Gratitude coming home

Thank you God. Thank you Lord. Thank you.

Thank you for providing me work and the wherewithal to plan this expedition and adventure.

Thank you for the dreams and inspiration. Thank you for the motivation. Thank you for the vision.

Thank you for the training and planning and all the solo and group trips I’ve made prior to this.

Thank you for the internet and tourist industry. Thank you for the clinics that made it possible for us to be away.

Thank you for Karen who cared for Madigan and made it possible for us to leave feeling our baby was safe and well loved.

Thank you for air planes and pilots and staff and administration. Thank you for Delta and Air France. 

Our flights and service were all impeccable. 

Thank you for Flight Centre  Coquitlam, Linda Nankov and Shaelagh Chauncey,  with the Coquitlam teams.

Thank you for the Hilton in Edinburgh, the Marriott Residence Inn in Aberdeen, the mercury Hotel,Oxford, the Thistle Picadilly Hotel in London and the Citadines Apart’hotel Saint Germain des Pres Paris

Thank you for the British Northern Rail trains , the train from Edinburgh to Aberdeen, and the from Aberdeen to Oxford. Especially thank you for the Eurostar from London to Paris. Thank you for all the taxis.  Thanks you for iPhone with the maps.

Thank you for Pringle Edinburgh. Thank you for all the stores and shop keepers who were so helpful. Thank you for the bag pipe musician and salesman in Edinburtgh.  

Thank you for the art galleries and museum. The Military Museum of Scotland in the Edinburgh Castle, the Holyroodhouse, the Modern Art Gallery and the museum of Edinburgh with tribute to Grey Friars Bobby. Thank you for the hike to Arthur’s Seat. Thank you for the National Art Gallery and the Opera House of Scotland and the National Opera. 

Thank you for the Aberdeen Maritime Museum. Thank you for the Aberdeen Art Gallery.

Thank you for Angus Beef.

Thank you for Old Slains Hay Castle and New Slains Hay Castle.  Especially thank you for Delgatie Hay Castle and Joan and the Hay Society and tea and lunch and the tour of the castle, the ballroom and the view and the highland horses.  Thank you for the moving experiences I had there and at Old Slains. Thank you for the heritage and connection. Thank you for feeling close to my grandfather and father and brother all gone but near. Thank you for my mother.  Thank you for universities and Marischal College and the churches, St. Machar’s.

Thank you for the sheep and the golfers aside the railway and the North Sea and the town of Oxford. Thank you for Magdalene College and Christ Church CAthedral. Thank you for communion again and the the moving sermon.  Cloud of Unknowning. God God God

Thank you for London and the Book of Mormon musical and the National Ballet in the National Opera House. Thank you for Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace and ST. James Park and Picadilly and the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery and the British Museum. 

Thank you for Eurostar.

Thank you for the Seine and Pont Neuf and Notre Dame Cathedral, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysse, the Arc d’Triump, the Louvre, Mona Lisa, the Muse’ d Orsay, the Van Gogh, Starry Starry Nights and the Renoir and Gauguin and Pissarro and Monet and Manet. Thank you for the Maison Sauvage omelettes. Thank you for the window in our ceiling and the moon at night

Thank you for the fabulous weather. Thank you for the pharmacist in the Latin Quarter who did our Covid tests. Thank you for her understanding and knowing English and being so gracious. 

Thank you for all these people and all the people whose shoulders they stood on .Thank for the hundreds of years of history and thoughtfulness and organization. Thank you for the governments and peace and the corporations and businessmen and business women and the genius and collectors and those who appreciate the finest and all the advances in art and science.

Thank for all the little pieces. Thank you for all the moving parts. Thank you that I was able to save the money and take the time off . Thank you for my companion Laura who too could be off work for a month and come with me through this cultural and historical intense learning elevation of heart and mind and soul.  Thank you for the rest and raising my spirits and consciousness. Thank you for showing me all the wonders of mankind and renewing my appreciation for my brothers and sisters. Thank you for lifting me from the grief of losing family and so many closest of friends.  Thank you for helping me to decide whether to retire or carry on. Thank you for giving me purpose and direction for another year. Thank you for bringing me home safely. Thank you for keeping Laura safe and thankful you for keeping Madigan safe.,

Thank you for the good people on my return, my neighbours, seeing Dave and Mac and Helena and Nicoletta and Peter and the dogs , Bella, Luka. Thanks you for the psychologist and his wife and our friend grandpa and for the dogs. Always thank you for Emory. Thank you again for Karen. Thank you for Mary Lou and Belinda who I communicated with through out keeping my patients safe.  Thank you for my work. 

Thank you that my home was in tact and not violated. Thank you nothing was stolen. Thank you that my car and truck and motorcycle and scooter were all safe and working .Thank you for there being money in the bank and pay cheques to pay the horrendous tax and rape the government takes in Canada for it’s elitist folly and mismanagement and waste and narcissism.  Thank you that I can kowtow and pay the price.  Thank you that my mail and bags and everything got home safe.

Thank you for coffee and the near market and food for the fridge and a stove to cook. Thank you for me and eds’ pizza.  Thank you for a safe place to walk Madigan.

Thank you that my back pain hasnt’ become worse though it persists .Thank you that I was able to walk all over the towns and museums and galleries and that my back only hurts in transition from standing and lying.  I ‘m thankful that I could walk and that I could find relief lying down

Thank you for bringing Laura and me home safely

Thank you for the iPhone and it’s camera and the ipad and my blogs andd the fun of travel writing and photography.  

Thank you for your blessings and your presence and your love. Thank you God!!!!

Aberdeen to Kings Cross, London Train

We boarded at 730 this morning.  A windy raining day in Aberdeen.  Now we’ve sun and are passing south of Edinburgh.  New territory for Laura and me.

Aberdeen

Edinburgh

We spoke to an Irish gentleman who sat down near us in First Class. Asked where we’re from Laura said, “Canada”.

He responded, “You’ve got that bizarre prime minister, playing dress up one minute and then acting like a fascist. ‘. The man was obviously a genius. For the next 15 minutes we chatted about Covid and lockdowns and the difficulties of media coverage these days.  Beyond him the most beautiful North Sea coastal images were passing.  

Edinburgh Castle

 Laura and I were warm and cozy in our new Royal Mile clothing, Laura had a lovely pink tartan cashmere scarf from House of Cashmere. I had a red cashmere sweater from Pringle/Harris Tweed. I also had a Harris Tweed Hebrides grey vest, which the locals call a jerkin. With my Vancouver anorak I was warm. The weather was chilly with a little rain spitting. It was very windy on Castle Rock.

We loved the views, For that alone it was worth admission. I also loved the Scotland honours, the crown the sceptre and the Stone of Destiny. The story behind the Stone of Destiny, where Bruce was crowned.but was later taken to England by Long Legs.  Then  some scottish lads not so long ago stole it back in one of the heists of the century.  They carryed it back to Scotland from London in the boot of their car.  Eventually it was repatriated.  The display of Crown and Sceptre and Stone was truly moving.  

They didn't allow pictures.  I did enjoy seeing it. It awakens the Scottish blood.  I swear I could hear Scots way hay playing on the bagpipes somewhere, 

We could see the Firth of Forth from the castle walls. When King James V1 became King James 1 of England he only spent one more night in the castle. He's the one who had the amazing King James Bible compiled but was also a flaming bisexual.  King Charles was the last king to stay there.  Now it's home to the active members of the Royal Army.   

The Memorial hall for all the fallen soldiers of so many wars also did not allow pictures A solemn affair. As a young man I was filled with patriotism long before Voltaire wrote 'patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings.'  I thought of glory and imagined volunteering to serve my country if the call came even though my father who served in the RCAF in WWII admonished me never to volunteer. I even romanticized war and loved Lawrence of Arabia.

I'm old now and it just saddens me how many young men have lost their lives. Still I have all the kit of a highland warrior.  Not just the kilt I wear for Robbie Burns. But the claymore, dirk and 30:06 rifle. The modern automatic assault rifle of the present soldier was there on display. 

Now Putin has invaded Ukraine and everyday the news records the Ukrainian underdog heros fighting the might and tyranny of Russia. Communists believe in war. Marx glorified perpetual war.  Xi Jinping of Communist China invaded Hong Kong, continues to occupy and attacked India.  Taiwan would be annexed already and stripped if it were not for their military and those of the Allies. 

The British Empire did wrong in India but the commonwealth and the peace of those democracies rose from the ashes. Today the errors are with dictatorship though the UN seems to be a clearing house for war and weapons   Communists and other dictators build walls to keep people in.  Refugees and immigrants still flock to the free world.

The British War Museum was incredible to tour.  The fine exhibits of uniforms and tools dated back to the 17th century. I liked the collections of  dirks and claymore.  The Scots had served in the world wars and modern day Iraq and  Aghanistan, 

The painting 'Thin Red Line' from the Crimean war was remarkable to see. Other paintings were equally revealing.  Weapons and kit. Depictions and stories of wars where Scots had served.  All so well displayed.

 

Robert Burns Dinner, Simon Frazer Pipe Band Gala

Robbie Burns Dinner is a grand occasion. Not only a celebration to gastronomical divine delight, the immortal haggis,  but this night is also  the anniversary of Scotland’s greatest poet, whose genius immortalized the humble haggis.
The Simon Frazer Pipe Band is by far the greatest pipe band in the world by my own humble opinion.  My friend Lorne and I have enjoyed the occasion richly in previous years.  Manly attired in kilts we brought our wee lassies, Judith and Laura,  along to this illustrious occasion.  They loved the agile dancers and amazing pipers and drummers. The ode to the haggis was superbly delivered.  The food was fabulous. The band was as usual unsurpassed.  The junior bands were represented and they’d just won awards around the world.
It’s a fund raiser and the silent auction was great.  I got a Cuisinart grill which I gave to Laura along with a lovely silver necklace.  All the funds go to the pipe band scholarships.  It was a perfect night.
 

Social Recovery and Abstinence

This was truly one of the very best presentations that I have ever heard. It was given as part of the CME  at the IDAA 2013 conference in Denver, Colorado. The presenter was truly inspiring and a great presenter. I apologize for these rough notes and have recommended to friends that I'd encourage anyone who wants some cutting edge research and a terrific presentation to get in touch with Dr. David McCartney……Despite being from Scotland he spoke the English language with great clarity.
I was further impressed to learn of the great work being done by Bill White whose original papers I'll definitely be obtaining.

National Health Service UK LEAP

Lothians and Edinburgh Abstinence Program

 

Recovery and Social Factors

 

Dr. David McCartney

 

Scottish Context (or whit ye need tae ken)

1.Do People Get Better

2.What is recovery?

3.What is the evidence?

4.How Does Recovery Happen?

5.Social influence, visibility and contageon

 

1. “Scotland - we are a small country with a big problem”

Pop 5.3 million

54,000 problem heroin users

Twice rate of England and 5 x that of US

22,000 on methadone

584 drug related deaths in 20011

Costs 3.5 billion pounds ($5.4 billion)

 

34% of men and 23% of women drinking to excess (self report)

5% of pop dependent on drink

Cirrhosis rates have doubled

 

Vast majority of liver cirrhosis deaths are related to alcohol

 

Enormous increase in alcohol related mortality

 

Alcohol related deaths - high related to neighbours.

 

It’s multifactorial causation

 

Change in perception - unacceptable to be seen drunk in public in my granny’s day where as today any weekend night you’d see lots of people drunk in street

Supermarket spirits

Price of alcohol falls and alcoholism rises

 

1. Do people get better?

“Saw administrator in Scottish harm reduction facility and told that if you want to succed in this work you have to believe no one will get better.”

“I decided not to work there.”

 

Desistance (crime)

Belief nothing works

-85% of repeat offends desist from criminality by the age of 28 (Blumstein and Cohen 1987)

Recovery rates

-CSAT (2009)  58% of life course dependent users of substance will achieve lasting recovery

-Bill White (2012 50.3%

-Welsh workers estimate 7% (Best)  - asked the addiction workers and this was their idea - this is the “Clinical Fallacy”.  Major gap between reality and belief

 

Outcomes (US) physicicians

80% pluse sustained abstinence

70% return successfully to work

High expectation

Intensive treatment

Monitoring

 

Outcomes (UK) physicians

79% abstinence (at 3 years)

Most return to work

Most avoiding GMC (Boards)

Unlike their patients most opiate addictied physicians don not end up on opiate replacement therapy

 

Lothians and Edinburgh Abstinence Programme

• positive residential treatment program, medical and social, 3 months
• funded at point of contact through NHS

 

Seven Pillars of LEAP

-medical

-therapeutic

-housing (safe, supported)

-education/employability

-mutual aid/recovery community

-family programs

-aftercare  (2 years)

 

This is fairly new in United Kingdom

 

300 referrals/year

 112 admissions/year

62% completion

52% graduates maintain abstinence (one year)

 

Do people get better?

YES

 

Duration of Recovery

(Bill White 2013)

 

When does recovery today predict recovery for life

Point of durability seems to be reached by 4-5 years of recovery -stay sober and clean for life

 

What is Recovery?

-voluntarily sustained control over substance use which maximises health and wellbeing and participation in the rights, roles and responsibilities of society - UK Drug Police Commission - 2008 p6

 

-Recovery is a process through which an individual is enabled to move on from their problem of drug abuse towards a drug free life and become an active and contributing citizen -
Scotland

 

Betty Ford - sobriety, personal heallth and citizenship.

 

You are in recovery if you say you are - valentine - abtinence alone is not recovery

 

Evidence Review

There is little UK based research and international evidence base on recovery is limitted by 3 factors

1. dated 

2. much is based on alcohol and not illict drugs

1. much of it was US

 

But

Sustatined recovery ‘is the norm”

Recovery is related to the 12 step process

-

-

 

Study of workers in the field in recovery from heroin addiction (108)

‘tired of lifestyle, found rock bottom, 

why did they stay stopped

-moved away from using networks

-found treatment not that important

 

Mapping the recovery journeys of former drinkers (Hibbert and Best (2011) Drug and Alcohol Review)

-graphs

• physical health
• psychological health
• environment
• evidence - in early recovery - first 2 years a little lower than society norms
• “BETTER THAN WELL RESEARCH” after 5 years appear to do better than the population norm. 

 

Post Traumatic Growth

-from natural disasters like tornadoes, plane crashes murders( McMillan 1997) , sexual assault (Frazier 2004) 

-pain touchstone of spiritual recovery and growth

 

How does recovery happens

Several models

1. Social control
2. Social Learning
3. Stress and Coping
4. Behavioural economics 

 

Structural equation modelling results

over 2000 patients

Self help movement involvement - active coping, motivation to change, friendship - all contribute to substance reduction.

 

"Getting you plugged in makes you well"

Holt-Lunstad & Colleagues (2010)

Grella and colleagues (2008)

Best and Laudet (2010)

 

*Number and quality of social relationships predicted long and healthy life

 

 

People who relapsed were less likely to use self help movement

 

Community benefit - increased non using relationships

 

Lit et al “changing network support for drinking (2009)

-one abstinent person in network decreased risk of relapse by 27%

 

Recovery studies in Birmingham and Glasgow (n=205)

-more time with other people in recovery

more time in activities.

 

Recovery Capital

-breath and depth of internal and external resources that can be drawn on to resist alcohol and drug abuse

• can increase ‘recovery capital’ 
• clean housing, friends, family ,health, volunteering, peer support, work
• new concept in UK - assertive referral to mutual aid
• - mostly getting people on to AA/NA
• -find out what meetings are available
• hard to get professionals to believe this and do this despite all the evidence that this work
• less than 5% will respond with just a brochure
• need to have someone meet them and go with them and ask about the meeting in follow up
• 1,200 groups weekly
• various family and servicers groups

 

How are we doing in Edinburgh (The Gap)

Do you or have you ever used AA/Na

AA- .8%

NA - .4%

 Part of it is the misperception about the success  - self help recovery is very successful

Clinical fallacy exists that recovery isn't successful mainly because - we don’t see those who get well

Misperception it’s an religious group

 

Alcoholic Anonymous in UK

• all the mutual aid groups are growing and some very rapidly

 

Social Influence and Contagion

-"hang around recovery people long enough and you might catch a dose of recovery"

• same is true with addiction

 

Framingham Heart Study - Christakis and Fowler

-person’s odds of becoming obese increased by 57%

(similar research with smoking -if your partner stops smoking 67% increased chance you will)

-Conclusion ‘your friends can make you fat’

Obesity Epidemic

64.3% Scots obesid

 

“obesity is catching’

 

Social learning and Social Control

 

Social Network and quality of life

-Holt-Lunstad - 2010 - individuls with good social networks 50% greater likelihood of survival

 

12 step affiliation versus involvement

• **attendance at 12 is not likely to be as helpful as becoming actively involved
• ***getting a sponsor at 6 months 4 fold likelihood of not relapsing

 

“My recovery gave me a new life”

-recovery from addiction makes Scotland stronger”

-visibility important

 

Recovery communities 

outside mutual help

UK Recovery Walk

 

relationship between treatment and recovery

• treatment can be a part of recovery ‘initiation’
• gives the client the tools - managing your own recovery
• -self efficacy and enduring recovery (recovery maintenance)
• a journey, not a destination
• eg diabetes and emphysema - movement to training patient to manage their own 

illness from original management plan of solely seeing speciality

 

Contagion

• have treatment providers got it the wrong way round?
• Recovery is contagious
• Reocvery champions

 

What does it all mean?

1. Recovery is a reality - evidence - recovery narratives
2. Recovery is social - takes place in 12 step groups
3. Recovery is contagious - attraction, power of example
4. Worldwide evidence base needs to develop a  bit - 12 step evidence is strong and growing
5. We can actively connect people to recovery resources ( 

 

 

 

 

Custer's Last Stand

We're all part of a family today. The world and everyone in it is interconnected.  Once it wasn't like that.  Everyone was a tribe and each tribe fought all strangers.  My enemies' enemy is my friend was the by word of tribalism.  Alliances only work so long as there is a threat.  The history of western and eastern civilization has been the forming of alliances to defeat threats and expand one's hegemony.
Today the principal tribes are Christian American, Aetheist Chinese, Ecumencal European, and Moslem Meccan.  The rest are subsets and being incorporated as once USSR and US took over regions as colonies or serf states.  There have always been secular and religious ideologies for these formations. No one is 'necessarily' right.  Might is right to some.  Technological and scientific struggles have resulted in advances giving one side greater advantage over another. Hence, Leonardo da Vinci's day job, was with the Arms Industry of the day, as Einstein was funded by the military industrial complex later.
A fascinating history is the study of military medicine.  At Custer's last stand, civilians and medics died.  Individually Custer and Sitting Bull were outliers. A fascinating recent book of that title looks at the odd ones who by their very contrariness and difference often have speckled careers.  Public figures are 'in or out' depending upon their usefulness to the powers behind the powers.  General Patton and General McCarthur despite their military genius were shamed and humiliated by the political and financial forces of the day.  In Rome, the fear of the Emperor and Senators was that a general's success would make him popular and a threat to those who lived off the work of others.  It's always been such.
So in my genetic background, Scottish and Irish, the English, attacked our "tribes" at Culloden and many times and for many years we 'beat them' at their game.  Lowlanders fighting us Highlanders.  But eventually with only a Culloden and no 'Custer's Last Stand' but rather a Robert Bruce and a Wallace we became 'vassal states' of the empire of the day.  The highlands were 'reserves' by a different name.  In Ireland they wanted the potatoes and sheep and forced us all off 'our lands' to be 'relocated' in America.  Compared to the Irish and Scottish, the Indians got it pretty easy.  Some of us were even forced to go to that horrid place called Australia.  We'd all have been glad to stay home rather than be shipped across an ocean. Ask the blacks of Africa who were exiled by their own tribe leaders, sold to Arabians who sold their slaves to the white folk who subsequently lost the American Civil War to the northerners who preferred mechanical labour to human labour.
If the wee state of America didn't take the West, Spain, England, Russia would have.  There is always a tendency to think in either/or terms with 'win/or lose, 'my way or the highway' alternatives. Reality offers more tangible solutions.  The Russians like the Chinese were more brutal in their dealing with minorities than even the Romans who routinely killed everyone when there was an uprising by a few. The history of Israel under the Empires of the day isn't about even letting them have their lands. After a final act of resistance these earlier empires 'dispersed' the Jews in what is called the 'diaspora'.  Modern Day Israelis are finally having a little land back with self autonomy under the protectorate of the West and it's guidance and cooperation because Meccan Moslem threat is huge.
Russian Communism killed 80 million in a few years while Chinese Communism killed 120 million in record time.  The Dalai Lama is still complaining about the Chinese solution to the Tibetan 'problem'.  The Chinese machine guns decimated the Buddhist monks returning fire with WWI English rifles.  To date Communist countries build walls, either Iron or Bamboo, to keep people in.
Of course Sitting Bull and everyone else in those days,( even before health care and Troudeau encouraging everyone to be  stoned on government marijuana cake)  wanted to come to Canada.  But after 5 years even Sitting Bull had enough of the bad weather and maudlin politics. The American Draft dodgers were delighted to return to the States, sometimes to prison, with only a few remaining in Canada. Even now Gay couples, finally allowed to marry in the US are returning, having only tolerated tolerable Canada so long as their own country was intolerant. Even now United States is the principle country in the world desired for relocation and immigration.  America has to have walls to keep people out and despite this they have millions of illegal aliens living there. Indians don't want to leave America.
The Indians of their day wanted things to remain the same.  Nobody likes change. My Scottish forefathers would have gladly continued to hunt and fish in the highlands but the dastardly English wanted to use our lands for mining, fishing and farming hundreds of years ago. The Israelis had the same problem with the Romans thousands of years ago. The Spanish were enslaving their Indians as gold mining work force with an attitude not dissimilar to the Germans in WWII who used forced labour of Jews, Poles, Ukranians, effeminate gays and anyone else who wasn't of the German tribal consciousness.
I don't want the tax man to bother me in Canada today. I'd like people to leave me alone and let me do my thing on my land.  The land is always 'my' to the person sitting on it at that moment. "Ownership" of "property' has always existed and even the Potlach ceremony was a gamble to gain more property in the form of material or personal.  A poor leader may have the capacity to 'command' a million strong army while living in a cottage while a 'rich' leader may have a castle but only the popularity to 'command" a thousand troops.
The Indians today and then talked about a "way of life".  It was essentially 'tribal' and no different from the Israeli or Mongol or Kurdish or Scottish MacDonald or Frazer way of life.  These tribal 'ways of life' were predominantly 'patriarchal' , war and competition based, pre 'nation state' and loosely allied along kinship traditions with the women predominantly involved in child making raising and sexual satisfaction of the male.  The Taliban are an attractive tribal group to 50's brylcream sliced back muscle car driving sorts of guys not known for saying "i'm sorry'".
These are decidedly 'pre feminist' times though in Scotland there was a matriarchy at times with female leaders and warriors whereas in the Plains Indian traditions despite Hollywood and rewriting of history to serve ideology, the fact is women were too busy making babies and cleaning up the camps and doing all the work after the kill of the animals.  Indeed pre refrigeration, pre advanced agricultural techniques, herding, farming advances, the tribes indians were primitive and unhealthy. Today life expectancy is in the 70's and 80's for many whereas Sitting Bull was considered an old man of 45 who didn't actually fight Custer because 45 was too old for more than talk. The life expectancy for the normal folk was in the 50's. Life was harsh.  In the Old Testament men lived long lives but they had many wives who fought among themselves and tried to serve and be the best for their man.  Men didn't do a lot of work if they survived the younger years of slaughtering and had enough children to command.
War is a young man's game fought by old men usually wanting to win yesterdays lost battles.  Women leaders are as quick to kill off young men as old men are so it's the lot of young men to die.  In China today girls are merely aborted.
So Custer, a good soldier is sent off to subdue the Sieux in the Black Hills because there's an economic crisis, gold has been found and the government, as is the history of Governments all over ,has reneged on it's promises.  Income tax was only a war measure and was to be stopped with the war over.  Taxes have grown like promises and all leaders have broken their promises. Indian leaders break their promises as well as white leaders. Today in Canada Indian Leaders are millionaires and their people are still poor just like there are White Billionaires in Canada and white people, yellow people, black people, and brown people living poorer than red people.  Corporate world is a world of 'individualism', post 'family' and 'post tribe' and individuals form alliances of wealth to keep other corporate individuals in check. Nations and tribes and individuals are probably all serving the new competitors called 'corporations'.
Historically families trumped individuals, tribes trumped families, nations trumped tribes, and now corporations are trumping nations.
Naturally we think there was a better time in the past. That's called being a Luddite.  Also we think theres' a better future. That's called fantasy or science fiction.  Those who can go inward and that's called spirituality.  The best laugh.
In any case Custer rode out to 'police' the local 'gangs' who were not following the law of the land which was broken treaties and all the stuff we all take for granted with our own Tax Department.  Americans today fear the IRA more than they fear the government.  Custer was probably sent by the IRA.
Soldiers succeed by following their commands. Think too much in soldiering and you become a poet. or better, a dead poet.   Alive you may become a politician.  But the minute you lose track of the immediate problem you aren't soldiering well.  Custer wasn't interested in policy. He was interested in getting the Indians back to the reserve. They'd gone antelope hunting on mass.  They probably had pony bumper stickers that said a 'day hunting is better than any day working on the reserve."  Bob Dylan didn't want to work on Maggie's Farm.
Now the Cheyenne were also fought by the Crow. The Crow didn't want the Cheyene on their land so they sent scouts to help Custer get the Sieux Indians back in their reservations.  The Crow wanted the antelope too. And everyone wanted the buffalo. The trouble with the buffalo was they were over hunted by Indians and white alike. Once everyone had rifles the buffalo was toast.
It was the same with the Cod off Newfoundland.  The Newfies of Canada for centuries fished cod and sang Newfie songs and told jokes about Toronto and Boston folk then the Japanese came along with the Norwegians with better and bigger nets and took all the cod for their people. The Canadian government in Ottawa didn't give a dam about the Newfies and offered them jobs in the Albertan oil fields instead, relocating tens of thousands of clean fisherman to become dirty oil men.
Custer was a policeman.  Acting on the advice of the informants he found the Cheyenne but what he didn't know was that there were ten to one odds.
In all war and police actions 'information' is critical.  Ruling the skies allows America today to have the greatest intelligence.  When I was in Europe I was fascinated by the European wars of the 15th to 20th century because no one knew who they were up against. Wars were all about 'information.'  It's only this last week that a British gay man who cracked the computer code for the Enigma that allowed British to know what Germans and Japanese were saying to each other, was absolved of being a condemned pervert , for his saving the British people.  Having consensual sex with another man had got this fellow who saved the Western world pilloried.  In absentia he's been exonerated despite being a dirty boy like Lawrence of Arabia who may not have been gay but did like being spanked liked the greatest historian of our day "Spanker" Johnson.
Looking at the battle site of Little Big Horn today you can tell Custer would have done a whole lot better if he'd had Satellite Imaging.  Even better he'd have probably won hands down if his job was just 'war' but he was trying to stop the women and children from escaping, capturing them and holding them hostage, to force the Indian warriors to accept terms and return to the reserves.
This was not Sand Creek.  If Custer had been simply interested in war and killing Indians he could have easily done a 'Sand Creek" and keeping his men together charged right into the camp and slaughtered the unsuspecting Indians en mass. Instead he divided his command to create a pincer attack , to capture the fleeing non combatants as hostages, with the hope of 'surrender'.  He wanted 'prisoners'. His whole aim was to minimize the death toll and get it over fast. He'd been court martial led for being too harsh and reinstated on the understanding that he'd be a 'gentle' 'beaurocratically' acceptable warrior. This is indeed what he was doing when he got whacked.  If anyone deserves to have been shamed for 'failure' it was the beurocrats who told him to be a 'nice boy' because he was being 'nice' when the Indians whacked him.  He'd done far bette when he'd been a simple soldier.
Not Sitting Bull.  He wasn't there.  Crazy Horse was and he was as mean and weird as his name. But ironically 'Lame White Man" seems to have been the principle force behind the defeat as his attack was so strategically significant.   Here he was the Judas.  The significance of 'betrayal" is its never done by an enemy.
The Hell's Angels are a modern day tribe and their principle problem like the east coast Mafia was the 'witness protection program' and the 'betrayal' of members.  Even Peter denied Christ three times before the Cock crowed. It's a weakness of humans. You threaten to hurt my mother, my sister, my penis, my testicle, my face, my dog and I'll quite possibly tell you what you want to know.  The evidence of war is that everyone 'cracks' under torture except if one truly believes that giving up the information will bring about their death and they have a reason to live.  The studies of Auschwitz by Logotherapy giant are particularly informative about human behaviour.  Communism lives on 'betrayal' and children are taught in school to 'betray' their parents just as the Nazi Youth Movement attempted to instill 'gossip as a virtue, like 'crimestopper' anonymous phone lines today.
So Custer was trying to be a good boy and here he was all my life skewered as 'arrogant' and 'glory seeking'.  He was no more 'arrogant' than Obama or Bush or Donald Trump , Gandhi or Bob Dylan when I look at his life. He was just a guy doing a job with a really cute wife, Libbie.  He was a great success in the Civil War and then he was sent off to at the territories and it's pretty clear this was like a bad posting in the foreign services.  This was like getting posted to Afghanistan when you really wanted London England and had hoped to go to the opera but instead were left dodging terrorist attacks.
Libbie and Custer were kind of nice folk. There's a book I read part of in the Custer Museum by Libbie in her own words and she seems like a grand gal and Custer like the amiable guy at a barbecue.
Indeed there are also books that describe  Sitting Bull as a bit whacked as a medicine man, kind of like Jerry Farwell in religious circles , not at all a Dalai Lama or Bishop Tootoo kind of guy but a real loud, heavy weight , trancing out , trouble making, bad mouthing kind of Hockey Player for the Canucks enforcer sort.  Lame White Guy comes across like Castros favourite Chez.  Crazy Horse is a regular horse riding Mohammed.  No one comes across in this dispute like Churchill when he rode a horse into battle except maybe Reno.  He's definitely Conservative in his style.  Gall is really by far the most fascinating Indian.
The whole battle only lasted less than a day.  It carried on over a few miles with obviously a lot of galloping and crazy making all round.  The battle ended in an hour and a half with the "last stand' looking like it was a horribly grizzly affair of minutes with horses shot for barricades and the Indians with their own rifles probably a hundred to one in the last effort. The archeological evidence and the stories and reports are amazing with the recreation of the battlefield now showing  , with the greatest accuracy possible due to the genius of science mostly, where the deaths occurred.  All the white guys would have been wounded early and the Indians were killed at a ratio of 1 in 5 or so of the white guys because not only superior numbers but it looked like the white guys were going 'oh shit," and trying to escape.  In routs there's a lot of dead from back shooting and no doubt a lot of white were shot in the face begging for their lives ,their guns emptied.  It was a mess like war is supposed to be.
The battle field is one of the most remarkable and informative places I've ever visited. Frankly I prefer churches and holy grounds but the history and archeology and all the mythology around this battle make it a fascinating experience. I loved the guide books, and the guides and the first nations and white folk working together to tell a story with all it's permutations and digressions. (Custer's Last Battle, Little Bighorn Battlefied -self guided Auto Tour (or Harley Davidson Motorcycle) with Archeologist Richard Fox, Fireside Productions, Livingson was great.)
America, which now included all the Indian, Jewish, Christian, Catholic, Irish, Italian, English, Chinese etc tribes got pissed off just like the Romans did when the Jews stood up to them a couple of thousand years ago when they crucified Jesus to 'send a message'.  They whopped Indian ass for the next decades, took away the Black Hills from the Lakota and gave them a few little privy land areas not fit for pig farms.
Today I pay a fortune to 'play' at having the life my grandfather had when he was 'relocated' from Scotland , to uninhabitable northern Canada where he could hunt and fish like a Lord though the work or ranching and farming was near impossible. He went on to be a huge success, a leader among men, generous, sober, high minded, careful in his ways, elected REEVE.  A lawyer stole all his land and fortune and years later I'd meet the German son of my grandfather's rich relocated neighbours whose fortune was also stolen by the same lawyer who took the money and ran off to hide in the legal wasteland of America.  Dad went on to serve in the Royal Canadian Air Force that saved the world from Nazism and freed the Jews and Poles from German work camps. No one to date has taken credit for freeing the homosexuals from Auschwitz.  Lincolns northern army freed the blacks from slavery.
It was a banking crisis that lead to the breaking of the Treaty with the Lakota and the miners flooding the black hills. After the banking crisis the new governments felt the old governments had been too generous with the money. Today in Canada every Canadian is getting 'less health care' , 'less old age pension', and less of most things because of a banking crisis.  Indeed there are those conspiracy theorist who think Elvis was behind 9/11 having secretly converted to radical islam's "Peace Train'.  That consider the Lakota Indians were the 'first' 'test case'.  Now our government is promoting marijuana for the masses and euthanasia to add to it's abortion policy.
I couldn't help but think that it would have been fun to ride around on horse and have a 'love in' antelope barbecue with the girls doing all the chores then fighting the police and singing and drumming about it like Woodstock in leathers.
I had just been to the Motorcycle Rally in Sturges so I'd seen a whole lot of the modern wild men and women and the tribal society with it's patches and Harley "hoss'.  I was a good time listening to Kid Rock from Detroit on his Rebel Tour and enjoying ZZ sing 'Sunglasses'.  All that was needed was antelope burgers .  I had Angus steak instead at the Saloon.
It's all not so different.  It's blurry at the edges.  In the Custer Museum I bought a Union Calvary sword but the first two I looked at were 'made in China'.  I thought that was priceless. There's probably an American Indian chef making chop suet at the finest Chinese restaurant in Bejing where tourists go for 'authentic' Chinese experience.
We're a global society and we have to think locally. Still I loved Buffalo Springfield's song  not because of the Buffalo but because of the line, "People carrying signs, mostly say, hooray for outside."
I rode away on my motorcycle as usual wondering whose side I'm on.  I'm a citizen and for law and order today so I'd have to side with Custer doing his job for the Government which supposedly I've elected but then I'm Scottish Irish Canadian with a lot of tribal roots and the Government didn't help my grand dad when the lawyer stole the family farms and fortunes.  Even today I wonder about who really killed Kennedy and was Marilyn Munroe just a pretty face.
I'm riding alone on my motorcycle across thousands of miles of US soil and thinking this is the greatest nation in the world. They're definitely #1. I've travelled around the world a bit and I'm still impressed with how well they treat everyone especially those who complain. Elsewhere everyone gets shot or banned or ostracized and the amount of freedom even in Europe compared to the US is marginal.  Sturges was definitely tribal but so was the spiritual medical conference I attended earlier in Colorado.
I was just sad looking at all the graves of all the young soldiers of the Indians and the United States.  Glory is a good word.  It's been tarnished.  There's been a lot of reductionism in the last hundreds of years.  Corporations are ultimately primitive and tribal.  There's a sense that advances are always made with two steps forward one step back. The Indians of Alberta are rich oil men. They were put on reserves which had oil on them.  They are making the decision today in the major board rooms of the world.  The Indians who were fighting Custer wouldn't have known he was just doing a 'police action'. They were probably thinking like the folks at Waco.  I have trouble trusting men in uniforms with weapons but that goes back to my first bad childhood experience with a dentist.  There weren't any counsellors or prozac in those days and women didn't have bras to burn or tampons.  Sanitation was a problem.  There wasn't even work for plumbers because everyone 'gathered at the river' even before the Christian song encouraged them to do what they already were doing of necessity.
The Little Bighorn River is a very pretty river today with the shady forest along it's sides and all around hot baked grassland.  I think the ponies I saw there were probably descendants of the ones that survived the battle. At least the ponies were peaceful.  People who know horses know they can be gnarly.
I really liked the plaques that laid out the first skirmish and retreat by Reno. I wondered if the great gambling city was named after him.   You can see the battle at the Last Stand but it's more like a brawl where as the Remo fight actually moved.
The woman in the gift shop said, "Were it not for Custer dying, we'd not have jobs here in tourism".  She was a white woman.  The Indian woman who took my money for the tour was native.  I was thankful I had money to give them.  For a few hours out of my Harley Davidson Journey to and from the Sturges Motorcycle Rally I was able to take time out and learn about another 'war to end all wars'.
I liked driving away having a sword strapped across the pack on my Harley.  I would have preferred a Glock 9 mm but Americans don't like Canadians bringing arms into their country. Despite all the best efforts of the Freedom Fighters for the National Riflearms Associations they won't sell a Canadian a firearm without an American government permit.  While I mostly feel like I'm following Custer or Calhoun or Remi and don't know which, some folks think I'm too much like Lame White Man.  The  Indian chief who reall kicked ass was Gall.  You had to have Gall to do what he did.
Soldiers describe various 'thirsts' in battle. This would have been a particularly thirsty battle, regardless of the glory.

Old Blind Dog

It's raining on deck. I'm here in the cozy warm with the diesel stove flames dancing light.  The heat is distributed by the helicopter fan twirling atop the stove. I'm listening to Old Blind Dog's New Tricks Album and the Collection.  The instrumentals of whistle, drum and violin are haunting celtic.  Now the Bedlam Boys song of ancient highland is playing.
I've been reading the wonderful writing of my friend Anne Lindsay.  In northern cabins she had us all playing a background of strings so she could weave her flute tapestry in the sound. Now she's painting pictures of Moroccan bazaars with her Kirkcubright pen. I've just been reading too in Peter Newman's, The Company of Adventurers of the northern Scots lads who came out to Canada with the Hudson Bay Company.
It's been a long couple of days with 50 patients a clinic.
I'm wondering why I've been so long not playing my guitar. It's not something I do well but I have enjoyed it so.  Hearing the Old Blind Dog I remember first seeing them that July weekend so many years ago in Port Coquitlam at the annual Scottish Cultural Festival where extraordinarily strong boys where tossing the timber, flinging telephone posts about like they were toothpicks.  I dream one day of seeing and hearing Old Blind Dog in Scotland.
I've thought it would be grand to sail to the shores  grandparents left to come to Canada.  I'd not be the first to go back that way.  I read of a Danish man and his wife  doing this from Victoria there for no other reason than that his life was enriched by the effort.  I love a tale and an adventure to go with it.  The years run down and the costs of such endeavours always seem too high but when one sets a mind to such a thing it carries through.  God works in mysterious ways.  I did love meeting the elderly gent who sailed solo from Britain to the Maritimes in his 80's.  There's time enough and more.
Old Blind Dog is fiddling the Ferret Set from the New Tricks album. It's got me missing dancing now. So much of my life has been devoted to work and more work and more learning to do more work.  I've no regrets about the work. It's a gift to heal and the education I've had to that end has been unsurpassed.  It's second nature now. There's so much I've learned.  It's a tapestry and a fiddling tune for sure.  I've done a mighty fine jig at times to keep death distracted. I've been privilege to miracles.  Watched the dead rise.  So much sacred in the mundane. All the reductionism of the fearful can't contain the glory of a single moment of those times.
I remember delivering that Inuit baby in Churchill.  The same place where the polar bears chased me.  A night in an igloo with a wild Irish man singing songs of the old country while a blizzard blew outside.  Then there was the home visits in the Mariana Islands where the mad carried machetes they'd used insanely.  I climbed a coconut tree. We drank the delicious juice.
And today I thought of the camel I rode in Israel seeing the camel Anne had jockeyed on her face book page.  Those bazaars with the boys carrying fresh baked flat breads on their heads days before Moroccan Ramadan descended in the old city go unforgotten.
Who'd have guessed I'd be in harbour aboard a steel ocean crossing sailboat with a diesel stove keeping out the cold.  This is a rich and blessed life. I'm so grateful for all the permutations and combinations. Thank you for the music, poetry, dance and song.  It  lifts my heart to hear Old Blind Dog.