H IS FOR HARD TIMES — STILL WITH US.

When I look at news, one of the stories which always gets my has to do with jobs and statistics. As  rule of thumb, I believe things are good when the number of jobs is growing. And, as a rule of thumb, the real unemployment rate is about twice what the government says it is. In Canada, the United States, and elsewhere, I suspect.

But, in relation to unemployment, I also think of the 1930s. Like the years since the 2008 financial near-total collapse, those were hard times.

My long-time friend The Blog Fodder sent me a note about this some time ago. It is Mavis Staples version of Stephen Foster's old song, Hard Times Come Again No More. 

That is something I think we would all like to see. The end of hard times. For everyone.

Sadly, I believe there are those who get rich when the hard times come, and who wouldn't want to see that reality change.

IN WHICH BEAR HAS PECULIAR EXPERIENCE IN THE BUSH

As you realize, Bear has been very involved in "Occupy Saskatoon." One of the roughly 2,000 Occupy groups around the world.

Monday night, Bear and other "Occupiers" were at the regular meeting of Saskatoon City Council. We had a chance to chat with Council. And found some fairly enthusiastic response. (Meaning the Mayor, I think, actually had to bite his tongue.)  Truth is, you see, we got "in their face." We did it gently. That's the Canadian way. But I mean, really, when we've exposed the need, and are acting on it (housing homeless people), I think we have every right to speak up.

You already know Occupy Saskatoon had been "occupied" by a bunch of homeless people. So, their welfare and future became an immediate concern. Yes, in Saskatoon one can have a job and be homeless at the same time. Such is the price of rent (unless you want to share your place with rats, cockroaches, and bed bugs).

We weren't there to "fight city hall"; we were there to have a conversation with City Council. After all, we are "Occupy Saskatoon: Join the Conversation." (That's our full title.) Our goal is really to occupy peoples' minds, with questions of fairness, health, reasonable incomes and appropriate living standards for all. And then have a conversation.

But earlier today, we got the word that the City was planning to evict us from our location. It's a city park, with about as much bush as grassland. Great camping site; lots of protection from the elements. The word we received was that the police would be there at 6:00 p.m. for a "conversation." So a whole hockey sock full* of us were there to take on the . . . not police?!

Nope. Nary a constable nor sergeant to be seen. Nor the Inspector (Captain, for you Americans), who had talked with us last week.

Instead, a man from the Salvation Army's centre and a very friendly elected Councillor for the city (who used to be a community organizer in his past life).

Hmmmm. What is this? Two people who like us? Two people who support us? Two people who want to work with us? Wonders never cease!

Turns out that the City doesn't want to evict us; the major concern is for our health and safety. A "Won't you come in out of the cold?" gesture. Which was, obviously, not what we thought we would face.

So we did the very Canadian thing. We stood around the camp fire and had a friendly chat about the whole situation. And discovered some possible solutions. (No, we didn't quite get to singing "Kum by yah"; I left my banjo at home.)

We've agreed we're going to keep framing the conversation in "health and safety" language. Because that's what it is; that's the issue — people's health and safety.

"The System" could end up housing a bunch of Occupiers. Perhaps in the same place, to keep our community together. Which might even give us all some meeting space. I suggested (later) that we should call it "Occupy Saskatoon House." And when it gets too full, because of the extra people who come in, we'll let "the System" find a second house for those who won't fit in the first place.

Who? Me? Subversive? Perish the thought. 

Yes, I know; I should be hibernating. But, uh, well, I'm having way too much fun. We're actually starting to solve an immediate problem. Emphasis on "starting." Nobody has had to admitted defeat. Nobody feels like a loser. It's not "them and us"; it's "us and us." I mean, why quit when you're making progress?

Makes the ol' Bear's heart feel good.
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* That's Canadianism for "a whole lot." Anyone who knows how much protective gear one wears when playing ice hockey, and how big a sock one needs to cover said gear on one's legs — such a person understands entirely. ;))

UNEMPLOYMENT (A-Z CHALLENGE)

"Unemployment isn't working." ~ Anon.

Yes, it's true. Sigh!

For the first time in a very, very long time, Bear isn't working. Bear is unemployed.

Of course, I'm retired, and drawing several pensions. I'm not facing the hard times most people face when their work ends.  But that's not the point.

I've been writing (with some friends) a regular column for a Canadian newspaper for about ten years. I was told last week, just before I submitted my latest piece, that the paper is making changes, and there is no space for us because of the changes. So our contract is ended, at least for the time being, after my last column. Sic transit gloria mundi.

There really was a shock to the whole thing. One day I had a job; later in the day, I didn't.

I can begin to feel what others have felt with such news.

Ironically, I was the one who ended up comforting our editor. She genuinely felt badly about letting us go. She hated the idea of talking to us about the situation. I said I would break the news to my colleagues, and we might come back to her with something. She called me "kind" for doing that. But that's just Bear being Bear. You know that.

Just because I'm retired, there's no reason why I have to give up everything in the wording world; the working world.

I suppose I could go on looking for work. The little bit of income (pocket change, really) was useful. It would mean more research, queries to editors, etc.

Or I could be content just to do my volunteer work with several different ethics committees (about one meeting a month, on average). And, of course, keeping up with my blogs. There will be two of those starting sometime in July.

Honestly, I've done enough of working. I have other goals to accomplish with my beloved J. That's what I really want to do. Other things come after that.

Lawrence Peter Berra put it succinctly: "It ain't over 'til it's over."

Guess what, Yogi. It's over!

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Also brought to you by the letter U:
• understanding
• ubiquitous
• unsettled
• ultra
• unlimited

And in the New Phonetic alphabet: U for me.

MORE CHANGES, INCLUDING DISASTER

I'll start with the simple.

I decided, at the end of my last post, to "try to get myself looking presentable." As if such a thing were possible.

But, by pre-arrangement, I am using a picture of me snapped by Genie's daughter, Holly, at Paris and Beyond. Now this is a good picture!

But there are bigger things than me. Much bigger.

One of my first discoveries, upon waking, was that Japan had experienced of a massive earthquake and tidal wave (tsunami).  I saw the pictures of the tsunami hitting village and city alike, rolling over and sweeping away everything that stood before it.

I remember a reporter picking a porcelain doll out of the detritus at the Sendai airport. There was wreckage from  all over — construction materials to cars. And I wondered. Was this doll owned by some little girl? Is she alive or dead? Did she treasure this doll? Will it ever get back to her?

Perhaps the most frightening thing for me was the ongoing story of nuclear reactor failures, and the threat those failures pose — for Japan, and the rest of us. How big is the radioactive plume? How far will it spread? What will be the consequences of Japan's electrical industry? How will this affect other nuclear installations? (I've seen a story that Germany is shutting down any pre-1980 nuclear plants for inspection; there is question of whether any of these will reopen.) And what lies ahead for children, even un-born children, who were caught in the wrong place during this nuclear disaster?

It is said the Japanese people are both stoic and resilient. They will rebuild. At the cost of a few trillion dollars, perhaps.

"HARD TIMES COME AGAIN ONCE MORE"

As a writer, I often draw inspiration from my readers. And I have many wonderful readers, whose presence and comments I appreciate. You really do make my day.

This is a case in I am drawing some inspiration from my dear bloggy friend, Joanne. And thank you, Joanne.

I'm referring to a comment from "Reasons" in relation to my post, "Hard Times Come Again No More". (If you're not reading Joanne at Reasons to be Cheerful, 1, 2, 3, you should be; she is one very gutsy lady, and writes very well, too!)

Her point, in my relation to my last post, was that things in Britain are a lot better than in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. And she is absolutely correct! Things are better in Britain. In lots of places they may not be. But in Britain they are. In Canada, too. And the United States. Still, there are lots of individuals, in Britain, Canada, and the US, for whom life is really terrible.

But there was one particular bit that made me stop and think. In reference to Britain's system of benefits (the "social safety net," if you will), she notes it is "under threat now due to abuse."

That word "abuse" always causes me to pause and wonder. Abuse of whom, by whom, to what end?

There has long been a myth, in the United States, and I think elsewhere, that people abuse the health care system. Yet good research studies by doctors themselves show this is rarely the case. I know that a lot more people end up in hospital Emergency Departments, often because their family doctors tell them to go there, particularly in evenings and on weekends. And often people end up in Emergency Departments because they do not have a family doctor, since many doctors have so many patients they will not take any more. (Why take on more patients than one can care for adequately?) The research is corroborated by the stories of "front-line" hospital personal with whom I serve on health care ethics committees.The matter is further confounded by a lack of specialists in the medical system (at least in Canada, and, I suspect, in Britain), when compared to the needs of patients.

So, when I hear of "the system being abused," I wonder what is really happening, and whether this is more perception than fact. I don't know, but I wonder.

I think the larger threats to the health care system in Britain (and in Canada, as well as the United States) have come from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are wars being fought for dubious reasons, with very mixed consequences.

I've always believed that, for any government, the first concerns need to be the health and education of its people. (When I say "health," I include effective access to good food and clean water.)

The problem is that wars are expensive. And the money to fight them has to come from somewhere. So, why not take money away from health and education to fight the war? And if that is being done, does that constitute "abuse" of people by their government?

And while I agree that "it was much worse then than it is now," are we seeing a significant reversing of the trend? How far might that go?

These are the kinds of things that keep me awake at night, thinking. 

What's a Bear to do?

"HARD TIMES COME AGAIN NO MORE"

My long-time friend The Blog Fodder recently drew my attention to Stephen Collins Foster's plaintive "Hard Times Come Again No More."

It's s song of hope amidst hopelessness, I think. While the song dates from 1854, the images connected to Mavis Staples rendition come from the 1930s in the U.S.A. But as Da Blog Fodder notes, "I could find pictures every bit as tragic today here in rural Ukraine or any part of the FSU" (Former Soviet Union).

The song is posted on You Tube.  The words by themselves are cause for reflection.

If Stephen Foster's name seems familiar to you, I'm not surprised. You would associate him with such songs as, "Oh, Susanna," "Camptown Races," "Beautiful Dreamer," "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," as well as "Old Black Joe," Old Kentucky Home," and "Old Folks at Home" (often called "Suwannee River").

Foster was born in Pennsylvania in 1826, and lived all his life in the Northern States. While he had some education, he never finished college. Though he did some musical writing during his youth, it wasn't until he became bookkeeper for this brother's steamship line in 1846 that he began to focus on his music.

Foster eventually married and moved to New York. Yet he made little money, as publishers often paid him nothing for his work that they printed. His wife, with their daughter, eventually left him, and he died with three pennies in his pocket, at the age of 37, in 1864.

Ironically, in 1854, the same year as Foster's song, British author Charles Dickens began work on his tenth novel, which he published in serial form that year. In it, Dickens described the effect of The Industrial Revolution on the life of England's poor, the working conditions of those who laboured in what William Blake called "the dark Satanic mills," and the massive gap between the life styles of factory owners and those who made the fortunes for those owners. It was the beginning of the industrial gap between "the rich" and "the rest of us" — the gap which still plagues our world today. 

Dickens' novel: Hard Times.