Janet McNeill

<written May 29/08, i.e., over 2 years ago…>

My boyfriend & I watched a really terrible movie the other night. Of course, we’d had high hopes when it began – & when we heard someone comment in the show’s intro that it was one of the best 10 movies ever, figured we were in for a really rare treat.

It started off badly (dialogue & plot that were impossible to decipher), then it grew worse (gratuitous violence like you wouldn’t believe), & yet there we sat, & sat, & sat … ultimately watching the whole darn pitiful thing.

We both gave serious thought to turning the TV off, yet just as clearly, did not do so. We sat & watched that whole darn miserable two-&-a-half-hour turkey.

Now, I am not a TV-watcher, & compared to most folks I know, watch very few movies (reading is my chief addiction). I have heard that watching television puts our brain waves into a zombie-like mode. I guess you could say quite accurately that we’re not really fully human when we sit in front of the boob tube (or “idiot box,” as my Dad used to call it when I was a kid).

[Alice Walker has said, “I’m always amazed that people will actually choose to sit in front of the television and just be savaged by stuff that belittles their intelligence.”]

And it occurs to me that it’s no bloody wonder our world is going to hell in a handbasket (I always get a bit of a chuckle out of putting it that way) while we sit in our easy chairs & watch it go down.

Our brains have been turned to mush by that lovely (not!) blue-ray-emitting box. We’re mesmerised by the daily dose of violence, mayhem, natural disaster & celebrity-gawking that parades itself as news.

It does not motivate us to get up off our keesters & do something.

We’re like the proverbial deer, caught in the headlights.

Immobilized.

Reading mainstream newspapers is not a whole lot better. Violence! Disaster! Venal corporations & politicians! Natural disaster! Greed & corruption!

Turn the page…

Now, if watching our world…our society, our culture (civilization, if you prefer) go down the tubes – from a “safe” vantage point on the sidelines (safe; hah!) – is something you actively enjoy, far be it from me to try & talk you out of it.

If, on the other hand, there is a little glimmer in your brain wondering whether this is really the way you want your life to continue, I’d say consider quitting the TV & news game cold turkey & diving into … activism (activism is apparently a dirty word to some folks, but it seems to me it just means…being active!)

I’m not going to suggest to you that activism will “save the world.” After a lifetime of trying to “save the world,” I’ve finally had to grudgingly admit it probably cannot be saved.

It can, however, be changed – & that’s exactly what I’ll continue to focus my energies on.

Janet

P.S. Why bother, when the outcome is so…uncertain, or even terrifying? Two reasons:

1. The outcome is uncertain & potentially terrifying whether or not we choose to act. Our actions do at least have the potential to render the world – & our own lives – a teensy bit less unpredictable & terrifying. And they are enjoyable, too – very likely a good deal more enjoyable & fun than just sitting in front of a darn box that spews the most appalling nonsense at us.
2. For me, there is simply no other game in town! Just working & making money for its own sake have just plain never, as they say, turned my crank. Activism is its own reward – just like virtue!

P.P.S. I listen to CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) radio enough to catch enough of the news that I really need to catch. I even give the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting $5 a month from my exceedingly teeny-tiny monthly income to help them advocate on the CBC’s (& our) behalf. We Canadians would be in bad shape indeed without the CBC!?!?!? (& btw, if I wasn’t already donating a larger monthly sum to 3 other groups in automatic donations, I’d give more to the Friends of the CBC!!)

P.P.P.S. Alternative media – such as Toronto’s Now Magazine – are a wonderful …alternative to the mainstream newspapers that seem increasingly irrelevant & out of touch. Now Magazine is very cool, & I’m very glad it exists (kinda hate all that pornography at the rear of the paper, but at least I can choose to avoid those pages…)

P.S. # 4: The blog posting Kill Your Television has a similar message…

My apologies that the bottom bit of this message is being cut off.

Best to view the message on-line here

Dear supporter,

If you’ve noticed a pattern of dreadful deterioration to news and other programs on CBC Radio, you’re not alone.

An internal survey of National CBC Radio reporters has leaked from within the CBC.

It reads like a cry for help from discouraged and dispirited creative professional journalists who are demoralized and distraught about the depreciation of our prized CBC Radio service.

Please answer their call and join me in demanding that intelligence and quality be restored to CBC Radio.

Recently, CBC management decided to “integrate” TV, radio and online news gathering. This supposed cost saving measure has had the predictable consequence of swamping the small but vibrant culture that burns brightly within the CBC Radio service. Now Television consistently trumps Radio.

Here’s what the CBC’s official blog reports about the survey:

“According to the survey, 90 per cent of the reporters feel that the ‘radio culture’ is much worse than it was a year ago, and many of them felt that the storytelling ideals of depth, intelligence, and investigation were disappearing under the news integration process.”

“Our culture is dying,” one reporter lamented.

Most of the comments revolve around the loss of radio craft, the increasingly onerous workload, and TV bureaucrats who don’t understand radio swamping radio positions, especially senior positions.

This collective judgment of CBC’s National Radio News journalists is a condemnation of CBC senior management’s ill-conceived “integration” project that undermines the CBC service Canadians care most intensely about – CBC Radio.

Please join with me and send a message to CBC President Hubert Lacroix.

CBC management must restore intelligence and quality to CBC Radio!

Take action here

Yours sincerely, Ian Morrison Spokesperson FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting P.S. The shameful sacking of As It Happens co-host Barbara Budd is the latest of many decisions that expose CBC management’s shortcomings. Please add your voice to demand that intelligence and quality be restored to CBC Radio.

FRIENDS of Canadian Broadcasting is an independent watchdog for Canadian programming and is not affiliated with any broadcaster or political party. Please help us keep our database up to date by notifying friends@friends.ca of changes in your e-mail address. If you do not wish to receive future advocacy action alerts from FRIENDS please reply to this message with “UNSUBSCRIBE ADVOCACY” in the subject line. To unsubscribe from all FRIENDS e-mails, please write to friends@friends.ca. View FRIENDS’ privacy policy.

What a world! What a culture! It’s so noisy – and we’re all so polite. Well – maybe not polite, exactly – many of us are actually pretty rude & inconsiderate – & certainly many of us are almost fatally self-absorbed. (1)

I think most of us are terrified of silence – & of solitude. Yet if we don’t get silence & solitude in our lives, we seem to behave like nothing so much as hysterical little rodents, running-running-running pointlessly in circles on that crazy little wheel inside the bars of our cage (all the time unaware that, not only are we on a wheel, inside a cage, but that there is a whole world outside the cage!).

I was listening to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) radio on May 18th and heard an interview with hip hop musician Emmanuel Jal on the Jian Ghomeshi show. (2)

Jal has written both a book and a song(3) called ‘War Child.’ He was born in Sudan & has lived through unbelievable trials & experiences, losing family members to war & spending time as a child soldier. (If you are wondering what the war is about, I’ll give you one guess. Yes, oil. What else??)

He was eventually rescued by an aid worker & wound up in Canada. He now believes he survived in order to tell his story.

It’s notable that he did survive because a heroine of sorts (whose name I don’t know, but I expect it’s in his book) chose to be a person of action and use her life to help & serve people.

I was moved to tears, listening to the interview. This young man is using his voice as his vehicle & working very hard to help the children of his native land.

A few thoughts came to mind as I listened. One was that I am eternally grateful to the wonderful CBC for its fantastic programming & interviews. Another was that I think we should never discount the power of our own actions & our own voice to make a difference in this world.

I know I try hard to use my voice. I’m not heroic like Emmanuel Jal – but like him, I do recognize the power of the individual human voice to make change happen in this very mixed-up world of ours.

I’m not sure why some of us use our voices, while so many of us are seemingly so afraid to do so.

Well, that’s not true; I suppose I do understand. It’s all about our dysfunctional families & behaviour & our dysfunctional culture & the thousands of years of damaging patriarchy & the endless specter of fear that hold us ALL back…

At any rate, I recall how powerful I’ve found the voice of singer Jewel, singing at the end of her song ‘Hands,’ “We are God’s eyes. We are God’s hands.”

We are also, surely, God’s voice – or at the very least, have the potential to use our voice for good.

Please, raise your voice. In a positive, life-affirming sort of way. Not with anger, I think – although I know we do have anger, & sometimes even rage, & that there are reasonable explanations for our anger & rage & pain. I think if we can work on transmuting the anger/rage into compassion & caring – & action – that is ever so much better for our own health, and, of course, for the health of our world.

Raise your voice, please! For your own sake, & for everyone’s…

Janet

P.S. As I wrote in another essay (one of the Earth Day 2009 ones), activism is its own reward. One need not know what the outcome of one’s actions/activism will be – indeed, we cannot! – but as Joanna Macy says, “Grace happens when we act with others on behalf of our world.” It’s true.

P.P.S. I was in Toronto just this past weekend, and as always, had a small stash of loonies and twoonies ($1 & $2 coins) in my pocket to give out to folks I saw on the street, begging. There was a man at the corner of University & Dundas, & as I passed by him on my way to the bus station, we made eye contact, & both smiled. (I’ve always thought it rather wonderful the way we smile not just with our mouths, but also with our eyes.) I then dug into my pocket & went back & put a loonie in his cap. We smiled at one another again, & he thanked me for the money. I think I must have had about a thousand dollars’ worth of joy out of that encounter! I wish I’d given him more money. His smile alone made my day. I’ve decided next time I’m in the city I’ll only give out twoonies.

But here’s the point, readers: supposedly my giving money to beggars is to benefit them. For sure, though, I get at least as much out of it as the people I am supposedly “helping.” This is equally true of all the volunteer work I do (& the charitable donations I make). I don’t do it for me - or at least, that is not my original intention. I want to help. Then I do it, & I get so very, very much satisfaction & benefit from it, one way & another. I recall hearing when I was a child, “Virtue is its own reward.” It surely does seem to be so…

P.P.P.S. Joanna Macy says in her book World as Lover, World as Self – Courage for Global Justice & Ecological Renewal “…you also know that each action undertaken with pure intent has repercussions throughout the web of life, beyond what you can measure or discern.” I choose to believe that this is so.

‘Quote for the day’ w. this post: “We are privileged, and the duty of privilege is absolute integrity.” – John O’Donohue, Irish poet, philosopher & former priest

<March ‘09>

I was on a long drive yesterday(1) and was listening – as I so often do – to the CBC radio (I’m a passionate fan of Canada’s Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and could go on for half an hour about their fantastic programming – and have been known to say I’d surely die without the CBC…).

There was a guest on the Jian Ghomeshi show “Q” – a woman who’s a singer/musician, who’s been fighting breast cancer – and she blew me right out of the water with her passion and energy and courage. She commented that “Everyone has their bag of s-it” and I thought “Oh yeah, I’ll say,” and lately my own “bag of s-it” has been weighing on me more than just a little.

I am an almost relentlessly cheerful person – this even annoys some people, I know. I think maybe they think I’m not “deep” enough or something. How can anyone be so cheerful when the world is in such a damn mess??

And I did used to think of myself as a pessimist, once upon a time – and I do like to think of myself as a realist.

There is lots of pain and suffering, misery and mayhem in this world – no doubt about that! I’m not blind, and I’m not a moron (or not a complete moron, at any rate, although for sure, like all of us, I do my fair share of dumb stuff).

And lately, in the past 6 months or so, I’ve had my own not-so-lovely and not particularly unique set of circumstances and challenges and wounds with which to wrestle.

Even we “Pollyanna” types have our pain, you know… our bags of s-it.

Life ain’t no fairy tale, hmm?

No being carried off to the prince’s “castle in the sky”; no “happily ever after” to pin one’s hopes on (although that doesn’t seem to stop us with the fairy tale expectations, does it?).

But… in spite of all this B. of S. stuff, this world – this Earth – is so beautiful and rich and wondrous and abundant, how can we not rejoice in that?

How can we not glory in the sunshine, the sunrises and sunsets, the sky and the birds and the trees and the rivers and oceans and forests and… and in our fellow human beings, who are so terribly, terribly fallible and hurt, yet so filled with love and generosity and greatness and potential?

No doubt not everyone has read Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle and Pema Chödrön.(2) Ms. Chödrön is so breathtakingly brilliant on the richness and joy of living “in the moment” and really facing and feeling our pain and sorrows head on – not running from or ignoring or denying them – and then there is Joanna Macy and her brilliance on the subject of “despair and empowerment”(3)…

How can we let our B. of S. weigh us down when we are creatures of such immense potential??

I may have to carry a bag of s-it, but I sure as heck don’t have to act like one.

That’s definitely something that, as Oprah Winfrey likes to say, “I know for sure.”

 Janet