the saddest movie ever

Do not watch "Hachi: a dog tale" unless you have either a) no human heart beating in your chest, or b) two boxes of tissues and no problem with a sleepless night or two following the movie. This is the first movie in which I bawled my eyes out in at least 40 years. Based on a true story about the faithful Japanese Akita Hachiko, it's about a dog (Hachi) who forms an incredibly tight bond with its owner and accompanies him to the train station every day. Hachi then goes home and returns to the station at precisely 5:05pm every day when the train pulls in and his owner returns from work. Well....one day the owner keels over from a heart attack and never returns...not on the 5:05 and not on the 7:00 pm train. You can guess the rest: Hachi returns to the station EVERY DAY FOR NINE YEARS, waiting for his owner to come back. The townspeople give him scraps of food, pet him now and then and make sure he has his basic needs taken care of. But Hachi only has eyes on one spot: the exit door of the train station at 5:05 every evening....until the very night in the middle of winter, soft snow falling from the sky, when he closes his eyes, dreaming softly of playing with his owner and departs this world for doggie heaven.

The movie is slow, with gorgeous music, very softly photographed and will simply rip the heart out of your chest with pure sadness. The only solace I found after watching it was cuddling with my dog Hugo, holding him close, stroking his head and whispering into his ear. As Rudyard Kipling - the most keen observer of the emotions of men and beast - said: "If you want to know true sadness, get a dog"

tamil ships

When I immigrated to Canada in 1982 (I had been here before on a student visa), I had to first leave the country with my pregnant wife, apply for immigration status while living in one room (no shower and the toilet was in the hall) in my mother-in-law's basement, fill out tons of paperwork, travel for an interview at the Canadian High Commission in London, go through my medicals and wait a total of about a year before being approved. I did not complain, nor do I see that period of my life as a hardship today. I was young and strong and living in a 10x10 basement room with wife and baby for a while didn't faze me. When we arrived in Canada, I quickly realized that my Master's degree in English and Linguistics wasn't going to be of much help. I worked as a bingo caller, dental equipment salesman and even a vacuum cleaner salesman (for one day, mind you!) Eventually, I found work as a music teacher...it was part-time work but it paid some of the bills. As time passed, I slowly found my way to being a full time musician and building my career.

I am not very happy to see a boatload of people come to our shores and for all of the passengers to claim political asylum. This is a flagrant abuse of the system - especially since the identities of the asylum seekers cannot be easily established. I truly want for folks to come to this wonderful country and to enjoy all it has to offer, provided they do it legally. This is not a question of discrimination or hate. It's a question of very basic fairness. I have no doubt that these people's voyage to Canada was not only unpleasant but perhaps horrendously so. Perhaps they went without food for days on end and spent the journey crammed into small, dark quarters. Nevertheless, this is not an excuse to abuse Canadian generosity - whether on the part of the claimants themselves or some human smugglers (who, btw, constitute the lowest of the low, the scum of the earth and who should be found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law)

On to perhaps lighter themes next time.

harbourfront

So...I went down to Toronto's Harbourfront this afternoon to catch me some downtown action. It was not good: no parking whatsoever, unless you're willing to shell out $20, leave your keys with a car jockey (me no likey) and walk 1.5 - 2km to your destination. You can take public transit, of course...well, the streetcars were too packed to even contemplate. Between the stink and the coughing passengers - I don't think so. OK, so I parked at Bathurst and King and walked about 2km; no big deal, it was a pleasant afternoon. Once I got to where the action was, I knew I could only take a minute or two: the crowds were just too thick. Claustrophobia hit me and I had to snake my way out to the slightly less crowded sidewalks...missed all of the Ashkenaz festival. I'll fess up: I'm not all that interested. I don't want to belong to a club that would have me for a member...this one would have me, for sure. I'm ethnically Jewish but don't feel any need to mingle with my coreligionists or take in Yiddishkeit (Jewish culture)

So I turned around and walked back to my car. Jets screamed overhead (air show) and infants screamed all around me. Cars honked impatiently and sardine can streetcars passed me by. On my right, as I walked back west, there was the god-awful ugly, unwieldy mishmash of waterfront condos, plus the Rogers Center and the CN Tower - not a pretty picture in the least. The contrast between the calm, serene lake with the green island and the manicured lawns around the sidewalks and the cold, anxious looking concrete jungle couldn't be more jarring. It's too bad Toronto couldn't get its shit together and look a bit more like Chicago.

I was glad to get into my car and motor on home to the outer suburbs. Leafy streets and silence. Oh yeah, baby. And then the wife and I went for a nice sushi dinner to cap off the sunny early fall day

"hate media"

"Prime Minister Harper is trying to push American-style hate media onto our airwaves"...So starts an online petition to stop a new conservative-style channel from being broadcast in Canada. One has to wonder sometimes whether a large section of the population understands the meaning of words such as *democracy*, *liberty* and *choice* One of the objections mentioned in the petition (aside, naturally, from the sense of loathing towards anything that isn't perceived as "progressive") is that this new channel would be partly funded by cable fees, thus financially obligating even those who vehemently oppose such a channel.

Well, I have news for the objectors. There already exists a TV and radio network in Canada, funded not just by cable fees but by our tax dollars. The network is called the CBC. Is it not conceivable that I object to this compulsory CBC participation in the same way the petitioners object to the proposed right wing channel? While I never watch CBC TV (except for play-off hockey), I do occasionally listen to CBC radio, some of which is intelligent and well presented. I would prefer for it to run along the lines of NPR/PBS in the States (i.e. corporate donations, some minimal advertising/sponsorship + audience membership) - but be that as it may, I am not overly exercised about paying my $40 annually for the CBC - or whatever my tax portion may be.

As for the expression "American style hate media" - this speaks much more to the ignorance of the petition creators than to the actual nature of the channel being proposed. First of all, as someone who lives in the U.S. a few months each year, FOX news is not "hate" media. "Der Stuermer" was hate media. "Pravda" was hate media. FOX is occasionally silly, often over the top and, admittedly, does employ some borderline nutbars, such as Mr. Beck. But overall, their programming is no more "hate" filled than CNN or MSNBC. I have absolutely no idea where this notion comes from, aside from complete ignorance.

Lastly: if you don't want to watch it, TURN IT OFF. The petition makes it seem like Mr. Harper is somehow foisting this channel upon our collective minds, shoving it down our throats while we're gagging, begging for mercy and pleading for another 24 hour CBC channel (the one we have commands about 6% of audience share, btw)

Grow up people! This country is about liberty, choice and tolerance. Try to be tolerant of views you don't like and simply switch the channel, why don't ya!

border checks

Just read an article in the New York Times that sent shivers down my spines. So this is what "homeland security" has come to. Soon they will ask us to carry inland passports a la the Soviet Union. Basically - for those who don't click on the link - border patrol officers board New York bound trains that travel close to the Canadian border and ask random passengers to produce ID. This is INSIDE U.S. territory and without any prior suspicion or proof. Strictly random, most likely racially profiled, interrogations. One of the astounding facts one can read about in the article is that the Immigration office personnel at Rochester quadrupled after the Toronto - Rochester ferry went bankrupt. I.e. no more ferry, no more direct traffic from Canada, but the office now has four times as many officers as before. One assumes they pull people off the streets of downtown Rochester at random? What else could they be doing? There is no ferry and no direct border crossing in Rochester, N.Y. (there's not much of anything else, either)

Even the name "homeland security" is so Orwellian it would be laughable if it weren't so scary.

Let me tell you a story about "homeland security". When I was a lad 0f 12, my parents and I undertook a journey from Prague to Israel. Today, no one would think of any other mode of transport but flying but in those days (1965), we took the train to Greece and then a ship from Piraeus to Haifa. Three days on the train, three days on the ship. Here's what "homeland security" looked like in Czechoslovakia, cca mid-1960's: the train started slowing down about 10 km from the Austrian border. It then stopped and about 20 officers armed with sub-machine guns and with large German shepherds boarded the train. They entered each compartment in pairs. Every person in each compartment had to produce their passport, their exit visa, their return ticket and their proof of purchase of foreign funds. Every person then had to open every single bag and suitcase, as well as wallets. This inspection lasted about two hours. At the end of it - and after numerous citizens were pulled off the train for insufficient documentation or for trying to smuggle something OUT of the country (such as forbidden books or a few more dollars than they were permitted), the train started moving towards the Austrian side. On each side of the train, electrified barbed wire reached about 25 feet high, with watchtowers and machine gun armed guards every 300 yards or so. This "no man's land" (but in fact a minefield designed to capture anyone trying to escape the socialist paradise)was about 3 km long. The train traversed it in a few minutes. Suddenly, there was nothing but green fields on either side of the train. Austrian custom officers boarded (about 4 of them for the whole train) and conducted a completely perfunctory check of our documents. They smiled and joked, offered people light for their cigarettes and told us to relax and enjoy their country. The relief, the joy, the elation throughout the train was amazing. We all laughed, and drank beer in the dining car (well, my folks did) and rejoiced at how wonderful life in a free country can be.

QUO VADIS, America, with your "homeland security" idiocy and your curtailing of freedoms and you usurping of citizens' rights by a cruel, faceless and metastasizing beaurocracy?

heat

Sooner or later all bloggers talek about weather. The weather in Toronto this summer has been absolutely awesome. The last two summers were wash-outs, so we deserved a good one. Even now, at the very end of August, temps are in the 30's (high 90's on the good old scale) But wouldn't you know it, there are people, even in this city, in this country which basically shivers for eight months of each year under the combined assault of frost, wind, snow, sleet and windchill, there are people that complain about the heat.

People: SHUT UP! Buy yourself a window A/C unit, I've seen them go for as low as $150 in June; right now, I'm sure you can get a slightly used one for next to nothing. Cool your bedroom and the rest of the time, just enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the girls in teeny dresses and flip flops, enjoy the ice cappuccinos, the dips in the lake, the longer days, the frosty pint on the patio...enjoy life! Summertime, and the living is easy.

back home

Southwest Airlines is as bargain basement as it gets. No assigned seating, no entertainment system, old rickety planes, haggard looking flight attendants who try to keep themselves amused by using lame humor and, worst of all, stinking, moldy looking toilets with dirty paper towels sticking out of overflowing waste bins. Still, it's hard to beat $80 one way (less in, say, mid-November) from Orlando to Buffalo and so I keep booking with them despite the bovine conditions.

The security line-ups in Orlando are always made worse by the countless kids, tots, babies, children of all shapes, sizes and smells (mostly only one smell and it ain't good) whom their caring parents keep dragging to Disney World. Why anyone would pay good money to spend a day in a park filled with plastic animals and only marginally less plastic people, fighting crowds in 95 degree heat and 100% humidity is a mystery that shall remain unanswered. My idea of a good time in Orlando is my pool, a drive out to Cocoa Beach, lunch at Ming's Court and an afternoon of window shopping at the Mall At Millenia.

Good to be home. I think.