Monday Morning Journal

I’m pleased that I’m awake. I slept well. Gilbert joined me in the wee hours. Reassuring to feel his little body pressed up against my back.

It was chilly.  My first thought. Pulling the blanket over my shoulder

A touch of autumn chill in the summer time air.  This August uncertain weather. Rain yesterday.  Premonitions.  PTSD.

I meditated. Nothing special. Going through the motion. Quaker, contemplation.  Silence. Calling on the Holy Spirit. Breathing. Reminding oneself that breath is where it’s at. The often forgotten breathing that is the motor of life.  

Coffee, granola, yoghurt

Facebook.

Gospel Riders put up a Larry Norman song.  Never heard the guy. Listen to his song.  Why not ask Jesus.  See that Janis Joplin sang it to. But didn’t listen to herself.  We’re all like that. Advice we give others we don’t take ourself.  What about Jesus?  

I picked up the bible yesterday and put it down. I have the Big Book by my couch and haven’t read it this week. I mean to do so many good things. Write a book about the Christian diaspora.  Write another addiction book. 

 I cleaned my desk a bit so I could begin writing travels with Gilbert.  I’ve been thinking of all the little ‘repairs’ that need doing.  I let them expand in my mind, minor tasks, nothing critical but they become the focus and I flog myself. Steal the joy of the day with focus on what ‘needs’ to be done.  

I was in a spiritual whirl wind in Tennessee. I read cyberdocs and others share their joy.  I’m grieving a bit. Another year before we meet. Then Phillip is meeting in Serbia in October, Hope Alive’s annual meeting. I’d like to be there.  But I’m in India in the fall. . This week another round up at Salt Spring.  Camping. Spiritual speakers. Sharing.  Learning more about the disease of addiction.  

I’m not joyous and free.  I’m laboured. I’m a little lethargic.  I read about the enthusiasm of childhood and wonder at all the trauma and mixed days that have me again fearing leaving the house. No good reason today. But I really could hide under the blankets till next I’d have to pee.  I’m going through the motions. I’d rather be skipping school. 

Jesus loved children and saw that we’d have to be childlike to get into heaven. Innocence and naivety no , but open hearted, trusting. I trust God. Not the world.  I mostly fear being falsely accused and hammered by the government. I fear reporting killers and rapists and experiencing the retaliation of truth telling. I fear that I’ll not walk by and say nothing when cruelty occurs.  I fear getting pulled into helping others again only to be punished like them.  I’ve been an ally of the sick, disenfranchised, marginal, stigmatized, old and very young.  I’ve been bullied like them..

Now it’s pretty good.  I’m not alone.  But old. I’m not too marginalized now..  I’m condemned for experience age and knowledge.  I hurt. Physically.  That’s the weather change.  The coming of the cold. 

I’m here to celebrate. There’s dancing on Salt Spring. Hopefully I’ll see Kirk.  I tried seeing Tom on the weekend. It’s as good to see others. I like the encounters.  History.  Our personal relationships.  Old friends.  Even old enemies are not so bad. 

I’m blessed really.  I have so much to be thankful for but instead of looking at all the blessings I’m condemning myself for the dirty dishes.  I’ve a scratch on the truck that needs a white pen to repair it. I used a clear pen already to stop rust but I need to stop at the dealer and get  another white touch up pen.  

My mind has always been like that. Constantly focused on repairs and not enough on thankfulness. I just looked up and saw the fridge magnets where the glorious travel spots and memories are displayed. I rarely look at the surroundings.  There in the corner is the picture I took so many years ago in Oxford when I thought first to be a doctor.  Now I want to be a writer again.  I feel I’ve done my bit.  I’ve served. I’m amused that in my mind my ‘life of service’ ended with 65.” The arbitrariness. Now I’m on borrowed time.  

I still get asked if I want to be a doctor. I certainly say yes. I love healing and helping people who are ill. But medicine is co opted by the government that has no boundaries and micromanages everyone as if we are their employee. Few of us are. Most of us are contractors but they’re ruling us now like we were military conscripts. They are boorish bullies without boundaries and no grace. They are self serving ignorant thugs. Doctors who have sold their soul to the company store. Collaborators for cash. 

So I ask myself , why am I working for a corrupt organization that is so often causing the deaths I’m trying to prevent.  More and more people are denied what they were promised or have as their due and I’m being an ‘advocate’ rather than doing therapy.

 I’m writing letters for them to government agencies and insurance agencies because these bullies have coopted the medical system and turned us into ‘police’.  We are “ policing “ for the government and insurance. 

 “You must have a doctor ‘co sign’ your illness’. Everyone is now a criminal in Canada and reduced to bad child by these agencies of evil.  Overnight the bank might as well tell adult Canadians you need a doctor to ‘co-sign’ your having a bank cheque.

I’m less impressed with my organizations that take millions of dollars and pay them selves richly but haven’t stood up to these bullies that demand doctors write bullshit. I just referred a patient to a university department and my colleague’s beurocratic entity demanded several pages of hand written data as a barrier to my getting service for my patient. 

 “Hi John, would you see my patient?”  

“Sure Bill, send them over.”  

That was what we did. I’m a highly trained specialist. He’s a highly trained specialist. I wouldn’t ask his help if I didn’t need it. He trusts my judgement. I trust his.  We make the call. Now there’s a dozen layers of costly beurocracy.

Now the patient demands a full body scan for the common cold and if we don’t give it the government beats up the doctor with committee tribunals.  

I”m afraid to go to work.  I’m afraid of the bully bureaucracy.  The College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC is utterly insensitive and the University, the Canadian Medical Association and The Canadian Psychiatric Association, all these administrative sorts, are paid for paper pushing. They serve themselves. They don’t serve the doctor or the patient. 

I have to gird myself to go into that hell of idiocy. Monday morning brings this out. Health care beurocracy phobia.

My favourite recent example is the 5th multi million dollar ‘investigation into the missing women’ of the northern BC all the while the bus line that stopped the girls from hitchhiking in he north was closed for lack of funding.  It was the same idiocy that had a million dollars of lighting put in campuses to protect the privileged university girls from rape where rape was as rare as intelligence when a mile away the rape stats where highest in the impoverished areas where municipalities couldn’t afford lights.

That’s what I see.

So I don’t want to be a doctor and deal with low IQ burearocrats chosen for their never having studied Nuremberg or read ‘totalitarian societies’. On their interviews they are asked have your read Kafka’s “the Castle” or 1984. If they answer yes they don’t get the job. Cowards are promoted. 

Meanwhile I seem to have a psychological issue with authority. I’m carrying a whole lot of character flaws. I ‘m impatient. I’m critical. I’m judgemental. I’ve got a whole lot of work to do on my own self so why point a finger at the ‘face of government’.  I’ve got to be more grateful.

The fact is the Canadian bureaucrat is quite possibly more intelligent that his fellow species of dung beatle the world over. I’m comparing him to perfection rather than remembering that everyone in the world wants to come to Canada for health care because I as the doctor have been subjected to ‘rent control’ for 30 years, underpaid, over worked and without corruption.  Canada is the best of a bad lot.

I’m here. It’s my choice to be here. I’m doing this work. I say to pay for my truck but I don’t even need to have any of these ‘things’. I was touched by my friends living overseas for cheap.  I don’t want to join Doctors Without Borders and face another bureaucracy.  I just want to go to work here today and be more child like. I want to appreciate the sick bureaurcrats killing Canadians on behalf of the corrupt government which is less corrupt than other political structures.  

I want to count my blessings. I want to think more of Jesus. I want to be good at heart. I ‘d better shower.  

The problem is me.

I miss Milton. He used to say he had a sticker on his mirror that said, ‘you’re looking at the problem.’  

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change

The courage to change the things I can

And the wisdom to know the difference.

Okay thanks for the pep talk Jesus.  I ‘love shower shave and go out the door and face the ‘complaints department of life’.  

Bio

Psycho

Social

Spiritual

That’s the work I’m trained to do, hear a concern and work together to see it as 4 dimensional and develop a strategy of working together with the patient to achieve a resolution.

The phobia for the unknown stranger exists because for years I’ve been assailed with constant impossible demands. Only a fraction of humans are reasonable. Unreasonable people sick are even more unreasonable.Reasonable people are unreasonable people when they’re sick it doesn’t help that the boss is even sicker.

“I have this problem doctor. I want a pill like cocaine that’s medically approved.  “

I want you to tell my employer I’m sick

I want you to make my insurance pay me to go to India

I want you to lie for me.

I want you to tell my husband I can’t have sex

 I want you to give me money

I want you to do as I tell you.

If you don’t do as I tell you, see this gun, I’m going to kill you.

If you dont’ so as I tell you, I’m going to complain to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC and they’re going to believe me. (who is lying ) over you because they always do. I’ve already complainedd to a dozen agencies and they’ve all hurt everyone I don’t like because I’m bigger and tougher than them all.

If you don’t do as I tell you I’ve going to get my lawyer to ruin you.

If you upset me I’m going to stalk you and the police aren’t going to do anything 

If you don’t do as I tell you I’m going to kill your dog. I already killed your last dog. I’ll kill this dog. 

If you don’t do as I tell you I’m going to threaten your wife. I threatened that second one didn’t I.

If you don’t do as I tell you I’m going to scream and have a scene.

If you don’t do as I tell you I’m going to destroy the walls of the building and your landlord is going to evict you , remember when I did that?

If you don’t do as I tell you I’m going to punch you in the face, remember all the times I did that? 

Now hurry up and get me -housing, hospital beds, money, drugs, lawyers, sex, services.

You’re just here to do stuff for me. That’s what the others do. You are here to do as I tell you.

Google says you’re supposed to do this.

My pharmacist told me that you’re supposed to do this.

My herbalist told me you were no good and you should do this.

My mother told me she read your blog and you’re sicker than I am

You called my brother a pedophile and put him in jail and I’m going to pay you back for that.

You can’t write that down.

I don’t want my boss to be able to hear what we said. You’re supposed to be confidential. The insurance company gets this.

I’ve had sex with my doctors and I don’t trust doctors.

I’m having sex with my lawyer and he’s willing to sue anyone I want as long I keep giving him blow jobs.

My friend is the Premier

Do you know I have more money than you’ll ever see and I could buy this hospital.

My brothers are hell’s angels so you’d better do as I tell you.

All of that’s true.

Knives gunshots punches.

And the worst is the College bureaurcrats acting like they are superior and blaming you for being shot at. Virtue signalling syncophants, 

Well it’s the way you communicate. People who have never been on the real frontlines, have never certified a dangerously insane person in the community, have never had a pedophil arrested, have never treated escorts with ptsd or lying lawyers or multi millionaire power brokers or mafia, silly suburban doctors picked for promotion because of their ignorance and inexperience, have the arrogance and grandiosity to act and talk like they “know”. 

I miss Dr. Brown. I miss the old guys who had similiar experiences, had rolled up their shirt sleeves and could talk with authority. These people today  are wannabes, wankers,  and get arrogant and superior when you call them on their inexperience and safe protected lives in institutions and good neighbourhoods.

It was years after the plane crash I couldn’t fly but I got back up in the air and now I’ll go out the door again. Life is an adventure.  I used to do counterphobic stuff. I used to think if I drove my Harley and sailed through storms and did white water canoeing I could be less troubled by the social stupidity.  Now I don’t know.

Now I think the answer really is Jesus. 

Political Internet Addiction, Hockey Values, Social Contract

I must first acknowledge that politics is above my pay grade. I am a peasant.  As a middle class , even upper middle class, Canadian I really have very little influence on Canadian politics.  Around the world politics is a game played by a very very few.  I think the ‘club’ membership of those who actually are the real ‘players’ in the game is something like a billion. I used to think millionaires were allowed in the room to watch and maybe cheer and boo but I’m pretty jaded.  It might even be that you need 10 billion dollars to sit at the game tables or a hundred billion dollars.
When I have gone to a casino I’ve suffered losing $20 dollars so politics by contrast is really high stakes poker. It’s a war game between this one multi billionaire team and another multi billionaire team.
So why am I hooked on the internet media politics game show.  It’s pretty much the same for me as hockey.  I don’t play hockey today but I did as a kid.  I actually last played hockey on an “old timers league”.  But that was decades ago.
Politically, as a kid I was on my high school student council executive and president of a city religious youth organization. I was even a city representative to the youth parliament in the capital. At university I participated. I was editor of a unversity newspaper and wrote political articles. I’ve read countless books on politics, all the classics, and studied history extensively, at the post graduate level, and routinely discuss politics with professors in political science, economics, game theory, war college, social science, ecology,  or any of the areas politics might be relevant.
At the professional level I was on the executive of the specialists association and served on hospital committees and other work related committees. I’ve been on executives and even  board members of socially relevant organizations.  I’ve been a debater and public speaker and appeared on television and radio.   I’ve been to the business meetings and participated in the organizational meetings of the social and spiritual clubs I’ve belonged too. Most people would call me that often maligned word , “joiner”, when really I’m a hermit.  I’ve managed some form of business profitably for nearly half a century and employed dozens of people throughout that time. I’ve even managed major projects with an amazing number of moving parts and expertise and people involved to achieve world class results.
I’ve met and shook the hands of 4 prime ministers, spent a day with one, had dinner with another, met a much larger number of federal and provincial ministers, have had friends who are members of cabinet, congressmen and senators. I’ve been that close to the action.  I’ve actually voted in countless elections and participated in political parties most of my adult life, even to the point of giving thousands of dollars to the political parties, much like I’ve supported my church.  I often wonder what these ‘charitable contributions’ say about my sanity, or faith, since often I feel I’m supporting both sides of the equation. Politics seems to be paving the way to hell whereas Religion often points the way to heaven.  Not only that, they’re  often in bed with each other making it highly hypocritical when either talks about sex.
Still I’m at very most a bit player.  Canadians are little more than Jamaicans on the international scene. It’s not like we’re China, or Russia, or America or Britain or Saudi Arabia.  I’m in Vancouver and it’s not New York, Beijing, Moscow or Mexico City.  Our Capital City Ottawa barely recognizes Vancouver’s existence. And Victoria the capital city of our province often doesn’t acknowledge the existence of Vancouver.  I have long ago accepted my irrelevance to most everyone else but myself and my dog.
The point is though, politically,  I really do have ‘skin’ in the ‘game’.  Most people who talk or riot about politics in my opinion don’t. It’s  often very apparent to me from fatuous comments. Much like hearing a person pompously saying that the goalie wasn’t any good in last nights game because he let the football past him several times.  On the other hand curious children and those who are humble adults often have the most insightful comments such as ‘why is the woman shouting instead of using her microphone?’ Much like the child who says the goalie should have caught the puck with his glove rather trying to bat it with his stick.
At  the end of the day I’m really no more relevant to the grand political game than I am watching the Canucks win or lose in a hockey game.  I once said hello to, now memory may fail me, but I think it was Rocket Richard and I got his autograph on my hockey card. At that moment I really was important in the whole world of hockey and impressed all my little buddies no end.
I have always taught that in the grand scheme of things, I am “insignificantly significant” and “significantly insignificant’.
In politics and in hockey I am a ‘fan’.  I’m the fan base.  That’s what these ‘entertainment/marketting’ organizations want and depend upon.
Admittedly my “sports fan’ buddy puts more time and money into his ‘hobby’.  He spends literally days and weeks of hours of time watching the sports channel and has seasons tickets to sports events that cost thousands of dollars. He’s got the funny hats and funny numbered shirts and really does bore people much more than I do.
I’d argue my interest in politics is more relevant.  My participation in politics at the local level has kept the city or province or organization ticking along.  My friends wife believes that the sports associations of the world have all benefit from her husbands money supporting them more than they do her or her kids. A lot of people support casinos, liquor stores and marijuana outlet stores too so my friend has a relative superiority to those low lifes.  I personally accept that as he supports the Canucks among the many teams he follows he can’t be that ungodly.  I’m not sure his wife sees things as I do.
There are however decisions that need to be made to keep hospitals open or to fund emergency shelters and I’ve really helped in the lubrication of that process.  I’ve liked the voluntary aspect of it.
But increasingly politics as opposed to sports has been saying ‘if you don’t join me you will die’.  One of the reason’s I’ve liked hockey better than soccer is that hockey is generally more of a ‘gentleman’s sport’.  Soccer is so very low brow that they routinely have riots in the stands. Occasionally a couple of hockey players might have a go at it on the ice but it’s extremely rare for one teams fans to attack another teams fans.
The Vancouver hockey riots increased my interest in politics because nothing says more about the decline of Canadian civilization than hockey fans rioting.  I don’t think I even read an internet political post before the Vancouver Hockey Riots. Odd, looking back ,that that would be such an important night. I thought the police were great that night but had real mixed feelings about the politicians.   Canada used to be a civilized country.  Soccer fans have been rioting and killing each other forever but Canadians simply were above that sort of behaviour.  Canadians had a higher set of values. We were a cultured people. Hockey was a cultured sport.
But the worst was the realization that the Judges  and Politicians didn’t understand history, hockey, politics or Canada. The judges were the real disappointment.  Indeed if there had been riots when the judges light sentences were dispensed after they were  paid  millions for their political decision I would have been less concerned . These rioting  animals who claimed to be hockey fans got off with sentences that would only encourage future riots for any occasion. This ‘test riot’ in a major Canadian city must now be the beginning of riots and more riots.
Indeed my interest in internet politics followed the  violence among hockey fans.  It was apparent that rich and poor elements were  inciting  that violence. Low brow elements were paid for by the highest.  War was being encouraged and frankly I felt frightened after the judges decision because  I have come to realize I’m  bit old to fight. It really was decades ago that I played in the Old Timer’s Hockey League.  
I also feel there is no where to escape to.   I have visitted Cappadocia where Christians hid underground and built underground churches. I have visitted Meteora where Christians built monasteries on mountain peaks.  But there seems no place for a poor Christian to hide today.  The rich are building space ships.
Meanwhile the thugs are even soiling hockey and the judges and the politicians are encouraging them.  Older, I want law and order but am left with memories of hockey rioters breaking into jewelry stores and fur stores and stealing hoards.  In one night a group of young thugs took financially what it would take me a lifetime or two to earn by working. And frankly it looked easy and tempting. It looked even more tempting when  I saw that the judges only slapped the wrists of rioters.
I watched with interest as gangs of Islamic rapist sexually assaulted gorgeous young western women in Cologne and the Politicians and Judges of the EU first denied it then gave only light sentences to the offenders. . It looked so easy.  A gang of young men could surround a beautiful vulnerable young woman and rape her without any consequences to the offenders.
There is martial law in France, not because of Muslims but because of the gangs of young Islamic men that the government has let into the country whose violence their judges at first supported until now all the citizens of France have soldiers daily on their streets.
I don’t trust this government in Canada, let alone world governments.
 I’m not safe.   The Social Contract is broken in Canada.  The Social Contract I worked for and paid into all my life is no longer supported by my own government or the law courts.  I am losing faith that I will be cared for in my old age. I’m losing faith that there will be doctors or nurses or medicine for me when I’m sick and dying. I am seeing that there will be committee meetings and there will be politics and marketing and advertising people calling things what they are not.
But now that we have hockey riots and judges who support the destruction of the social contract I am more afraid.  Watching the political internet I’m like a gambling addict watching the dice roll on the casino table,  I am really hoping for snake eyes.  If the dice roll snake eyes maybe it will be safe for me to go outside. Right now as things are it’s not safe on Canadian streets.  Rioters are puffed up and swaggering, brown shirted and confident.  The young men go in groups.  I don’t know when they will snap.  They have tremendous encouragement to do so.  Just south of the border there are riots all the time now.  There it was supposedly for a police shooting or for an election. But everytime there are riots people seem to get away with stealing millions and millions of dollars worth of hard earned goods. They also destroy houses, police cars and ambulances and burn down buildings.
 On the street I’ve had groups of young men who appeared stoned  shove past me. They’ve shown me some deference because I’m old but rather big.  They have literally pushed littler people and women out of their way as they swaggered down the street knowing they are safe because the judges and politicians don’t do anything against them.  Indeed I’m more afraid of judges and politicians because they only seem interested in taking money from law abiding citizens with more and more ludicous taxation and regulations while criminals are the only ones who appear to be ‘free’ in Canada, once land of the ‘free’.
One group with their pit bulls attacked me and my dog and I faced them down to protect my dog but I don’t walk on those city trails any more.   I remember mothers used to push their babies along those trails and others with little dogs walked them but now only the young men and women with pit bulls walk those trails or the adults who are bicycling or running.  It doesn’t take more than one incident to make an old person scared. We don’t feel we have second chances.
I actually still feel I’d capably kill a young bully but I don’t think I’d survive the trial process which might well find me guilty despite even witnesses saying I acted in self defence.  There is so much hatred for the old in Canada.  One man in his 90’s who killed a drug crazed home invader spent the next six months of his life facing a murder charge despite all the evidence eventually proving him guilt free.  He was punished as an old man first by the homicial drug crazed maniac home invader interested in stealing his television and then by the legal system playing its game of timeless resources and endless money while he waited to learn whether he would die in jail or not.
 Indeed if I reported the incident of the young man whose dog almost killed my dog or I  hurt more than the  young man’s pride by picking up his pit bull and throwing it in his face I’d be considered the ‘bad’ man.   Thugs go in groups.  They have witnesses to lie for them  In Canadians courts today perjury has no consequence. We see it routinely in such important national trials such as the Gian Gomeshi case. Perjury was blatant to all and even the judge but there was no consequence as those who lie are not jailed or made to pay for the injury of ‘false testimony’.
When I was growing up in Canada, the Canadian Christian value of
"Thou shalt not bear false witness” prevailed in the courts. Bearing of false witness was akin to murder and once a person lied in their testimony, all else that followed was considered false because their character was now defined by their lying  I have spent a life time of truth telling and believed that in court I was required to ’tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth’ . However when they took the Bible out of the courts it appears the judges began to celebrate the liars more.    
I no longer feel safe in the city.  For months a man who threatened to kill me and my dog continues to email me threats despite my contacting the police and the attorney general and blocking him.  Every few weeks I am faced with a  new threat  email . When I talk to others, now hundreds, they tell me, mostly women but also  men that they’ve threatened too and that there was little consequence to those who uttered threats and terrorized them sometimes for years. At most the police have given ‘restraining orders’ which are routinely broken with little consequence.
It’s like the whole issue of gun laws. Law abiding citizens with guns have a 99.9% safety record yet the government keeps restricting and fining this group while all the guns used in crimes appear to be by criminals with illegal weapons. Further repeat offenders increasingly are out of the street despite their recidivism.  Law abiding citizens are punished while criminals are not.  
A day doesn’t go by that someone doesn’t tell me another story of the breakdown of the social contract. Old men and women are homeless. Old men and women are kicked out of hospitals with no where to go. Old men and women have had their savings stolen. Old men and women are being taxed into poverty. A couple of friends who worked hard all their lives are now going to food banks to survive.
More and more my old people are as likely to die on waitlists as they are to get the care they were promised when they were young and worked for Canada believing the Social Contract would be in tact.
I am simply afraid.  I know if I an upper middle class Canadian  afraid then really most Canadians must be terrified when they watch their government and see the decisions of judges and watch the scourge of drug addiction in the city and see that millions are unemployed and that no more money is going to health care orto  the old people but rather it is being spent on palaces and foreign country silliness.
I really don’t think the church has anything much to offer me either. Marx said ‘religion is the opiate of the masses’ and my church has been as lamed brained about distant ideological social constructs while ignoring the poverty among their old. Individually they help but the rhetoric from above is often as space stationed as the nonsense from the politicians.  Everyone who is wealthy and powerful like Bishops and Judges and Government Ministers, Criminals  and Billionaires think I’m silly to be afraid too.
All I have really is  prayer.   And I’m the lucky one.