Large Fierce Mammal

29 August 1987 – Off to the delivery room! (Ryszard Kleszczynski photo)

26 years ago today, at the Grace Maternity Hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Mother LFM (Izabella) gave birth to Mrs. LFM’s sister Dorothy (AKA Sister LFM). I offer this information in celebration of that occasion, and to set the stage for the picture above, taken by expectant Father Ryszard just before departure for that last delightful bit of labour called … well, labour. I love this picture both because it’s as cute as hell, and because I get no small amount of delight from the way the Mother of the soon to arrive Small Fierce Mammal is peeking around her mum’s belly. Yes, that excited, happy little girl with the doll is Mrs. LFM (you decide which is which). I didn’t know the Kleszczynski family in those days, and I was 30 years old when the picture was taken.

Happy birthday Dorothy!

The stupidity of sending out trappers after a bear who did nothing except be a bear is unbelievable.

How about – if you’re going into bear country, expect to have a bear encounter. If you can’t handle that, DON’T GO WHERE BEARS LIVE!! And for fuck’s sake, wear something a little more appropriate on your feet than flip flops!! Flip flops belong on a beach, NOT in the woods. ~Mrs. LFM

Lindsay Jones (left) and Nikki Latta (right) are shown here sporting Bear paw tattoos they acquired to commemorate surviving their own monumental stupidity. My interpretation, not theirs. (Source – http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/1149410-women-survive-encounter-with-relentless-black-bear)

The matter Mrs. LFM is referring to in the quotation at the top of this article is the most recent fallout from an incident that occurred here in Nova Scotia on the evening of Monday 19 August 2013 involving two clueless women and a Black Bear. You can get the gist by reading articles here and here.

It remains to be seen how this will play out, but it’s refreshing to note that news reports clearly state that none of the injuries suffered by the two women involved were inflicted by the Bear, but rather by their reactions to what it was doing; i. e., following them. Descriptions of their actions in the wake of first noticing the Bear’s presence imply, at least to me, that its interest was most likely due to what they were doing; i. e., running, screaming, and bleeding. In this, the incident is reminiscent of another incident I wrote about in my 22 September 2011 article titled How Tragically Refreshing!

In brief, that piece dealt with the fatal mauling by a Grizzly sow of 57 year old Brian Matayoshi who was hiking with his wife Marylyn in Yellowstone National Park when they encountered the Bear and her cubs. I invite you to read that piece in its entirety, but for our purposes here today, the relevant passage is a quote from news coverage stating what investigators believe might explain the lengthy pursuit:

...following a two-month investigation, bear researchers and wildlife agents concluded the couple’s harried, 173-yard retreat after they encountered the bear may have played a role.

“What possibly began as an attempt by the bear to assess the Matayoshis’ activities became a sustained pursuit of them as they fled running and yelling on the trail,” the investigation team report said.

Notwithstanding that the Yellowstone incident involved a Grizzly while the Bear implicated in the late Nova Scotian unpleasantness was of the Black variety, there is one common thread – running, screaming people.

The woods aren’t filled with frightening and unpredictable bears … the woods are filled with frightened and unpredictable people …. ~ Why we need to get over our fear of bears (As quoted in Worldly Wisdom Wednesday – Bear Necessities)

That being the case, I find it hard to swallow the judgement of a Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources technician, quoted in the Herald News article, saying that the Bear’s behaviour in the recent event was in any way unusual, and put it more in the realm of what the hell did you think was going to happen?

A wildlife technician with the Natural Resources Department said Thursday that the bear that chased two Kingston women through the woods for an hour and then tried to get into a hunting shack where they sought refuge was not acting normally.

“That’s highly unusual,” Mike Boudreau said.

“They’re certainly dangerous animals and have to be dealt with respectfully, but that’s unusual,” he said of the black bear’s prolonged chase of the women.

This is entirely up the trail of another article published here on 2 June 2010 under the title Contemplations on a Really Bad Idea.

In this case, the LFM camp is firmly on the side of the Bear. Of the three creatures known to be involved, he or she was the only one who wasn’t in the forest by choice, and the one who showed the most restraint. If a Black Bear is bent on attacking you, nothing but fighting like your life depends on it will offer any hope of salvation. That’s because it does.

I hope those tattoos stung like a sonofabitch.

“From One Second to the Next,” the rather unlikely film below, came together when AT&T approached the legendary German filmmaker Werner Herzog and asked if he would direct a series of short films warning people about the dangers of texting while driving.

“What AT&T proposed immediately clicked and connected inside of me,” Herzog told the AP. “There’s a completely new culture out there. I’m not a participant of texting and driving—or texting at all—but I see there’s something going on in civilization which is coming with great vehemence at us.“

What appears above is taken from a 9 August 2013 article published to Browbeat – Slate’s Culture Blog. We’ll get on to the film in a minute. First, I have a few observations of my own.

I hate the concept of bans. You know how it goes – If it saves just one life, then ban it! The outcome of social engineering by knee jerk and fear mongering. If I let the government regulate me then I never have to be responsible for my actions. Blah, blah, blah.

I believe people need to take responsibility for themselves and the outcomes of their actions. I believe the raising of children, including what is taught to them in schools, needs to engender and reinforce this.

For many years here in Canada, drunk driving (called “impaired” driving since we’ve come to realize there are so many other things than alcohol that can adversely affect the ability to operate machinery) was more or less laughed at. It was generally accepted that it was something everybody did now and then, and only ever got mention in the press if it was a contributing factor to something really awful. Fines were a pathetic slap on the wrist so, for the perpetrator at least, the consequences for getting behind the wheel with a snoot full on were virtually nonexistent.

That changed when the decision was made to take impaired driving out of the realm of motor vehicle offenses and into the Criminal Code of Canada. What that meant was that getting convicted of impaired driving came with a free prize – a criminal record. The problem didn’t go away completely because getting a license to drive comes absent minimum standards for mental acuity, but the move did cause people with something to lose if they got caught to think twice about how much they drank, or even if they drank at all, before driving.

This summer marks the first time in 40 years of driving in which every road trip, no matter how short, has found me witnessing either close calls or coming upon actual accident scenes. This is the first summer in which I have decided to shelve certain business trips until autumn in hopes that the elimination of tourist traffic and road construction from the equation might bring the enterprise into the realm of acceptable risk as measured against return. As I’ve observed the statistics AND the reality of driving in NS this summer, it has become clear that we’ve crossed a threshold into a new driving reality. The intoxicant that is the so called “smart phone” has reached a level of dangerous saturation in the world. No longer does it simply represent an instrument of bad manners, and inattention to those present in the room in favour of interaction with those who aren’t. It’s crossed the line into the realm of something so addictive to so many that it may just qualify as the first non-chemical “controlled substance”.

An age limit for possession of a mobile phone that can do more than make and receive calls to and from parents, or call 911? Immediate seizure of vehicle and contents leaving you standing by the road after being caught using a mobile phone while driving? Mandatory jail terms and a crippling lifetime financial burden for causing injury or death? Is that what you want? If so, a lot of people are on the right road to all of that and more.

That’s all for now. Please watch the movie and consider whether all of this is about you, giving or receiving.

Proximity negates skill. A lesson the blade brings into sharp focus, and carries forward into all areas of endeavour.

Welcome back dear reader, and may I introduce you to this fourth chapter of In Ferro Veritas!

This summer in Nova Scotia has seen an extreme escalation in highway accidents and fatalities therefrom. Along with this has come a constantly fizzling, crackling background noise of daily close calls, and it is a rarity these days for me to complete a day on the road without observing dangerous operation of motor vehicles, if not the aftermath of actual accidents. Sometimes not even on the road – last week I pulled into the parking lot of our bank, and from the time I actually entered it to the point where I turned off my engine after parking (a total elapsed time of no more than 45 seconds), I found it necessary to sound my horn three times to avoid being run into by vehicles driven by people who were driving toward me while looking elsewhere. On the last two, I was actually stopped in my parking space.

Disturbingly, every road trip so far this summer has included moments in which we ourselves may have been a part of the lethal equation if not for constant maintenance of situational awareness, distance and speed control, and absolute refusal to get caught up in someone else’s ego as expressed through his vehicle. Who knew an “ego trip” was an actual trip? In short, it appears the rules of driving in Quebec have been exported to Nova Scotia. Besides venting though, there is a point to telling you all this, and that is to serve as intro to an anecdote that will segue into today’s topic.

Last week, Mrs. LFM and I were driving the roughly hour long return trip from Halifax, nearly all of which is highway driving. It was evening so traffic was light, and it took until we were traversing the Town of Bridgewater, less than five minutes from home, when the inevitable happened. Driving down the main drag, we observed a car approaching from a side street to our right. It stopped at the stop sign, the driver looked only to his right (we were approaching from his left), and then straight ahead as he proceeded to start a left turn that would have taken him directly across our path. Would have, that is, if not for my afore mentioned constant maintenance of situational awareness, combined with distance and speed control. That and my finely tuned bullshit detector. He slammed on his brakes to the sound of my horn singing his praises, and as his head whipped around he made the remarkable discovery of the two of us glaring at him through the windshield of our stopped car from a distance of about 20 feet. We drove around him and continued home without further incident, but this situation highlights something that has long been known but too often forgotten – no matter how close in distance or time you may be to your desired goal, risk of encountering a threat to health and safety is not thereby diminished.

Losing sight of this Great Truth explains why traffic accidents often happen close to home, bomber crews in WW2 failed to spot the enemy fighter that shot them down within sight of a friendly coast, military attacks occur just before a change of watch when those going off duty are anticipating their down time and the ones replacing them are still rubbing sleep from their eyes, and people find themselves the target of attack walking from their car to their own door.

Another point my anecdote illustrates is one of the so called “Rules for Going to a Gunfight”, the identity of the author of which seems lost in antiquity; or at least lost to the internet which, alas, seems to have amounted to the same thing:

“Proximity negates skill. Distance is your friend.”

This is as true in the operation of any vehicle as it is in combat with any weapon. As a former pilot, I was taught the two most useless things in aviation were altitude above me and runway behind me. In short, the closer you come to a moment of Truth, the fewer your options.

This is not new news. Coming all the way from 1594, I invite you to attend the sage words of Thomas Churchyard as they appear in the Epistle Dedicatorie to Giacomo di Grassi’s True Arte of Defence:

“… the danger is death if ignorant people procure a combate.”

Or drive a car, fly an airplane, get in a fight, or go otherwise cluelessly abroad in the land.

Driving, running, walking, sitting on a bus, in a public park, or in the woods; clarity of perception is paramount in all endeavours that intrinsically carry the risk of meeting with  opposition to our getting home safe and whole. Keep your mind where your body is. Get your head out of where you’d rather be, who you’d rather be with, where you’re going, and what you’ll do when you get there. Head up and out of that phone! Ears pricked and unobstructed by ear buds! Be here and now. The journey really is the point from beginning to end if you ever expect to achieve your destination.

The mind truly is the paramount weapon in warding off all harms. What happens to be in the hand – be it hilt or steering wheel – is secondary.

What does it say about a bottle of wine when the label is plonk?

The Northeast Italian winery known as Vina Lunardelli is provoking the strongest response from organizations globally for the sale of what it calls “Hitler Wine”. Vina Lunardelli has started selling a product line of wines that feature images of the infamous leader of the Third Reich ….

… Vina Lunardelli simply states that they are not trying to be offensive in the sale of the Hitler wine.

Rather, they sell wine that promotes key historical figures of Italian and world history which includes other prominent figures such as US President Jimmy Carter, Karl Marx, Benito Mussolini, Che Guevara, and, of course, Adolf Hitler.

The excerpt above is taken from an article by Karen Enyeart that was posted today on the website eCanadaNow under the title Hitler Wine Causes Furor: Call For Global Ban. I invite you to read the article in its entirety here.

I would propose that this is a symptom of the decline in education, and by extension intellectual, quality world wide. Speaking for me and mine, we won’t be drinking this, nor even sending it as gift (in the German sense) to our enemies.

Father Thomas and the Bear

By LFM

Father Thomas crossed the sea
With righteous blazing soul,
In search of heathen sinners,
Whose salvation was his goal.

A month of sore privation
Found him standing on a strand
Wherefrom a forest primal
Stretched across a trackless land.

T’was there he met a people
Who were naked, wild and fey.
Whose life in Nature’s harmony
Was NOT the Church’s way.

He dwelt among the heathen lot
For nigh on thirty days.
He bade them hide their nakedness,
And end their sinful ways.

And wroth was Father Thomas
When he learned the people there
Held holiest of holies lived
within that one called Bear.

Such blasphemy could not abide
Before his righteous sight!
As servant of the One True God,
He’d put this wrong to right!

He learned that twice a moon it was
An offering was made,
Of meat to honour Brother Bear
Within his holy glade.

So Father Thomas hid his wrath,
Enwrapped in faith sublime.
Resolved to exorcise the beast,
Good Thomas bided time.

And so it came to pass that he
Did step into the glade
To stand before the Bear just as
Next offering was made.

“Spawn of Satan! Get thee hence!”
Was all he got to say
Before a paw but tapped his head
And sent it on its way.

The head of Father Thomas
Bounced across the forest moss.
What faced him was no cross to bear,
Nor any Bear to cross!

Even though it was done to both of us in infancy, neither Mrs. LFM nor I hold with the practice of baptizing infants into any spiritual affiliation. By extension, this same sentiment applies to anyone else who, for whatever reason, cannot choose for themselves. The fallacies inherent in this sordid and inexcusable practice are beautifully illustrated in The Saga of Biorn.

I invite you to take a few minutes, sit back, and enjoy this offering from The Animation Workshop!

“It’s not that people don’t give a fuck; it’s that they don’t broadcast the topics for which fucks are given. Because giving a fuck can often lead to being hurt, fucks are given more cautiously and with lesser fanfare than was the case with the fucks given in previous time periods. The proper current etiquette for fuck giving is to make those close to you aware that there is a fuck on the table, and that it can be given with fairly short notice, unless said fuck would prove wasted and would be better saved as a fuck to be given later.” ~ The Inimitable Chad Mossman; Gentleman, Warrior Curmudgeon, and Speaker of Truths

My Esteemed Friend Chad uttered these ever so wise and timely words just last week, and I share them here with you today in connection with something Mrs. LFM said yesterday in the wake of a singular event – she found herself in a situation that highlighted to her just how much energy it takes to actually wield a fuck at all, let alone give it, and in fact that fucks are actually a perishable resource that circumstances may come to require be distributed with discretion and extreme prejudice. In her words:

“You know, you don’t realize how much energy it takes to be polite until you have no energy left. And no fucks left to give, either.”

Mrs. LFM, you see, is now at term in her pregnancy with th’ Bairn LFM, and while she and he are the epitome of health and vitality, the fucks she has left to give are held in reserve for a very select few, with absolutely none available to give to anyone or anything else. If ever she refused to suffer fools lightly, they are now best advised to stay as far away from her as possible.

We live in a rural, forested area on a secluded road that leads to no beach, golf course, nor happy reception, and from which there is no alternate exit – only one way in and one way out; but notwithstanding this we get a trickling share of gawkers and people selling everything from religion to politics. With that in mind, what instigated Mrs. LFM’s statement was an incident that occurred last evening just before Dog feeding time – NEVER a good time for interruptions, no matter how well meaning or innocent the interloper may believe themselves to be.

Picture it – a car pulls up in front of the house while Mrs. LFM is outside watching over the Dogs relieving themselves before supper. The driver rolls down his window and attempts to engage her in conversation over the echos of barking Dogs.

Driver: “Hello, I’d ….”

Mrs. LFM: “Quiet!”

(Driver and Dogs fall silent.)

Mrs. LFM (with a stern glare at the driver): “Do you have an appointment?”

Driver (looking puzzled): “No, but …”

Mrs. LFM: “No one speaks to me without an appointment.”

Driver: “Well who do I speak to about an appointment?”

Mrs. LFM: “That would be me.”

Driver: “Well then, I’d like to make …”

Mrs. LFM: “No one speaks to me without an appointment.”

Car leaves. Dogs eat.

In an overly politicized, polarized world, seething with bullshit and wherein you can’t swing a severed arm without hitting someone who’s selling something, entirely too much credibility and trust is placed in statistics. Statistics have value only within very specific parameters, and for the most part those parameters do not include the broad, sweeping strokes of nonsense they are daily called upon to support. In short, Statistics as a field of study, and statistics as a tool, were never intended to fall under the definition of “popular science”. They are steps toward a goal of understanding, and never a giant leap ahead. Remember, when the leaping starts, a lot gets missed while you’re airborne.

To illustrate how the information compiled from statistics, taken out of context, can lead to the most erroneous of conclusions, I will yet again refer a matter of import to the inimitably eloquent lindybeige.

Recently one of my Esteemed Friends had occasion to say “shit” publicly. He did not do so without justification and, to my mind, he owes no one any apology. The identity of said EF shall remain confidential for a variety of reasons, but he will know of whom I speak when I say this poem was inspired by correspondence in the wake of his utterance.

My Man, you see, in the moment of his utterance, was speaking from provocation supplied in abundance by the bullshit that all too often afflicts the world. An affliction that, even I must admit, has influenced me to say “shit” and worse, on more than one occasion!

And so, in sincerest dedication to my Esteemed Friend, I offer this smelly bit of poetry.

Shit and Shinola

By LFM

It’s said of some, “There walks a man
“Who’d never utter ‘shit’
“Even should he wake to find
“His mouth be full of it.”

But far commoner’s another sort
With whom too oft I speak,
Whose every word it seems to me
Is spoken “dung in cheek”.