sad/happy

11.25 p.m. I'm mourning on one hand and celebrating on the other. What an extraordinary country, that can elect a majority of Conservatives and yet also, overnight, propel a left-wing party from obscure third also-ran to a huge swath of seats in the official opposition.

I am nauseated at the thought of what that sea of self-congratulatory blue will try to do to this country. But overjoyed to think that they'll be facing Jack! Jumping Jack and all his people, who'll be making lots and lots of noise. So it's pretty bad, but it could be so much worse. Obviously, the Libs will have to clean house and change course, and Jack will consolidate, so next time, maybe we can wipe those blues right out.

And we do not miss the Bloc at all.

In fact, so far, the Tories have won 40% of the popular vote, and the NDP 30%. If you add the Libs at 20%, it means that half the country did NOT vote for the Tories. It's crazy that they should be able to form a majority government when 50% of this country doesn't want them.

However. It's over. I heard one commentator say, "With a majority, at last we'll have stability." And I thought, yeah, right, stability, prisons, war, secrecy, cutting taxes and social programs, stability. Well, let's hope Jack fights that stability every step of the way.

And in the meantime, my daughter had her birthday party, and we ate like kings, as always; I kissed her a great deal and read funny stories from the book of anecdotes I jotted down during her first years, till we wept with laughter. Then turned on the TV and began to weep in earnest.

No we didn't. Those Tories will never make us cry. As Cee Lo sings in his marvellous song, "@#$# you."

big problem in the voting booth

I've just come back from voting and immediately called the Toronto Star, to alert them to what I think is a story. Maybe I'm getting paranoid in my old age. I went behind the little cardboard screen and opened my ballot, and then looked at the large piece of paper showing me how to mark the ballot.

"How odd," I said to myself. "It shows that I should put an X through the name."

And then I looked at the top of the instruction sheet and it said, in small letters, "This is how you should not mark your ballot."

Instructions on the right way were on the far side. The wrong way was printed on the side closest to me. If I were not fluent in English, I would have looked at the picture of the wrong way to vote and voted that way. Had I been asked to design an instruction sheet to confuse as many non-English speakers as possible, I would have designed this one.

Be careful today, Canadians. I'm thinking of hanging chads, and many years of George Bush because of a (deliberate?) design flaw.

PS Okay, little Miss Paranoia, settle down. Several people have written to say that there's no such confusing notice where they vote. Could it just be local? In any case, nothing to be done now. The sun is almost out, which is good. I just taught my first home class of the term, which was superb. And now - off across town to celebrate my daughter's birth 29 years and 364 days ago. The best morning of my life. And the best evening, three years later.

There's a tingling in the air, supercharged, exciting. It feels like change to me.

voting day

A big day - my country votes. It's gloomy and wet, bad news for the good guys; the left wing depends on the votes of seniors, who apparently don't vote in the rain. I hope today will be an exception.

I'm ashamed to say I was in bed at 10.45 last night, nearly asleep, when the phone rang. It was my son. I heard him say, "Obama's dead!" and shot up in bed.

"What??" I screamed.

"Osama bin Laden," he said.

What a difference. My main thought, on hearing of the death at the hands of American forces, was that this will be good for Obama's presidency. And then I went back to sleep.

Here's an excerpt of an article about journals, about the diary of Sir Walter Scott:

Over a period of six years, the journal became a crucial outlet for the feelings of despair—the "cold sinkings of the heart"—that had agonized him from the time of his youth. "Is it the body brings it on the mind or the mind inflicts it upon the body?" he wondered, concluding that the two are inseparable: "I fancy I might as well enquire whether the fiddle or the fiddlestick makes the tune."

Scott found that the only effective remedy for depression was physical exertion. "Fighting with this fiend is not always the best was to conquer him," he wrote. "I have always found exercize and the open air better than reasoning." His long walks often led to dramatic emotional recovery: "The freshness of the air, the singing of the birds, the beautiful aspect of nature, the size of the venerable trees, gave me all a delightful feeling this morning. It seemd there was pleasure even in living and breathing without anything else."

Cross country marvel

7 p.m., the night before the election. I had a pleasant Sunday midday, a neighbour's 50th birthday party and then lunch with my beloved W*yson, followed by an unpleasant afternoon cleaning the basement apartment, into which a new tenant is moving tomorrow. Two hours of vacuuming up someone else's toenail clippings and pubic hairs, scrubbing sinks and toilet, not my idea of fun. But I brought down my radio and listened, of course, to Eleanor interviewing an articulate and moving Spanish writer on Writers and Company. Then Cross Country Checkup came on. Rex Murphy the host is so conservative and combative that I usually can't bear to listen, but this time, on my knees scrubbing the floor, I had no choice.

Well. If before I loved my country and its citizens but despaired of their perspicuity, now I am in awe. One caller after another: smart, thoughtful, fair and honest. And almost every single one said that, even if they were lifelong Tories, they dislike the leadership style of Stephen Harper so much, they're going to vote NDP. Astounding!

And especially the ones, at least 3, who said that they are going to vote for Jack Layton specifically because of the vile smear campaign started against him a few days ago.

What a great country. In the U.S., smear campaigns decide elections. Here, sceptical Canadians look deeper. "We've been lied to continuously by this government," said one former Tory. "Jack listens and is interested in ordinary people," said another.

There were notes of caution, especially the woman who pointed out that the Conservatives and the Bloc have huge support on voting day, actually driving people, one by one, to the polls, which the NDP do not have - that the whole surge may evaporate in the cold light of day. I don't think so, and neither did the program. The majority of people of this country do not like Harper, Quebecers are sick of the Bloc, and the Liberals did not present them with an alternative, so they found someone else - an honest, likeable guy who's been toiling in the boonies for decades, and who suddenly is running ahead of the pack. Extraordinary.

Democracy at its finest.

And for a final bit of joy - watch a cool and hilarious Obama take on Donald Trump, to his face. O happy day.

Obama pwns Trump at White House Correspondents Dinner

www.youtube.com

truth and lies

Friend and bloggee Chuck wrote this morning:

Beth, I know the Globe has you down, but this article is right up your
alley - and published (at least online, if not in print), in the GnM.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/anyone-but-harper-a-dissenting-endorsement/article2005395/

It's a terrific article, says it all, highly recommended. Thanks, Chuck, and thanks, Matthew Hays, who wrote it. The comments afterwards are 100% - at least as far as I read - against Harper. Who is actually voting for this man and his party?

Incidentally, someone told me that Harper doesn't need the sweet little glasses he took to wearing last year; they're an attempt by his handlers to soften his eyes. This may be apocryphal, but I believe it. Nothing, not even granny glasses from 1968, can soften those eyes.

It's terrifying, in these last minutes, to wonder what will happen Monday. The news of the "leak" about Jack in a massage parlour - my heart sank. What a vile trick, how they scraped the bottom of the barrel to come up with that one. Will people allow themselves to be affected? Will this NDP surge simply siphon off Liberal votes and leave the Conservatives romping happily to a majority? We've got to do something about this 3-way split on the left.

Luckily, on Monday night I will be across town, celebrating my beloved daughter's 30th birthday with her friends, eating burgers cooked on her brand-new birthday present barbeque, a huge thing of splendour. We will all celebrate or mourn together.

I saw a film yesterday that reminded me of the bigger world: the fabulous Hot Docs documentary film festival is on, and I went to see Koundi and the National Thursday with my friend Marilyn. It shows a week in the life of a small village in Cameroon, the villagers' efforts to make money with lumber cut by hand and dragged from the forest, their struggles to dispense justice, to plan for the future. The villagers have almost nothing, wash their clothes in the river, see an "auntie" for potions and medicine. There's a heartening scene of schoolchildren doing a play about the dangers of HIV-AIDS, and a moving scene in which young women, while cornrowing their hair, discuss the number of girls who've had to leave school because of sexual pressure from teachers.

And yet the film was made by a stunning young Cameroonian woman who was in attendance yesterday, nearly in tears to see such a large crowd there to see her film. Documentary film - like memoir, another way to tell and share the truth.