Posted in the May 21-June 24, 2020 issue at http://www.sharenews.com
Life’s Secret — Source of Inspiration
Proclaim shout it from the house tops let it be known so simple is the message that no one pays attention until they hear its whisper deep within their hearts. Let all you do say think be based on love. So simple we can’t believe it. Life is about learning to love.
Daylight Saving Time – The Sleep Dilemma – (Ebook excerpt repost)
March 8, 2009
Daylight Saving Time – The Sleep Dilemma
Blame American Benjamin Franklin for germinating the idea, back in the late 1700s, that has become the annual torment of trying to get out of bed an hour earlier between March and November – the annual discomfort commonly referred to as “Daylight Saving Time” or DST (or incorrectly, Daylight Savings Time).
Save daylight time?
One grating message that weather forecasters and others foist on us unbelievers is that DST gives us an extra hour of daylight. That man has done what God cannot do is truly a miracle since to add an extra hour of daylight is to go beyond the current parameters of nature. In fact we experience greater hours of sunlight as a result of the rotational relationship between the Sun and the Earth, more precisely because the tilt of the Earth as it moves around the Sun results in greater exposure to the Sun at certain times over the course of a 12-month period. Living in the Northern Hemisphere means we experience increasing hours of sunlight as the year progresses from March through to June; thereafter the hours of sunlight begin once again to diminish. For those who live in the Southern Hemisphere the same occurrence can be observed from September to December. Such is the phenomenon.
| |
|
Yet, there are those who would like to play at adding an extra hour of daylight; or just as absurdly, daylight saving.
There are a few things in this reality that can never be saved, no matter how we word it. One is time; you can use less of it or more of it, but time cannot be saved. The other is energy of any kind, and that includes light.
Perhaps a better term would be ‘annual time shifting’. Although by any name it is still an uncomfortable adjustment, not the least for people who struggle with sleep disorders, or those of us who are not ‘morning people’. While early birds and night owls generally adjust to the shift in waking time, it can take weeks for those who are not morning people to adjust. In the meantime, they are sleep deprived and function less well.
Further, the rate of heart attacks actually increases in the first few weeks following the movement of the clock one hour ahead. Driving while sleep deprived is also a problem. While parents worry about sending their children off to school in the dim light of dawn. A sensible farmer would ignore all this silliness since the sudden change in schedule would have an unsettling effect on their animals.
People living in parts of Northern Ontario – Pickle Lake, New Osnaburgh, and Atikokan for example – do not go through this annual adjustment. They are located in the Central Time Zone and are already one hour ahead, but the point is they do not have to struggle with the annual change. It’s the same in Northern Quebec and Saskatchewan where DST is not observed.
The rest of us now spend close to eight months – from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November – in this shifted time period when we have the maximum amount of sun exposure this region gets. So if the reason for the shift is to have more awake time during the sunniest part of the day, why not just maintain the time year round?
Historically it was the business sector that advocated for this annual change. Well, as the saying goes, what’s good for business is bad for people and vise versa.
Toronto writer and columnist Pat Watson is the author of In Through A Coloured Lens, available for Kindle, tablet or PC at Amazon.com.
IQUO DIANAABASI & IFEANYICHUKWU PETER TO JUDGE EOPP 2019 — WRR PUBLISHERS LTD
Iquo Dianaabasi and Ifeanyichukwu Peter Eze are the judges for the 8th edition of the annual Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize, EOPP 2019.
via IQUO DIANAABASI & IFEANYICHUKWU PETER TO JUDGE EOPP 2019 — WRR PUBLISHERS LTD
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: BRIGITTE POIRSON POETRY CONTEST [FEBRUARY 2020] — ‘FRIENDSHIP’ — WRR PUBLISHERS LTD
Words Rhymes & Rhythm Publishers is receiving entries for the February-March 2020 edition of the BRIGITTE POIRSON POETRY CONTEST (BPPC). The theme is ‘FRIENDSHIP’. Of a truth, there are very few things that we can really say have as much an impact on our happiness and enjoyment (or tolerance) of life as the friendships we…
Who gets a lump of coal? You decide
Migrant farmworkers need better protections
Published at sharenews.com, August22-September4, 2019 issue, page 6
Toulla Laid Down Her Gun© preview 2
Toulla Laid Down Her Gun©
An original dreamscape tale beckoning young adults and grown-ups
By
PAT WATSON
You know, some of the daily events on a plot of farmland signal to a child that life holds more than the sweet grass breeze of tall cane, not just gentle spaces. Whatever is growing will eventually have to be reaped. Or dispatched. And eaten. A child born into farm life tends to the urgent necessities, mindful of just how much heartfelt care to give. A child born into farm life is sensitive that life is bigger than the farm.
Listen to this one.
1
Pa-Pops always says,
Don’ go sout’ pas’ deh property boun’jry.
West in front of the house see the wrought iron gates, the big one for cars and the smaller walk-through one next to it – the way out to school, out to the marketplace – fresh fruit and cheap stuff, out to church if anyone ever wanted to go…not that anyone inside here ever wanted to. East side of our house… the pink-outside and green-inside shed with the distillation apparatus for Mama C. Past that, the cane is growing. Look around and you see where the hog pen is. The chickens. The rabbits. The goats go in and out. Not too sure how though, maybe they jump the fence. I never see them leave. Never see them coming back. I only know when they are here and not here. Then, left side of the shed door, the tree stump for Pa-Pops’s morning ritual. Look north to see the mountains. At the edge of our property southside, a solid line of trees standing thick and tall, the guards at the border… hard to see past them. Those trees are not our property anyway. Past the trees is Lake NONit – because no one named it.
Pa-Pops always says
Trouble’s about that lake. Is why it ent have no name. People don’ even want to call it naught but lake. The lake hav’ monsters. Monsters that will take yuh life. Yuh life is safe here, Toulla. Toulla, yuh hear meh?
Two willow trees, side by side, twin sisters at the edge of our property, look at the border guards. I climb the limbs easy-easy because they make stairsteps, and from the top, a clear view through to the lake. So calm. No monsters. But Pa-Pops never lies to me…not that I can tell anyway. Still, days when I sit on the highest limb of the willow twins, my eyes go over the border trees and make up a picture of the doings out past the lake. Away, well away, from Mama C in the morning – her call to wake up – sharp as the rooster out back, Pa-Pops and his sadness, and the tick-tick tick-tick of this funky little farm. Pa-Pops was no holy man abiding Mama C, the drunken sinner, but before that day when everything changed, I was not ever afraid of my pa or my ma. I am the two of them.
2
Toulla Ederede was a question in her mother’s mind. That distant morning when she woke, Cerafeena knew she had coupled with someone. Cane liquor phantoms in the hours before carried away any clue whether it was her husband or someone dissipated enough to have swum in that river with her. Who to tell? Once she is in those burning waters, the woman who would become mother to Toulla transforms into torrents of temperament. Let loose by cane liquor, drunken contortions summoned the life such that was Toulla’s.
That is long days ago, and her feet had taken her where she could not have imagined, but they compelled her to find a course. Toulla never followed her head; no, she was always led by her feet. For, when she landed in this world, her feet arrived first. We all come into the world with our gifts and that other part we don’t talk about as much about — curses. For Toulla, the itch signalled that one awoke in those feet. And to quiet it, she found she just had to walk. Her bare feet touching the soil of the family plot provides some relief. She knew because she would raise one foot and it would start again and the only relief would come from continuing to move. It wasn’t always that way.
Until she was 13, Toulla had her usual life. Her mother would wake her with a call for ‘More’. Toulla would shake off whatever dream had carried her away from the farm and quickly run to the shed that held the distillation apparatus and bring back a bottle of More. She didn’t even know any name for the substance, except More. More would begin her day. “More” and a clumsy embrace from her mother. Was it a show of maternal care or was it gratitude to have her shouting answered?
Toulla knew this also: If she did not respond to “More”, a clumsy embrace would be replaced with urgent hands, grasping her shoulders. Shaken until “More” brought silence. More. When she was three or four she responded to it as if it had been her name. “More” put her mother to sleep for the morning just as it woke Toulla up. With her mother out of this world, she would search for her father. He had a different name for her.
Listen.
Pe’Toulla, look these cards. These cards predic’ a hard day today, nuh?
~~~~~~~~
Author’s Note: This is the second preview of my latest writing — a fictional, dreamscape storrytelling. Now that I’ve completed this novella, the next part of this adventure is connecting with the right publisher, the one who says, ‘Yes!’ My vision for this novella is to share with all the joy of reading a well told tale.
My first publication is the non-fiction eBook In Through A Coloured Lens, a self-published compilation of over 100 of my most enduring current affairs opinion columns that first appeared in Share Newspaper (sharenews.com). That effort received five stars at Amazon.ca. I’m grateful for the more than 1000 people who downloaded that book and look forward to what is to come as Toulla Laid Down Her Gun makes its way into the world. I’ll keep you posted.
Toulla Laid Down Her Gun© preview
Toulla Laid Down Her Gun©
An original dreamscape tale for young adults and grown-ups
By
PAT WATSON
You know, some of the daily events on a plot of farmland signal to a child that life holds more than the sweet grass breeze of tall cane, not just gentle spaces. Whatever is growing will eventually have to be reaped. Or dispatched. And eaten. A child born into farm life tends to the urgent necessities, mindful of just how much heartfelt care to give. A child born into farm life is sensitive that life is bigger than the farm.
Listen to this one.
1
Pa-Pops always says
Don’ go sout’ pas’ deh property boun’jry.
West in front of the house, see the wroght iron gates, the big one for cars and the smaller walk-through one next to it – the way out to school, out to the marketplace – fresh fruit and cheap stuff, out to church if anyone ever wanted to go…not that anyone inside here ever wanted to. East side of our house… the pink-outside, green-inside shed with the distillation apparatus for Mama C. Past that, the cane is growing. Look around and you see where the hog pen is. The chickens. The rabbits. The goats go in and out. Then, left side of the shed door, the tree stump for Pa-Pops’s morning ritual. Look north to see the mountains. At the edge of our property, southside, a solid line of trees standing thick and tall, the guards at the border… hard to see past them. Those trees are not our property anyway. Past the trees is Lake NONit – because no one named it.
Pa-Pops always says
Trouble’s about that lake. Is why it ent have no name. People don’ even want to call it naught but lake. The lake hav’ monsters. Monsters that will take yuh life. Yuh life is safe here, Toulla. Toulla, yuh hear meh?
Author’s Note: This is the first preview of my latest writing — a fictional, magical realism telling. I invite the right publisher — you know who you are — to join me on this adventure.
My first publication is the non-fiction eBook In Through A Coloured Lens, a self-published compilation of over 100 of my most enduring current affairs opinion columns that first appeared in Share Newspaper (sharenews.com). That effort received five stars at Amazon.ca. I’m grateful for the more than 1000 people who downloaded that book and look forward to what is to come as Toulla Laid Down Her Gun makes its way into the world. Please, come with us. Follow this space for the next preview on Dec. 14/2018.
The powerful effect of Black people’s hair
By PAT WATSON
‘Nasty.’ That is a remark commonly heard in my culture to characterize mostly children, mostly girl children when they react to the pain they feel from having their hair tugged from the root – otherwise known as having it combed.
The whole process is carried out daily across the planet as a grooming practice to be presentable to the public. The very person who should be an empathetic supporter for the child often performs the pain-inducing process.
Instead, that may be the first person to label the child as ‘nasty’ for not wanting to be tortured daily by having her hair pulled. It may even be that person went through the same abuse at an earlier age.
The obsession with hair as it presents on the heads of Black people, especially Black women and girls, is pathetic and deplorable.
The obsession has given rise to any number of industries. All manner of hair ‘care’ products are making millions (billions?) of dollars to placate the shame that has been internalized about a genetic normality.
Have there been as many books and heartfelt documentaries about any other hair type?
When we finally assign the term ‘good hair’ to the history books, it will be a massive victory.
It seemed as if that had been happening during the Civil Rights era of the 1960s in the United States, which then spread across the African Diaspora. Remember the Afro? Remember all those Blaxploitation movies that featured actors like Pam Greer sporting a supersized Afro?
The good news is that the current young generation of Black folks is, as it were, finding their roots. Out on the streets of Toronto, it is beautiful to see this. The creativity is also beautiful.
This is not about being against styling that includes straightening the hair, for instance. Every person should feel free to groom his or her own hair according to personal self-expression.
It is instead about a forced expectation about what the hair of Black people is supposed to look like. It is about how Black people internalize these notions such that they despise their own God-given being.
It is also about how people who are not Black feel they have the right to tell Black people how to be in their appearance in order to make those people feel safe and comfortable.
Another person’s discomfort with the appearance of the natural hair of a Black person should be understood as a personal problem specific to that individual; an issue to work through with a spiritual leader or psychological counselor.
The same goes for those who decide that another person’s sensitivity to pain should be characterized as ‘nasty’. Who gets to decide how any person experiences pain in the body besides the person feeling the pain?
The larger point is this: There is a strong tendency to cast our internal discomfort onto others around us. This would be similar to taking your bag of garbage and dumping it at your neighbour’s front door. We all know that kind of behavior is socially unacceptable. Yet, it is often the way with personal prejudice or emotional discomfort.
Ironically, projecting these aggravations onto other persons gives them an appearance of power over our feelings. Disliking what someone else chooses to do with his or her external appearance may be a matter of personal taste, but it’s not okay to decide for that person how he or she should be.
If the discomfort moves to wanting an entire segment of society to conform one’s preference, that should be seen as the call to do the internal work to recover from a misguided belief system.
Pat Watson is the author of the e-book, In Through A Coloured Lens. This opinion column is in the September 27, 2018 issue of Share Newspaper – http://www.sharenews.com
Twitter @patprose
