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There is nothing stable in the world.  Uproar is your only music.

Uproar: so said the English poet John Keats in a letter to his brothers, in January 1818.  George III was the king in that year, and the world was beset by slavery, cholera, and wars in Europe and the West.  It was a time of great instability and turmoil and chaos.

In that uncertain time, George III ruled for just shy of sixty years. Only Queens Victoria and Elizabeth II would go on to be on the throne that long – Victoria, 63 years, Elizabeth, 70 years.

Like this writer’s favourite poet, Theodore Roethke, Keats was a great observer of the natural world.  From that, he acquired the view that life, in the main, was mostly about hardship and suffering. People, Keats wrote, were perpetually “straining at particles of light in the midst of a great darkness.” Keats, perhaps the greatest English poet, knew about that darkness: he died horribly, from tuberculosis, at the age of 25.

What he wrote to his brothers George and Thomas was as true now as it was then.  In 1818, as in 2022, uproar is ubiquitous.  It cannot be missed.

As in 1818, war is again raging.  There is Russia’s vicious and unholy war against Ukraine, near the centre of Europe.  After seven months, at least 40,000 Ukrainians have been killed or wounded; as many as 43,000 Russian soldiers have been killed, too.

In Africa, in places like Sudan, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Nigeria and the “Democratic Republic” of Congo, millions have been displaced by war and drought and Ebola and famine, and millions more are starving. Elsewhere, in places like Myanmar, there is genocide, with tens of thousands murdered and raped.

Globally, Covid-19 persists, despite the serial fantasies of politicians bent on re-election, and fantasists bent on self-destruction.  To date, the virus has killed at least seven million people around the planet – but the real figure is perhaps twice that, because governments lack the means or the will to tell the truth about the full extent of the death toll.

In Canada, Covid has killed close to 50,000 of us – but the real figure is known to be much higher.  And that lesser figure, alone, is already thousands more Canadians than those who were killed in World War II.

Such misery and death – such uproar, as John Keats called it – has always been a constant for humankind.  The uproar upends lives, and leaves us feeling like there is no respite, no relief from it all.

Except, except: her.  She was.

She was born Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor.  More formally, she would become known as “Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other realms and territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.”

It was not that cumbersome title, of course, for which she became known.  She became known – and admired, and loved – because she somehow provided an antidote to Keats’ uproar.  She was stability in an era of instability.  She was certainty when too much remains uncertain.  She was steadiness when the world was anything but.

Elizabeth was not elected to her role, which (understandably) rankled many.  She was born to it.  But that, in an odd way, placed her above the grubbiness of re-election and phoney political promises.  She was born to be rich and powerful, true.  And she could have revelled in that, and been disinterested in the everyday concerns of everyday people – as some of her children have been.

But she clearly regarded her role as one of duty and service, and she provided both for seven decades, without complaint.  Supporting charity, promoting good causes, urging on democracy and decency.  Most of all, however, she was the antidote to the perpetual uproar.

A few years ago, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty invited this writer and others to meet her, at the opening of a cavernous, metal-clad film studio in Toronto’s East end.  The heat was Hellish, that day, and all of us – dressed in our finest outfits – were bathed in sweat.  It was almost unbearable.

Her Majesty was tiny, I recall.  She wore a hat and held her purse close to her, and there was a faint smile on her face, which was a lovely face. As she moved away from me and my friend Bob Richardson, I whispered to him that she appeared completely unaffected by the heat.

“She is the calm,” I said to Bob, “at the centre of every storm.”

And she was.  

And we will miss her for it.

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What a truly extraordinary and exceptional human being.

This is one of those days we all remember where we were when we heard.

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Okay, you’re Justin Trudeau.  Just pretend you are.

We know, we know: you’d rather not.  If we’re all playing dress-up games – one of Justin Trudeau’s favourite pastimes, as is well-known – you’d rather play the role of someone else.  Someone less unpopular, say.

Because, God knows, Justin Pierre James Trudeau, PC, MP, twenty-third Prime Minister of All of Canada, is pretty damn unpopular.  Even that friendliest of friendly Ottawa opinion-sampler firms, Abacus, says so.

Said Abacus, a few days back: “Public feelings about Prime Minister Trudeau had been deteriorating through our surveying over the Summer…The Prime Minister’s negatives still stand at 50 per cent – the second highest negative reading we’ve seen during his time in politics.”

The reasons are myriad and multiple, because – in politics – it’s never just one thing that kills you.  It’s an accumulation of things, over a long period of time.  Big political graves are dug with tiny shovels, this writer always likes to say.

In Trudeau’s case, there’s no shortage of things about which to dislike.  There’s the WE scandal, and the Aga Khan one.  There’s his obstruction of justice in the LavScam thing – which would’ve gotten him impeached, had we been like the Americans.

There was the egregiously racist blackface incidents – incidents, plural, because Trudeau did it so many times, even he wasn’t sure how many.  There’s was the groping of the reporter at the beer festival in BC, which constitutes sexual assault, as defined in no less than the Criminal Code of Canada.

Any of those – obstruction of justice, blackface, groping – were disqualifying.  Had Justin Trudeau been a garden-variety aspiring Liberal candidate, had he been a regular person, those things would’ve prevented him from being “green lit” to be an actual candidate.

But he isn’t a regular person.  He’s a Trudeau, a millionaire, and a charter member of the lucky sperm club.  He breathes a different, rarefied air.  He orbits in a different stratosphere than the rest of us mere mortals do.

But we mere mortals want him gone for the most politically-fatal wound of all: we’re sick of his face.  We’re tired of him, even those of us who voted for him before.  We want him gone.

Few Liberals know where he hangs out, these days.  Fewer still are consulted by him.  If you’re a Liberal MP, you’ll be lucky to be granted a minutes-long audience with him once every year.

So, as Justin Trudeau lingers somewhere, pondering what to do – pondering whether to stay or to go, per the Clash – there are pros and cons.

The cons: Trudeau could lose the next election.  The Conservatives are about to give Pierre Poilievre 110 per cent of the vote.  Poilievre could get a bit of bump.  The fresh face and all that.  Stranger things have happened.

Another con: there’s no issue to manipulate, there’s no pretext, to justify an early election call.  Trudeau used Covid in 2021, and it very nearly blew up in his face.  What could he use this time?

This con, too: the polls – including the aforementioned Abacus – continue to show Trudeau’s Liberals and the Conservatives where they have been for years: tied.  If an election was held now, the Grits would win – but it’d be another minority.  No change.

But there are pros, too, associated with staying and fighting. Chief among them is Pierre Poilievre himself.  The Ottawa-area MP is hard to like.  And his Bitcoin fetish – and his WEF conspiracy theories, and his links to far-Right convoy types, and the civil war he’s fostered within his own party – are big, big liabilities.  For the Liberal war room, it’d be a target-rich environment.

Another pro: the Tories are again – again! – underestimating Trudeau. After being beaten by him three elections in a row, you’d think they’d learn.  But, once again, they have underestimated Trudeau’s main strength: his ability to fight.  He loves a good fight.  And he rarely loses.

Pros, cons.  Negatives, positives.  As he sits somewhere, eyeballing his phone, alternating between poll numbers and pictures of Himself on Instagram, Justin Trudeau isn’t letting on what he’ll do.  Stay and fight? Shrug and leave?

So: if you were Justin Trudeau, what would you do?

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BOSTON – Down here, the Stars and Stripes are ubiquitous, but there’s nothing new there. It’s America, after all.

But there’s another kind of flag to be seen here, now. It’s everywhere – flying atop cars, homes, businesses. Everywhere you look down here, there is the beautiful – and simple and striking – Ukrainian national flag: a band of blue, as blue as the sky. The blue is atop a band of yellow, representing the fields of grain and flowers for which Ukraine is well-known.

The United States, more than any other nation on Earth, has rallied to support Ukrainians, as they valiantly resist the Satanic, fascistic forces of Vladimir Putin‘s corrupt regime. No nation has come close to doing what the United States has done.

According to the US State Department, it has been significant: “Deliveries to date include almost 12,000 anti-armor systems of all types; more than 1,550 anti-air missiles; radars; night vision devices; machine guns; rifles and ammunition; and body armor…

“Since January 2021, the United States has invested more than $10.6 billion in security assistance to demonstrate our enduring and steadfast commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. This includes more than $9.9 billion since Russia’s launched its premeditated, unprovoked, and brutal war against Ukraine on February 24.”

The State Department is quick to point out, however, that other nations and allies have contributed to the war effort, Canada included. But there can be no doubt that America has cast off the chaos and venality the characterized all of Donald Trump‘s foreign policy. Under Joe Biden – whatever his domestic policy failures – the US has stepped up.

So, too, the Ukrainian people. A war that everybody thought would be over in a single weekend has now reached the six-month mark. Ukrainians have fought with a ferocity and determination that has clearly caught Vladimir Putin by surprise. Putin, the great strategist, looks like a fool and a charlatan.

The magnitude of his error is everywhere to be seen, just like the Ukrainian flags found all over the United States this Summer. His objectives in waging war were threefold: to forestall the growth of NATO, to expand the withering Russian empire, and to show the world that he is the undisputed leader of a superpower.

On every front, he has failed. NATO is now expanding, not shrinking. Russia is now barely a country, let alone an empire: it is isolated, it is detested, and its people are greatly suffering because of Putin‘s miscalculation.

Most of all, Putin may be a leader, in the dictionary sense of the word – but he does not lead a superpower. Not now.

During the anarchic Trump era, the world order was faltering and splintering. Trump, a xenophobe and moron, did not care. Under Biden, however, the civilized world has come together as a one to defy Putin. The Russian leaders powers don’t look very super, anymore.

It is fair to observe that not every American supports Biden’s opposition to Putin. On Fox News, where extremists and conspiracy freaks dominate, the network’s meat puppets bray and screech about the insignificance of Ukraine, or advocate for a return to a Trumpian America that is insular and isolated.

But they, like Putin himself, are losing. While the war has been going on for half a year, far longer than either side wants, Vladimir Putin has still not won it. America and its allies support Ukraine in this war.

Now, the cliché is that the first casualty of war is truth. But one truth is unassailable: in this war, everyone knows who the good guys and the bad guys are. There is no fuzziness at the edges. Russia is bad, Ukraine is good. Period.

The British author Graham Greene once wrote that, in order to remain human, we sometimes must choose sides.

Humanity, and history, has chosen Ukraine. America and Canada and the civilized world are on the side of the Ukrainian people.

And down here – and pretty much everywhere else – it feels good to be on the right side, once again.

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The first thing I did, after Brian called me to say that Nelson was dead, was to look at the emails and texts we had exchanged. They went back years.

Whenever I was down, or I had made a mistake, Nelson – Nel, he’d say – would be among the few to send me something to cheer me up, or make me laugh. He’d tell me he loved Joey, and I’d tell him he needed a dog of his own. And then he’d be outrageous and funny and profane, and he’d always be there for me.

I don’t think I was there for him. Looking again at our last few emails and texts, something was up. I had told him to come see me in the County and we’d do fun things. He demurred. But I didn’t press him on it. I didn’t insist.

I should have; I could have. I didn’t, and now he’s gone.

He’d fight for me when others wanted to silence me. He’d promote me when no one else would. He’d advocate for my writing and my cartoons and my videos and podcasts and everything. All of it.

He was like that for many people. He was one of those editors who would privately tell you when you were wrong, and how to do better, and in no uncertain terms, too. But, in front of the rest of the world, he was your fiercest defender.

This morning, as I sat looking out at the Atlantic Ocean, Nelson came into my mind, and I told myself I would get him to come see me in the County. Then I went on with the rest of my day.

Free advice: when a friend reaches out, reach back. When they fight for you, fight for them. When they call you, call them back.

I will so miss you, Nel. You were a pilgrim soul, and now you are pacing upon the mountains overhead, and your face is hidden among a crowd of stars.

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Yellowstone is stupid.

Like: really, really stupid. Like, soap opera stupid. Like, stupid enough that it makes ‘Dallas’ resemble Shakespeare.

Also: Yellowstone is stupid for its politics. Which are deeply, unashamedly conservative.

Now, before y’all fire off (yet more) hate mail to my editors, and (yet more) hate tweets to me, I plead this in my defence: y’all wanted me to stop picking on People’s Party Pierre, so I’m doing that.

I’m going to pick on Yellowstone instead.

Among conservatives, Yellowstone isn’t just a hokey TV show about cowboys and horses and the Wild West. To them, it is The Way The World Should Be. To them, Yellowstone is the perfect antidote to the Deep State, woke folk, and liberal coastal elites.

To them, Yellowstone is a love letter to lonely conservatives, who long for the return of their spray-tanned messiah, presently flushing the nuclear codes down one of the 1,000 toilets at Mar-A-Lago.

Consider the evidence.

Screeching around the Montana countryside in a suspiciously-clean, tank-sized Limited Dodge Ram 1500 Hemi, perennial cowboy actor Kevin Costner plays John Dutton III with two (2) facial expressions: pained and more pained.

Here are the people he and his psychopathic children fight with:

• Native Americans, who would like the land back that was stolen from them, please and thank you.
• Over-educated, effete environmental protestors, who the Duttons get arrested, only to have their leader sprung from the slammer so John can have sex with her.
• The Government of the United States, which (as noted) above, is run by Deep State apparatchiks, bent on enslaving the God-fearing Duttons with jack-booted metaphoric stormtroopers.
• The aforementioned coastal elites, typically from California, who want to build golf courses and hotels, and thereby cut into the Dutton’s bottom line.

Indians, environmentalists, bureaucrats, liberals: those are the people with whom the Duttons do battle, every week – often with real guns, and sometimes trips to a euphemistic “train station” somewhere in Wyoming, where their assorted enemies are knocked off and then tossed off a cliff. If that doesn’t sound like a conservative wet dream to you, you haven’t been paying attention.

But pay attention to Yellowstone folks do, week in and week out. They can’t tear their eyes away, as idiotic as the plotlines may be. It is one of the most popular shows on TV, with as many as ten million Americans watching it every Sunday night. (In Canada, there is a higher viewer demand for Yellowstone than 99.7 per cent of any other TV dramas.)

Why? Well, sure, it harkens back to simpler time, when men were men, and women resembled the pneumatic Beth Dutton (who may be a sociopath but who always obeys her Dad).

But the main audience for Yellowstone, I suspect, is conservatives. As no less than the New York Times offered in a 1,600-word think piece this week, “Liberals aren’t watching Yellowstone for cultural reasons, and conservatives love it for ideological ones.”

Because Yellowstone is ideological, and it is conservative. But don’t get me wrong, effete liberal coastal elite I may be: I grew up in Calgary, totally surrounded by conservatives. If I didn’t make peace with them, I would be even more lonesome than I am now. I generally like conservatives: unlike we progressives, they actually have a set of beliefs.

And, now, they have their own show, presided over by Kevin Costner and his two (2) facial expressions. It’s dumb and dumber, it’s stupid, but everyone (not just conservatives) watches it.

Case in point: me. I confess I will probably watch it again, when it returns with season five in mid-November.

So who’s stupid now, Warren?

[Kinsella is in a punk rock band called Shit From Hell. That tells you all you need to know.]

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