No Advantage

Art on the Highline: The Swallower Swallowed by Jon Rafman

The Ruler of a small but pleasant realm was gathering her things in preparation of a trip to The Great Scrutiny Council, where she had not been since her move to her new realm.

The offering she took to the Council, sponsored by the Emperor (her boss to the third power), was prepared by her competent new advisors following the "Best We Can Do on Short Notice" protocol. 

The Council Chamber lay beyond the Troll Bridge and was where all the weighty matters of the kingdom were chewed over. 

The Ruler put everything she needed in a small satchel and headed over to the Yessir Yessir Highway.

Joining her were the Ghost, her boss to the first power and the Great Troll, her boss to the second power. The latter grumbled the entire way, dragging his huge stinking feet and muttering under his breath. Foul drops of acidic spittle fell from his half-open mouth, hissing on contact with the paving stones and leaving corroded pock marks.

The Ghost was silent. His face was immobile as a stone; his eyes almost completely closed. Were he not walking at her side, the Ruler would have thought he was asleep or even dead.

In a departure from the usual, the Ruler and those with her were ushered in immediately upon their arrival at the Chambers. Normally they would be subject to the "Wait in the Hallway for Several Hours" protocol, where they cooled their heels and pretended to have things to say to one another while the Council deliberated great matters.

Once in the chamber, the Ruler saw that the Council was down to a fraction of its numbers. Advisors to the Council, anxious for the meeting to start, invoked the magic spell "Quorum, quorum, quorum."

Directly across the table from the Ruler and the Ghost sat the Emperor. Gregarious and jovial, the Emperor joked with the other members of the Council, avoiding at all costs any acknowledgement of the people seated across from him.

The quorum incantation worked. A fourth member appeared and the deliberations began.

The Ghost spoke first. Then the Ruler. Their speeches were short and to the point. They invoked no special magic, acknowledging that they had no claim to the Goose that Lays the Golden Egg. Theirs was a modest and obvious proposal; only a fool would think this was not a necessary and prudent thing to do.

The Ruler and the Ghost had their say; it was now the Council's turn. Protocol requires that Council members repeat what they have heard as if it were their own idea that has occurred to them just this minute. Protocol also requires that every Council member take three times as long to make their point as it took to tell them. Finally, the protocol requires that every successive comment must both repeat all that has been said before and take longer to say it.

The Ruler was not sorry that Council numbers were low.

The Ruler knew that at Council, only the first three words of each harangue mattered. She saved her attention for the start of every speech. And three times she heard "I support this."

The Emperor spoke last. The Ruler hoped that, with the glowing support of his council colleagues, the Emperor would be gracious in victory. 

But the Emperor's brow was furrowed. His face a mask of pain. He spoke of his displeasure with the proposal. It was beside the point he said. It did not come from credible sources he said. It would have been better if it were completely different and achieved a different objective.

After this damning indictment of his own proposal, the Ruler, the Ghost and the Great Troll all held their breath and wondered if the Emperor would block it. 

Instead, a canny Council Advisor slid a piece of paper under the Emperor's arm.

"Will you sign?" she asked.

Distracted and grumpy still from the many failings of the world, the Emperor shrugged and impatiently signed his approval of the proposal he had just maligned.

[To be continued ....]

*************

To complete last week's descriptions of retirement parties, I have to admit I was mostly wrong in my prediction of the details of the party for the petroleum industry lobbyist.

First off, I had the location wrong. It wasn't a "rich people only" club on King Street. It was at the Royal Canadian Military Institute on University Avenue, in a room lined with hand guns and other projectile-flinging weapons. There were about 15-20 people. The scant food offering was dreadful - deep-fried dreck of the same sort I used to serve at the Sargent's Mess in Trenton when I worked there forty-five years ago. And, while I offered up a hand shake, I did get a hug and a kiss on the cheek from the retiree.

The one thing I had right: there was an open bar.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

  

Old Soldiers

Battery Park Monument: New York Korean War Veterans Memorial

The happenstantial circumstances of my life have taken me to few weddings, even fewer baptisms and still, gratefully, not too many funerals.

Perhaps as a harbinger of those latter gatherings, I have been going to a lot of retirement parties lately.

As with all rites of passage, there is a formula: people gather, talk, snack, drink, listen to speeches of varying length and quality, then hug or shake hands and disperse.

In the past month, I have been part of the ritual for 

a fellow director at the ministry, 

a lawyer formerly with the ministry, 

my former boss at Toronto Public Health 

Next week, I'll be attending the retirement party of a well known lobbyist for the petroleum industry.

While the gatherings so far have all followed the formula, none were alike. 

The fete for my fellow director involved less than ten people gathered in a drab and airless government boardroom. There was coffee and chocolate cake (at ten in the morning). A few of those in attendance managed to struggle out some comments about the leadership or some other aspect of the retiree's career and he obliged us by telling the stories about himself we'd already heard a thousand times. The whole thing was over in less than an hour. I forgot to shake the retiree's hand on my way out.

The celebration for the lawyer formerly with the Ministry was also held in a government boardroom, but this time it was the one on the 15th floor at 135 St. Clair Avenue West - which commands a spectacular view of the city to the south. There were about fifty people there, all from the ministry. The lunch time event featured a respectable spread of asian-style salads and ten different kinds of sandwich. The speeches were to be short, but also scheduled after I had to leave. I had hugged the retiree at the beginning of the party so I left without a parting word to anyone.

The late afternoon soiree for my former boss from Toronto Public Health was held at the swanky Faculty Club at the University of Toronto. There were at least 100 people there, including Joe Mihevc, a City Councillor, David McKeown, the former City of Toronto Medical Officer of Health, Eva Ligeti, the first ever Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, and several former colleagues whom I had not seen in more than a decade. Along with a respectable spread of high quality nibbles, a circulating waiter served crab cakes, spring rolls and sweet and sour pork. There was also a cash bar.

The speeches were long, elaborate, amusing, touching - a fitting appreciation of the career of the woman who had taught me how to be an advocate for the environment inside government. The festivities were capped with an all-staff performance of a song in tribute to my former boss to the "tune" of Queen's We Will Rock You.  

After three hours, the party was still going on. I had a lot of people to hug and shake hands with before I could get out of there.

The bash next week for the petroleum industry lobbyist is to be held at one of the rich-people-only clubs on King Street downtown.

I predict his ritual will feature the best food ever, an open bar, a sizeable crowd with many familiar faces, and no one to hug.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Fresh Perspective

Paparazzi dogs.

As of the first of May this year, I have a new role at work. I am no longer the "acting" Director of the Air Policy and Climate Change Branch at the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change. I am now the Director full and proper of the Strategic Policy Branch at the same ministry. 

So what does that mean? 

These are confidential matters; let's take a trip to the land of the Yessir Yessir Highway and visit with our friend the Ruler and her Advisors.

******************

The new Ruler of a small and pleasant realm was seated in her new chambers surrounded by her new Advisors. They  were filling her in on her duties. 

The Ruler's new chambers were much like her old chambers. 

Her window still overlooked the Yessir Yessir highway. She could tell from the smell, though, that she was closer by a league or two to the Troll Bridge, the place of greatest power and peril in the kingdom.  

The Ruler struggled to keep her attention fixed on the discussion. So many of the topics being shared were the same as in her old realm: the paperwork, the barbarian accountants, even her old nemesis the Power still lurked on the boundaries of the Kingdom, threatening more template wars.

"OK," said the Ruler, when she'd heard enough, "thank you for your exhaustive briefing. I am weary and want to do something else."

"Oh," said one of the Advisors, clearly disappointed, "but we haven't told you the most important part ..."

"If you have something important to tell me," snapped the Ruler, "tell me that first. Do not take an hour to advise me on archiving paperwork and then say there's something important still to tell."

Stung, the Advisor sat glum and silent. 

The Ruler regretted her impatience.

"All right," she said, "what is this important thing I need to know."

Another Advisor spoke up.

"The Henchman did not follow you," he said.

The Ruler started at this news.

The Henchman had been the Ruler's boss to the first power. The Ghost was her boss to the second power, the Head Troll her boss to the third power, the Emperor her boss to the fourth power and so on.

"Who will replace the Henchman?" asked the Ruler.

"No one" replied the Advisor.

"I have one less boss?"

"Yes'm."

Wanting to impress upon her team that she was a magnanimous and kind Ruler, and wishing too, to celebrate this good news, and seeing by the clock on the wall that it was two minutes after five, the Ruler said to her Advisors, "as my thanks for your bearing these glad tidings, you may take the rest of the day off."

To be continued ....

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

  

   

Bearing Witness

In December 2015 I sent some dispatches from the Paris Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. 

I counted myself lucky to be among the infinitesimal percentage of humanity there to witness what felt like history at the time. 

Odd artwork, a hallmark of Conferences of the Parties - here cafe chairs are arranged into a small scale Eiffel Tower and tucked away at the far end of Le Bourget. Dianne Saxe, the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, took this photo.

The Paris Accord was going to help nudge the planet back from the brink. If its ambition seemed small to some, the fact that it existed at all was a miracle.

And that miracle may have been undone this week.

Or not.

Unless waging war or protecting commerce, the impact of government actions is not that great in the larger scheme.

The leader of the free world thinks he's protecting commerce.  But he's on the wrong side of where the rest of the world is on that.

The history we are all witnessing right now is not the end of the Climate Agreement. 

It's the decline and fall of the American empire.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen