, Cats, Chocolate, Family, Movies, Music, Televison, Uncategorized

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Posted on by D. Parker

1ahappy12Everyday in the media and social media I hear about happiness.

Happiness Projects,
Happiness Quotients,
Happiness Index,
Gross National Happiness,
polls, songs, quotes…
what’s with all the happiness?

Is wretchedness and melancholy really that out of style?

Where are the memes celebrating the drudgery of everyday life?

Where are all the T-shirts promoting doom and gloom?

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If happiness is sooooo easy why does everyone have to be constantly reminded to be happy?

When did we become so obsessed with measuring and quantifying happiness? When it became big business, that’s when. I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness lately so I was drawn to The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold us Well-Being by William Davies (Verso). I felt the book was overly academic, like I needed a degree in something to understand it, but it did have some fascinating, logical, brilliant, and disturbing points about how we’re being sold happiness and at what cost. Happiness is a new religion.

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But what if we’re being sold a one-size-fits-all happiness coat? It seems to insulate us against heartache, but instead, it’s drafty, the seams are fraying, and oops, it’s not waterproof. I’ve been sales-pitched happiness for years, and I’m starting to feel consumer fatigue. I’m guessing a lot of people aren’t feeling ‘the happy’ the way they’re told they should be feeling it, especially if the amount of loneliness, antidepressants, and boredom are any indication.

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I find people endlessly fascinating, though I could live to be a 1000 and still never grasp their full complexity. Maybe I don’t want to, there’s nothing more thrilling than a mystery. I’ve observed that people seem to think they have to add things and people to their life to be happier, but what if it’s quite the opposite, what if you have to remove things and people to be happier?

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I decided to start my own Happiness Savings Plan – pool then diversify my assets and lose some liabilities. I want to make sure I keep falling in love, over and over again, with my son’s laughter, books, music, clouds, chocolate, TV, movies, loved ones, conversation, kittens, dreams, puppies, laughter, hope…I’m tired of hearing about: The Kardashians, FIFA, Bruce Jenner/Caitlyn (I don’t care about the choice, I’m just sick of endless publicity-seeking), spy pigeons, wrinkled selfies (pretty much all selfies at this point actually), drought shaming, fat shaming, age shaming, sex mad marsupials…sigh, I’m feeling less happy just thinking about it all.

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So for the next 365 days my plan is to make changes, one per day, mostly removing things; perhaps it will make me happier, perhaps not, only time will tell.

I invite you, my dear readers to join, if you so wish, don’t feel like you need to, or do the same changes. And don’t worry, there won’t be endless posts about my C-C-Changes Plan, just an update here and there…

My first week is as follows:

1. Remove 15 minutes or more of internet time per day.

2. Remove 15 minutes or more of news/politics per day.

3. Remove 15 minutes or more of sitting per day.

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4. Give up one TV show.

5. Change 15 minutes of screen time into reading or listening to a book time.

6. Take 15 minutes or more to organize .

7. Learn something new each day.

It might be challenging, but as G.K. Chesterton reminded us, “There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.”

P.S. I’m going for less.

Posted in Movies, Political, Televison, Uncategorized

Wag the dog

Posted on by D. Parker

wagthe4This is the incredible invisible film.

It’s as though acknowledging Wag The Dog means we have to admit we let our politicians, their cronies and yes men run our countries into the ground and maybe, just maybe we should do something instead of just complaining.

A dark comedy with a magnificent cast to match.

Amazing work by:

Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Anne Heche, Denis Leary, Willie Nelson, Andrea Martin, Kirsten Dunst, William H. Macy, John Michael Higgins, Suzie Plakson, Woody Harrelson, Michael Belson, Suzanne Cryer, Jason Cottle, David Koechner, Craig T. Nelson (uncredited).

Directed by Barry Levinson.

This is about how politicians and their spin doctors distract the electorate from scandals, poor performance, and sometimes general incompetence.

It’s rather macabrwagthe2e and quite disturbing and sadly, these sorts of things happen too often.

Fav scene is wagthe3always Kirsten Dunst, an actress portraying an orphan, running holding a bag of Tostitos in front of a blue screen and when you see it later she’s running holding a kitten through the war-torn streets of Albania.

Do we even know what the truth is anymore or just what we’re fed?

I know the truth is out there, but where?

If you haven’t seen this movie you should never watch the news and even then…