In my own experience as a golfer and as a golf Marshall particularly I see a fair deal of pain and distress amongst golfers which eats away at concentration and ultimate joy of the game. I see now very clearly how pain and distress gnaws away at enjoyment. It can go so deep as to create self-loathing. As I say the last shot is in the past. If you can adopt that attitude that you can’t change that shot you are practicing acceptance. I am not sure if it will improve the technical in your game but hopefully it will improve your enjoyment of your golf game. You might want to call this “living in the moment”.
Pain and distress are part of life and they can’t be entirely removed or avoided. A person who can’t accept this will find themselves in more pain and suffering. Learning how to accept distress, anger and pain is not simply a golfing skill but a life skill.
“You can hold on to the security of a concept of God as a person, a kindly old man in the sky who loves you, and you will get through your life just fine. You will feel loved all your life just fine. You will be loved all your life, and you will love God. And you will be safe. But there will be no spiritual growth. Or you can take the risk of letting go of all of that and go on a mystical path, not knowing where it will lead. I wasn’t giving up on God. I was giving up the notion of God as a person-even if she was now female to me-to allow the possibility for spiritual growth. It was one of the most important decisions of my spiritual life, perhaps the most important. “
Marsha M. Linehan “Building a Life Worth Living” 2020 Random House
How were the Zortixians going to introduce themselves to Earthlings? Only a small percentage of Earthlings believed there was life on another planet. It had only been recently that Earthlings landed on that dump of a planet The Moon! The mutants were perhaps theoretically the best allies the Zortixians had to introduce Earthlings to Zortixians. However mutants were seen with distrust and suspicion by Earthling established institutions so would lack credibility. The poor mutants might be taken for raving lunatics and possibly be carted away to mental institutions.
The fact Zortixians had a humanoid body might be problematic. Weened on weird science fiction books and visual productions Earthlings had the impression non-Earthlings were little green aliens or bizarre creatures with enormous heads. If Zortixians visited Earth there was a danger they would be locked up and used in scientific experiments. Squid suggested perhaps the Zortixians should send a large fleet of ships to major Earthling cities and convince politicians and citizenry Zortixians did in fact exist. The Zortixian craft were like the Earthling DC-10’s and Earthlings were under the impression aliens flew about in flying saucers! Although the Zortixian Legislative Assembly and Zortixian pre-mayor Frizzy the Smicket Boy favoured this plan it was the great Zortixian scholar Muddle Fumble who dissuaded the Zortixians from their “rash plan”. He said in the halls of the Assembly, “The minute our fleet penetrates their atmosphere we will be perceived as an enemy of some sort and goodness knows our penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere could initiate a nuclear war. We really don’t want the responsibility for wiping out a planet we seek to establish diplomatic relationships with! Let’s assume we land unmolested what will happen to us. We might be treated shabbily as Earthling mutants are. If Earthlings start believing in us the powers to be might consider it as a form of insanity and imprison the believers in huge mental camps. Our crews have better things to do than being used as experiments by mad scientists! And if any of our ships are captured it is possible Earthlings will try and decipher our advanced technology and use it to conquer other countries. I think then there must be a sensible alternative and that is to let some friendly Earthlings agitate on our behalf for a few months to “soften up” the Earthlings and then we can talk about visiting Earth en masse. This is not to say we can’t visit in small groups so as not to overwhelm the Earthlings. We should establish an Earthling liaison committee. We can prepare booklets explaining our society and history so the Earthling community can learn about us. We keep it short and sweet with lots of pictures as most Earthlings have short attention spans. Let us not be too rash!”
The opening 90 seconds of this 2021 documentary brilliantly depicts the courage of Belarusians demonstrating against the dictatorship of their President Lukashenko who first came to power in the 1994 election. In 1996 a referendum stripped away key powers from the Belarusian Parliament. All elections after that point have been seen as rigged by much of the world except, not surprisingly by Vladimir Putin’s Russia where democracy has been slipping away quickly. After 2001’s presidential election won by Lukashenko two key members of the opposition disappeared probably with great prejudice as they were never seen again.
Belarus was once part of the USSR until that empire collapsed and Lukashenko seems to have learnt the Stalinist playbook well!
Why the title “Courage”? Considering the disappearances, executions, beatings, torture, rapes and other gifts of the Lukashenko regime to the population of Belarus being a protestor is a dangerous if not deadly game. The security forces wade into the crowds beating them, spraying them with water cannons and tear gas. In some instances, live ammunition has been used. If you are arrested you could be beaten, raped, humiliated and sometimes executed.
We follow the lives of some actors from a fringe theatre group in Minsk. Their stories expose the extent of the repression where one says the country has moved from dictatorship to tyranny. They take it for granted they will be arrested. Some have already been arrested and beaten in prison. Some are on the verge of arming themselves for protection. We all know from history that too much repression and intimidation can result in civil war and Belarus seems very close to that point. Canada recently announced a third round of sanctions against Belarus and the United States is on the same page with Canada imposing sanctions on Belarus. Imagine a Belarusian “Mass Gathering Law”.
The members of this Free Theatre are on a blacklist with many plays being censored as “Satanism”. One says now is not the time for theatre in Belarus but instead they should directly challenge the regime.
The closing of the documentary is a scene from a play about the 1999 disappearance of Anatoliy Karsovsky a businessman who had assisted Belarusian democratic forces. Never seen again it would appear he was a victim of an execution.
Very haunting and absolutely perfect Belarusian music at the beginning and ending of the film. The film is both tragic and inspiring.
What we take for granted in Canada as our democratic right is a dream of the courageous in Belarus. You can see the trailer here for this 90-minute German/Belarusian film https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7OIMQrjJAs
The film was written and directed by Aliaksei Paluyan and you can expect to see it on the festival circuit or your favourite “indie” cinema.
The flow of $20 and under Bordeaux keeps on coming into the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. And you can score some winners. Given supply chain problems and the rising cost of just about everything in these inflationary times one wonders what 2022 will bring? One would think supply chain issues for wine will not affect Ontario wineries as they might affect ex-Canada wines.
We try a Cap Royal which is a Bordeaux Supérieur. It received a 96 in the 2020 International Wine & Spirit Competition if that makes you feel any better. Is it worth a 96? It would have to be exceptional to deserve that score.
It has aromas of rich black cherry, cassis, red plum and vanilla. It suggests a certain creaminess or softness should follow on the palate. The tannins are soft and the wine is smooth but still has some assertiveness to it with that rich back cherry also present on the palate along with some blackberry, milk chocolate and cactus pear. Given its nose I would have expected more concentrated flavours on the palate but many Red Bordeaux’s play peek a boo with their fruit and I think this is one of them. The finish is moderate in length. My hope is that the peekaboo game will end in a couple of years and the fruit will present itself. I might suggest why not hold onto this until the summer of 2022.
(Cap Royal Rouge 2018, AC Bordeaux Supérieur, Bottled by LCDR À 3350 for CMGC, Blanquefort, France, $18.95, LCBO # 486761, 13.5%, 750 mL, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating 90/100)
We try a 2018 Château Lanbersac Puisseguin Saint-Émilion. Extreme black cherry in colour. On the nose soft and creamy with black cherry, cassis and a slightly floral tinge. There is a bit of a coffee streak as well which causes me some concern as it may indicate the grapes were picked overly ripe. The tannins are mild. Unfortunately I am correct about coffee as a warning sign. I don’t think I have ever used the word “weird” but that’s what this wine is on the palate. I could also use the term “Over-Extracted” or raw. Whatever the word this wine is badly made and this is simply a one-off bad bottle or he knows not what he speaks! I am returning this bottle and I will therefore not rate it. It’s $17.95 which is an attractive price but this is one ugly wine. Zut Alors!
(2018 Château Lanbersac Puisseguin Saint-Émilion AC, Lannoye, France, LCBO # 2117, $17.95, 750 mL, 14%, Robert K. Stephen A Little Birdie Told Me So Rating UNRATED)
Yes, finally the sequel to “Reggie the Egyptian Rescue Dog” has been released by Disney and its breaking all records. I sense Bob and Dylan the Westie are tiring of so many promotional tours. I heard Bob talking to Fay and saying Dylan the Westie is getting older and is having difficulty keeping up with our schedule and that this time he should stay with Fay. I hear Bob saying that he is also having difficulty as these tours are far from glamorous and rather gruelling and he is not doing this for the money as he has already made millions and donated millions to rescue dog societies through Reggie’s Dog Foundation. He is doing it for the children that adore me Reggie the Egyptian Rescue Dog.
Disney wants Bob to write the next sequel to the film but he has said he will wait until after the promotional tour to make a decision.
So off we go and thank goodness we will be flying again in the Disney corporate jet. I am not going to tell you the cities we went to on the tour but thank goodness we are going to Paris and Bob has insisted upon a three-day break there. I saw Versailles last visit and we are seeing Fontainebleau and eating in a couple of Bob’s favourite restaurants. I love L’Ami Jean with its nouvelle bistro cuisine and I’ll get a few pieces of beautifully cooked meat. The whole restaurant smells of deliciously cooked meat! As I said previously, “WE DOGS LOVE MEAT!”. We have also been invited to dinner with the big guy Ayatollah in Tehran. Iranian children love me as I am a Muslim. A dog to look up to. A dog with accomplishments. In fact before that important dinner the Ayatollah and I are cutting (me biting) a red ribbon on a soon to be built “Reggie’s Tehran Dog Rescue Centre”. Bob has told me he is upset with Tehran’s human rights violations and is going to tell this to the big guy Ayatollah. And he did and the Ayatollah unexpectedly smiled and said as the country had settled a nuclear deal with the United States so political tensions should be relaxed and the government was in the process of planning to release hundreds of political dissidents including Nasrim a famous human rights lawyer/activist. I also prayed with the Ayatollah which was cool as all my prayer have been private and I haave never prayed with a Muslim human before! Bob also told the Israeli Prime Minister Israel really should work on solving the Palestinian problem as its unacceptable actions against these people would forever seal a streak of desperation and hatred amongst the Palestinian people. In the politest terms he was told to mind his own business.
I miss Fay and Dylan the Westie but I have his blanket with me in my Winnipeg Blue Bombers bed I received from the mayor of Winnipeg at the most recent Grey Cup game so I don’t feel homesick! Yes we dogs can become homesick.
Bob and I return home to Toronto to a welcoming Fay and Dylan the Westie who was so excited he accidentally peed on the floor. I heard Bob and Fay talking over a bottle of wine from Galil Mountain Winery in the Golan Heights that Bob and I had visited. They have created a Reggie brand for their export market. Bob tells Fay he is, pardon the expression, “dog tired” and that he has accepted Nicole Kidman’s offer for me to co-star in her upcoming movie “How a Dog Saved My Life”. While on our promotional tour in Sydney, Australia we had dinner with Nicole who asked me if I wanted to do a screen test for the movie the next day which I did “bloody brilliantly” according to the director of the film and Bob was given the contract to review.
Nicole had found a beautiful house in Darwin in the Northern Territories which all of us could live in for 4 months while they were shooting the movie there. Dylan has a cameo appearance where the fierce Scottish Westie defends Nicole’s character from a poisonous snake attack! Bob and Fay also have a cameo appearance as an arguing Canadian couple in a restaurant Nicole is eating at. A family project and we will all be movie stars. Mr. Gordon Lightfoot is involved in the film as he is writing the opening track for the film. Russel Crowe will be doing my voice in the film. Our friend from Beamsville, Ontario Martin Malivoire will be doing the special effects. We Canadians will be red hot in Australia.
After details of the movie are made public as we leave our Bridle Path home for our walk reporters are there asking all sorts of questions. We are in the spotlight again!
This is a difficult question to answer. After much thought and personal experience with mindfulness on the golf course my answer is that it most likely will not improve the mechanics of the game but it most likely will increase the pleasure of your golfing experience.
It might strike you as a revelation as it did me playing my last game for the season pre COVID era. It was a miserable game. Everything was going wrong. Finally on the 13th hole I thought just forget the misery, anger and frustration growing inside me. You are on the golf course on a beautiful day. Every shot is a new shot and forget the previous holes. I figured I was going to hit over a hundred so what did I have to lose. Well I lost the bad game and started playing quite well including making an impossible shot on the 18th hole in a sand trap over the trees and three feet from the hole. In for a birdie.
As I was driving home from the course I thought of the many times I had driven home in an angry mood disappointed with my game. It usually faded after I returned home but that anger and frustration was a real and a negative force.
This year I have given mindfulness a serious trial on the golf course. I have accepted my golf game for what it is. I am stuck in a range for my score from a 77-99 for 18 holes and there is not much I can do about that. I still get frustrated and angry but not always and if I do it doesn’t last for that long. In fact I get more frustrated about my attitude now than I do at my game.
Does it go the identical way for the beautiful shots which occasionally amateur golfers do experience? But if you exhilarate with a bad shot you can lapse into mental deterioration. There is that possible little defect in golf mindfulness. So you can down your exhilaration or learn to completely be in the moment and realize that fantastic shot was a previous shot lost in the past. Heavy duty discipline.
We will discuss some mindfulness hacks so you can try them out next year. As a parting thought mindfulness most likely will not improve your score but it will improve how you feel mentally about your game and of course if you are feeling mentally good it is possible your score will improve but I would say at the end of the day it’s like “Groundhog Day” as you are stuck in a range game after game!
Not having success at the United Nations headquarters in New York the mutants flocked to Hellsinkit in Finland to protest their exclusion from being able to address delegates at the United Nations Human Rights Conference. Some 30,000 of them poured into an already overcrowded Hellsinkit. The problem of accommodations was apparent as all accommodations had long been booked in the city however the mayor of Hellsinkit, Javik Sandor, had sympathy for the plight of the mutants partially because his grandmother, afflicted by crippling arthritis, had been a member of the mutant movement for years. The Hellsinkit City Council had previously constructed a mutant centre in Hellsinkit. By vote of the city a campground at the fringe of the city was temporarily “expropriated” and an International Mutations Camp was constructed with help of the Finnish army. City fireman and policemen donated their time to install portable latrines and canteens. Volunteers managed kitchens so the mutants had good food to fortify their strength. Kegs of local pine needle beer were also delivered. As far as the citizens they felt that Hellsinkit was nothing but a soapbox for politicians to deliver platitudes. It was a conference for the politicians and the media. The politicians and their delegations would go to the finest restaurants and stuff caviar down their gullet washing it down with Champagne then return to their 5-star hotels while thousands in many of their countries were starving and slept in the streets. The mutant camp was for the people. Politicians were too busy cultivating their image delivering insincere speeches about oppression and suffering which only a few cared about. They had no time for people but at the mutant camp there was a true spirit of international co-operation.
While the mutants gave protests their heart and soul only the Finnish delegation insisted the mutants be given the right to address the conference. In a sense the commingling of international mutants gave a festive air to Hellsinkit.
Valuable tips and strategies were shared amongst the mutants and many a lasting friendship was established. In essence this was the first true international mutant conference however informal it was.
The mutants had come to Hellsinkit expecting very little so they were not downcast being ignored by the official delegations who ignored their pleas and catcalls lest their hot breakfast in the hall be too cold to enjoy. They massed outside the conference hall demonstrating and explaining to the fringe media who had been denied accreditation their goals and aspirations as a true international committee. At least the delegates and the media saw and reported on their frustrations and anger. It made for exciting press coverage of a boring and sham event.
After one last party the Canadian mutants boarded their Lard Air flight stopping in Malton Airport in Toronto and Dorval Airport in Montreal. Up and onwards!
Thinking that Omicron is the end of it? Personally I say this is only the beginning of the shit More will be coming from the poor countries the Western world has colonized and raped and on your funeral casket their revenge will be draped you pillaged and plundered and soon will be felled by their viral thunder
The mutants of the world were dismayed they had not been given a voice at the United Nations Hellsinkit Human Rights Conference. Frustration seeped through United Mutations offices throughout the globe. Given the role the mutants played in saving thousands of lives in Montreal from the attack of the giant killer ants they felt especially dejected and “sold down the river”. Many members shuffled through the office or in a park nearby with heads hung low murmuring to themselves. Many were seen hitting their heads with stale bagels.
The United Mutations office in Montreal had been far more generous than the Quebec government in equipping mutants needing a wheelchair with the best in class motorized wheelchair. Several hardcore mutants laughed at the idea of wheelchairs as they managed without them for years. This was a hearty breed of rebels who openly flaunted their “handicap” doing their best to embarrass the “straights” and their little kiddies. They had managed to achieve a great deal of mobility they had learnt from the most impoverished Indian mutants of Bombay who sat on planks of plywood with wheels and they dragged themselves forward by lassoing objects and pulling themselves forward. However this method had its drawback especially during rush hour in Montreal as pedestrians would occasionally be entangled in rope and bellow insults. This method of propulsion was especially dangerous in the winter if the wheels were not winterized and a patch of ice was encountered which would cause the plywood plank to spin out of control and slide onto the road where they would be run over by vehicles. Some 6 mutants had died this way the year before.
For longer trips the Montreal mutants had rusty decommissioned public transit buses. But the Greek Gods were so impressed by the mutants defending Montreal’s Greek population in the Avenue de Parc Riots they sent the Montreal mutants some 8,000 ancient Greek gold coins that enabled them to buy some 25 new Mercedes passenger vans. They were painted Indigo Blue with the mutant’s logo on the sides which was a wheelchair with a brain on it crisscrossed by two crutches painted in silver. The vans were equipped with CB radios, telephones and a small kitchen with a WC. In fact the mutants developed their own public mutant bus route system in Montreal that welcomed all citizens for no charge. The City of Montreal had big exhibitions to pay for so no transportation was available for the “handicapped”.
A fleet of mutant vans packed with mutants headed off to the offices of the United Nations in New York to protest their exclusion from Hellsinkit. Outside the United Nation’s offices in Manhattan they joined a variety of groups protesting their exclusions from Hellsinkit including United Mutations from over the globe, the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Advancement of Homosexuals Association. They shared their experiences and strategies for coping and defeating the discrimination levelled against them. By the first evening some 20,000 had gathered outside the swank U.N headquarters and every time a delegation arrived they tried to present their case and they were not without success as two diplomats in the Yugoslavian and Fiji Island delegations promised to do “what they could”. The two friendly but bewildered diplomats were taken to a local Greek taverna on 47th and 3rd for numerous shots of ouzo. It turned out to be a festive time for all except for Myra Ludiwosy and Mea Longo who were summoned to the United Nations and dismissed by the chief of their delegations.
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