Today, I drove to a small, dead-end street near the trail where we parked, so we could walk Bella on the trail at the western edge of Harbourview Park. We came back along the boardwalk, and exited onto the trail again. We stopped on the observation platform that juts out from the boardwalk to see how much further down the water level in the harbour is. We were shocked at how low it has dropped: at least 1.5m, if not 2m below the maximum.
The rocks you can see on the ground sticking out like dolmen stones used to be underwater (the largest of them were sunk into the harbour in the 1990s to provide spawning sites for bass). All that new grassland you can see in the panorama, above, was underwater not long ago. The platform itself used to perch above a metre of water: now it sits high above dry land, and the edge of water is about 50-75m away. There are sandbars and small islands emerging near the shore where once the land was deep under a metre or more of water.
How long before the western end of the bay disappears completely?
This summer was one of, if not the driest, I can recall. Climate change is here and affecting all of us, no matter what nonsense and pseudoscience the conservative naysayers (corporate lackeys) and MAGA cultists spew.
Another concern is that the terminals (the grain elevator on the far side of the bay) sit on 4,000 oak pillars. That wood, laid down in 1928 when the elevator was built, is, I understand, fine when it’s underwater, but can decay when exposed to air. And it sure looks like the top portions are being exposed to air. What does that say about the stability of the building? How can it be mitigated? Or fixed? What condition are they in now?
Given that our council approved a 24-storey elite, millionaires’ waterfront condo to tower above the current structure, and promised to use taxpayer funds (at least $16 million in 2022) to build the infrastructure for the private, for-profit condo-hotel development, I would think the town would be deeply concerned about the condition of those footings. But, of course, all we hear from townhall is silence.*
Sunday:
A second day of unexpected fall heat. I began with another 20-minute pedal session, followed by the rest of my exercises. Did 15 minutes in the afternoon, followed by the second set. Since I am writing this before the evening, I will do my third set before and after dinner, usually ending with another 10-12-minute pedal.
I am walking more easily without the cane, and only use it indoors a very few times (still have it nearby for when I get up to pee, though). I still take it with me when we go outside, in large part because it is necessary when walking on our broken, uneven roads and sidewalks, or on the trail. Some of the local streets look like the surface of the moon, there are so many patches and potholes. But my confidence in walking unsupported indoors is growing.
Our trail walk (above) after breakfast was perhaps 1km, perhaps longer. We didn’t go out for a walk in the afternoon because it was too hot for Bella, reaching 31C according to our thermometer. Crazy warm for October. I’m not complaining, but at this time of year, I’d prefer it to be a bit cooler. Better for sleeping, too.
Lying on my stomach, using my strap over my head to pull my operated leg into a forced bend during my exercises, makes me think of the flagellants who beat themselves with whips to purify themselves of emotions. Not that I do it for religious reasons, of course, but it does feel like I’m punishing myself when I pull hard. Am I similarly mortifying my flesh? Maybe in my imagination. At least I don’t do it publicly, as the flagellants often did.
Today, for the first time in many weeks, I wore sandals. I’ve been a bit leery of wearing anything on my feet that didn’t have a solid base and protection, just in case they might slip or slide and cause my knee problems, but the sandals felt great in the current heat. I have not yet tried wearing flip-flops, but it might be a tad too early for that. And by the time I’m ready, it will certainly be a lot coolder than it was this weekend.
This week I begin my sixth week of physiotherapy. I’ll know at the end of the week whether I continue under their guidance or am left to do it on my own.
Doomscrolling: The rage-farming Trump mimic, Pierre PoiLIEvre, has decided to fully embrace MAGA pseudo-Christian Nationalist ideology (aka fascism or often called Naziism). He recently declared that Christians “may be the number 1 victims of hate-based violence.” But according to Statistics Canada data, the majority of hate crimes targeting a religion reported by police in 2023 were directed at Jews (70%) and Muslims (16%). That means the vast majority are against non-Christians. Facts never let PoiLIEVre get in the way of his rage campaign.
“One hundred churches have been burned,” [the lying weasell] PoiLIEvre said. “Christians may be the number 1 group that are victims of hate-based violence. But, of course, it’s not politically correct to say that.”
There were a total of 1,284 hate crimes targeting a religion that year — a sharp 67 per cent increase from 2022, and a phenomenon largely driven by more police-reported incidents against Jewish (900 hate crimes) and Muslim (211) communities… CBC News probed some Canadian church burnings carried out between 2021 and 2023 and found 33 such incidents. Fourteen of those fires took place on First Nations reserves and 13 were in small or rural towns.
The lying PoiLIEvre is playing the MAGA-Talibangelist blame game, using the myth that Christians are, and always have been, persecuted — by people of colour; by people of other faiths; by secular humanists; by atheists; by liberals; by anyone woke; by people who aren’t the same limited shade of Christianity they profess to, like Catholics and Mormons; by late-night talk show hosts; separation-of-church-and-state advocates… Perpetuating that myth allows them to feel self-righteous in using violence against their imagined enemies. Retribution is a big part of the MAGA hate playbook.**
The weasel-word spewing PoiLIEvre also said,
“this anti-Christian hate needs to stop,” and he pledged a tougher criminal stance to try and tamp it out, including mandatory prison terms for extortionists, stronger laws against hate crimes, the deportation of foreign criminals and more resources for police and border services
Get that? No mention of hate crimes against Jews or Muslims, but he spews the MAGA deport-people-of-colour line, and to ramp up punishment (including, bizarrely, extortionists), because CONservative love throwing people in prison and punishing them. It’s their way of showing how “Christian” they are. And PoiLIEvre is singing in their choir. Yes, hate crimes are a problem that must be dealt with, but not by stoking more rage, more violence, more fear. Not a word from the Trump mimic about tolerance, education, multiculturalism, or empathy.
Imagine all the things that challenge or threaten Canada: the dictator Trump’s threats to our sovereignty and his economy-wrecking tariffs; the housing crisis; the climate crisis; inflation; Russian cyberattacks; the demolition of democracy by Putin’s puppets (like Trump); the threat of separatism from anti-Canadian MAGA-loving, treasonous Danielle Smith… and PoiLIEvre chose to pick imaginary Christian persecution as his platform. His base must revel in his rage.
The history of the Christian persecution myth is well covered by Candida Moss in her book, The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented A Story of Martyrdom (Harper Collins, 2013). It’s not a recent story. The rightwing pseudo-Christians who take up this call don’t care about faith: they care about power, money, and controlling others. Ever hear one quote the Beatitudes? No: they always have some verse to justify their hate and oppression of others.
The far right are driving a rage storm against immigrants under the guise of alleged “Christian persecution;” it’s already taking root in Canada and PoiLIEvre is exploiting it.***
Notes:
* Our council, in its “wisdom,” has also decided to donate 85% of the publicly-owned, waterfront Millennium Park to the for-profit developers so they could have a parking lot for free. Did the public get a say in this bonusing? Nope. After all, what did the taxpayers ever do for the park? Aside from creating it, naming it, helping design it, and making it a popular place for residents and visitors alike. But the town has let it go to seed…
** Note they never raise the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, the witch burnings, the unending violence Christians have perpetrated against other faiths, against other Christians who didn’t share their particular version of the faith, against women, against pagans, against natives, against slaves… well, against everyone they didn’t like. And what did PoiLIEvre say about the horror of residential schools and the abuse of children by Christians? Nothing, of course.
*** The sixteenth teaching of the Bhagavad Gita includes these verses (trans. Barbara Stoler Miller, Bantam Books, 1986). Does this sound like any US dictator and his cabal, or perhaps the top members of the CONservative caucus:
Demonic men cannot comprehend
activity and rest;
there exists no clarity,
no morality, no truth in them…Mired in this view, lost to themselves,
with their meagre understanding,
these fiends contrive terrible acts
to destroy the world.Subject to insatiable desire,
drunk with hypocrisy and pride,
holding false notions from delusion,
they act with impure vows.
The second verse, above, as translated by Ranchor Prime (Barron, 2003):
Holding these misguided views and lost to themselves, they become enemies of the world, flourishing through harmful and destructive acts.
Words: 1,627
