The United States of America. The original melting pot. One of the largest countries in the world, both by population and by shear size. Today is the fourth of July, their independence day, the day that the United States stopped being a colony of the British Empire and became their own nation. That declaration happened 240 years ago today.

It’s a strange place, any time I’ve been it’s felt like some sort of bizarro Canada, with more liquor stores, ammo depots and gambling. I’ve only had the pleasure of going a couple of times. Two trips to Seattle, which due in part to its music culture might be one of my favorite cities of all time. I’ve been to Hawaii, when I was sixteen and probably didn’t appreciate it as much as I should have. Our family also did the Disneyland trip to California, and soaked up the Hollywood magic as well as too much sun. Beyond that, my foray into the States has been limited to day trips to Montana, Washington and Idaho. Little hops over the border, plus a short camping trip my family went on when I was maybe all of eight.

The United States is a massive country, and it’s a shame that I’ve only really experienced a fraction of it. Even though it’s still a relatively young nation, it’s a cultural power house. Their contributions to music have been stellar, with the creation of Jazz, the Blues, Hip-Hop, Rock and Roll. All of these forms of music were birthed in the United States. Rock  and Country both owe their roots to the Blues, famed for it’s Devils Note. The Blues originated in the Delta of the Mississippi, created by former slaves on the plantations.

The film industry has been largely centered around Hollywood since the creation of film. Roughly a hundred high budget movies come from the major studios, and countless other films are produced and created from independent film makers. It’s hard to think of the United States without thinking about Hollywood.

There food and drink is unreal. Even though the country is a goddamn runt when we’re talking about how long it’s been around, some of the original cuisine that hails from the States is something else. From the humble hamburger to the mighty slow roasted barbecue, the United States is home to some of the best food, period. Even though much of the food hails from other cultures, they’ve turned a lot of it into their own unique cuisine. And the beer and wine! Right now, I think some of the best beer and wine in the world is coming from the US right now. There is a ton of craft beers coming out of the States, and I’m not sure if anyone else is doing what they’re doing. Screw the Reinheitsgebot, they’re throwing in a crazy variety of stuff in their beers. Their wine is nothing to sneeze at either. Californian wines are constantly winning awards, and the entire west coast, from California to Washington is dotted with vineyards and wineries.

On the flip side, ever since the attacks on 9/11, going to the United States make me uneasy. Before the attacks, our borders were pretty open. You only needed a drivers license to get across. Now, even almost fifteen years since the attack, tensions still seem high. Border guards on both sides seem to be less friendly, more on edge. The questioning seems to take longer, more of an interrogation. Not to mention the US leads the world in mass shootings.

It’s a place that seems like home, but not really. It’s brighter, faster, louder than Canada. And for some reason, I still find myself drawn to it. I still want to go to New York and take a bite out of the Big Apple, get a slice of famous New York Za. I want to head to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and stuff my face with Creole food. I want southern barbecue, I want lobster from Maine, I want to hit up jazz bars and the weird little museums that dot the landscape. I want a frank at a baseball stadium, hitting up a game of Americas favorite pastime.

Even though it makes be nervous, the United States is still a place I want to experience, the pros far outweighing the cons. And who doesn’t want a baseball frank?

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. It’s just that whole section in the middle of the US I have no interest in. It just seems really damn boring.

He’s in the room me and my brothers used to shared. He’s putting together the bed that he made from scratch, the one he built in his workshop, and I walk into the room. “Dad, you’re… you’re alive.” This is what I usually stammer out before he laughes, smiles and says “Well, I certainly feel alive!” Then the brothers are there, and mom shows up, and we’re all in the room I grew up in, laughing like we used to, laughing like nothing has happened.

Then I wake up.

I’ve had this dream a number of times now. It’s not a pleasant dream, it’s not a dream where I wake up feeling better about life. It feels like my father was taken away from our family again. Without Dad, every holiday feels emptier, every birthday feels like something is missing, and every Father’s day is a reminder not everyone still has their father in their lives. I’ve got no one to give a gift or a manly handshake to, so instead the only way I know how to honour my father is to talk about him.

My father is from IOCO, Port Moody, on the lower mainland. IOCO’s a weird little place, as it wasn’t really a municipality as it was an old oil refinery. It stands for Imperial Oil Company, and there was a little hamlet that was close by that took on the same name. My Dad was one of six children, and has an identical twin brother, my uncle Lee (If you were ever curious as to why I was named Sandy Lee Charlton, well, there’s your answer).

My father, like any intelligent person, despised working. He worked for CP Rail, and worked as a train conductor. When presented with the opportunity to work more on the road and make a lot of money, or stay in the Golden train yard closer to home, he took the job closer to home. To say that he didn’t particularly enjoy working at his job didn’t mean he wasn’t a hard worker. He instead, with my mom, invested in property around town and eventually outside of town. He was always painting or plumbing or repairing a number of houses around Golden.

He also had a massive workshop that he was constantly tinkering around in. The beds me and my brothers slept in were built in his workshop. There was a number of wooden toys we had that my father built, and not little tiny toys, massive toys planes we could ride on.  He was also a skilled electrician. It wasn’t unusual for a neighbor or a friend to drop off a television or a VCR, stating my Dad could have it because it no longer worked. Usually after an hour or two of doing repairs, we’d have another television in the house. At one point, there was fourteen televisions, six VCRs, and no cable. So there was fourteen televisions all playing the CBC at any given moment.

My father was also involved in the community quite a bit, going to meetings, volunteering to lend a hand. He also helped do a number of peoples taxes, insisting he do it for free. I learned after his death that he actually won a civic award for doing so. He was an amateur actor, and had a great deal of influence on both me and my brother (we both swept best actor for every year in high school. There’s ten years of Charlton on the trophies at Golden Secondary).

Out of all the memories of my father, from building stuff in the woodshop to getting on stage with him in a play, my fondest memories were of getting fire wood for the stove, and having to go to the dentist in Canmore. Getting fire wood was a pretty big ritual, it involved getting up at five, throwing together a quick lunch, then searching the backwoods for fallen trees you could cut up. Our home was heated by the fore stove, so it was necessary to gather wood for winter. The biggest was definitely Canmore. I had a weird mouth growing up, and it required a lot of hardware to straighten out my teeth. The only person qualitfied to work on me was in Canmore, so it required a two hour drive to and from the dentist. So that meant me and Dad were stuck in the car, chatting for four hours once a month. We got to know each other pretty well.

My Dad with me and Kelly. Sorry for the potato quality

If you’re old man is still alive, and you’re on good terms, take him out for lunch and give him a hug. My father isn’t around fortunately, but he left a legacy of helping his community, being a loving husband, and raising three kickass sons. He was a better man than most, and he’ll be sorely missed.

To my father, Laurence B. Charlton. I miss you every day and I love you tons.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. The upside to him not being around is I don’t have to buy him a gift today. That means I get to save like five bucks!

p.s.s. My father would have found that funny.

 

I’m angry right now. Actually, angry doesn’t describe how I’m feeling. Furious. Outraged. I’m so endlessly pissed off right now, I had to go put on my monkey hat to calm myself down.

The Monkey telling me to relax

I’m angry about potatoes. Or rather, what someone else said about potatoes. He does not eat potatoes. Said he stayed away from anything white, like rice, flour, and yes, potatoes. Potatoes. The goddamn staple of a healthy diet. It’s a massive stone in the food pyramid.

Now, there’s a lot of diet garbage out there people love to fall for. There’s the Paleo, or caveman diet, which excludes all foods existing after the Neolithic era, like dairy, grains, and legumes. This an insane diet, as I’m pretty sure most cave people didn’t live longer than the ripe old age of thirty. There’s the Maple Syrup diet, made popular by Beyoncé. It involves drinking nothing but sugar water with cayenne pepper, as well as giving up all of a persons sensibility. There’s the No Carb diet, which is a weird one because carbohydrates are the basic fuel source that allows a body to keep being a body. And on the more extreme ends of things, you could get on board with the Parasite diet, where you make friends with a tapeworm who helps you finish those extra helpings you so desperately crave.

I love to cook, and I usually try to make everyone with dietary restrictions happy. You’re a vegan? No problem! I can whip up a bunch of tasty dishes with only vegetables, fruits, legumes, grains and nuts. Allergic to fish? We’ll do lamb, lamb is delicious, we’ll make a mint sauce to go with it. You’re sensitive to gluten? Well, you’re probably full of shit and for whatever reason decided that the damn staff of life is too good for you, but hey, usually that means an extra helping of vegetables for you and I won’t be passing you the garlic bread. You don’t want any fries? Sure, that’s okay, I can whip up some mashed potatoes for you if you… You mean it’s not the fried part? You… can’t have potatoes? Why? Because they’re fattening. Right. Gotcha. I’m just going to go ahead and pull up the Wikipedia page on potatoes… Ah, yes, right here. Pretty much no fat in a potato. Closer to zero than any substantial fat. But you’re still not going to eat them.

Anybody who walks into my house and refuses a helping of potatoes can leave. I mean that. You better have a damn good excuse for not wanting to take a serving of potatoes. The asshole who shows up to a dinner party and refuses potatoes is the same person who’s going to take four servings of cake because they’re hungry. Or they’ll need two steaks. Or you’ll find them in the bathroom eating all the Tums and squeezing a bottle of toothpaste down their throats. People who don’t eat potatoes shouldn’t be invited to dinner parties in the first place.

Potatoes are boring? You’re right, they’re incredibly boring. They’re boring because they’re so ridiculously packed with vitamins, minerals, and energy they don’t have room left over for taste. You can survive for weeks on potatoes alone. In the novel and the major motion picture ‘The Martian’, by Andy Weir, when the protagonist gets abandoned on Mars, you know what he grows to stay alive? He grows potatoes. He didn’t plant a field of Kale, he didn’t decide to seed a bunch of Goji berry bushes, the protagonist got straight down to business and grew potatoes.

And if he had some flour, he could have made perogies

They are such an important food item that when Ireland ran into a shortage during the Great famine, people started dying. The people who weren’t dying drew up a modest proposal to eat babies. You know that party asshole who passed on the potatoes and instead ate all the macaroni salad? If you have a baby around, you keep that baby close, or otherwise Mr. TooGoodForPotatoes will get the impression that you keep the kid around as a second course.

The United Nations gave the entire year to 2008, calling it the ‘Year of the Potato’. Broccoli didn’t get a year dedicated to it. Anyone remember the year of corn? I didn’t, because there wasn’t one. You know what’s a terrible crop? Corn is. It’s nutritionally devoid of anything useful, and it makes lousy whisky. In fact, there’s only one hard choice when it comes to potatoes. Do I eat the potato now, or do I wait for it to ferment and drink it later?

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. And when people talk about being gluten intolerant. It’s bread! The goddamn staff of life!

p.s.s. Yes, the last line referring to fermenting potatoes is from Archer.

 

 

 

More people today are connected to each other through a massive cellular network. Not only can you theoretically call billions of different people, you can access the internet through most providers. A human being alive today has more information at their disposal than the greatest scientists had thirty years ago. This leap will have such an impact on future generation it’s almost impossible to fathom. In your pocket, you have access to this wealth of information.

Not only do you have access, but you have a powerful machine, capable of creating written words, pictures, movies, art, music, and designs. What you have at your fingertips is a more powerful platform than what was available to people on their desktop personal computers fifteen years ago. The phone you have is more powerful than my sweet gaming rig was back in 2001. With all this raw computational capacity available to you on your person, people are now able to catalogue and transmit information with friends, family, and co-workers.

I’ll be honest, I hate having a cell phone on me.

You think with all the bells and whistles, Mr. Charlton would be on top of that like a fat kid on cake, but alas, I’ve never been a big fan of being constantly tethered to the network. It’s not that I think that people ‘don’t talk anymore’, because people have always had their faces pressed into newspapers and books the second the printing press was invented. I don’t think that people are getting dumber, although I used to hold that opinion. People are generally getting smarter across the world, and our unlimited access to information is making that possible.

I hate it because I no longer have privacy. I’m no longer out of reach. If someone wants to get a hold of me, whether it’s through Facebook, twitter, text message, email or, heaven forbid, an actual phone call, then I’m available. At all times. People get upset if my phone was off, or I leave it at home. “Where the hell were you, Mr. Charlton, Mars? Did you try to take a swim in the depths of the MAriana Trench? Did you decide to toss all of your belongings into a fire and join a bunch of Luddites out in the middle of nowhere?” These are the kind of questions I face should I choose to go without the stupid thing for a day.

Trust me, I relish every part of every day that I’m without my cellphone. It means that I might get lost. It means I have to physically go to a place to see if it’s open. I won’t know what’s on the menu at a restaurant before I get there. For the rare day that I get to do this, a sense of uncertainty, of chaos somes back into my life. It’s been a while since I haven’t had a cell phone.

I was a late adopter to the cell phone craze, I didn’t get one until 2007, I think. The phone I use now, a Samsung Galaxy SIII, was purchased back in 2012, which makes the phone only four years old. For some people, this is some sort of cardinal sin, not uppgarding once every year or two. I keep holding off, keep pushing it back because I honestly don’t know what I would do with a new phone.

“You’ll be able to take better pictures.” – I don’t take a bunch of photographs or movies with the one I currently have.

“You’ll be able to play cooler games!” – I can do that at home, on the couch, and sip wine as I’m doing it.

“You’ll need a new phone eventually, they keep upgrading the operating system for phones, and soon, you’ll have a telephone that is sluggish and decrepid.” – You know what? That ‘s actually already true. My phone is slower than a two-legged tortoise high on muscle relaxants.

Which brings me to my final point. I hate phones because the people who build them have created a brilliant market for themselves through planned obsolescence, which is fancy talk for “We’re going to bog down your phone eventually to the point where it’s no longer usuable, so that we can pressure you into buying a new phone.”

I can upgrade my computer, why the hell can’t I upgrade my phone? Why can’t I add more RAM, or change the camera, or choose the opertating system? Look at the IPhone, you can’t even open them up without a ton of work and voiding your warrenty.

That’s my beef. You can keep a car running for decades, you can upgrade your home computer if it’s a PC, and you could fix your old tube televisions. If you can’t modify or tinker with something you’ve purchased, then you don’t really own it.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. I’m building into something bigger, this is just me ranting late at night.

 

I recently purchased a bunch of games for the Xbox recently, and I’ve having a ball playing them. I made the switch over to PC gaming a while ago, but I’m in possession of an Xbox console right now and sometimes sitting on the couch with a glass of wine beats the dusty office where my computer sits. One of the games I’m playing has me especially hooked. It’s a Role Playing Game set in the future with space as it’s backdrop. You’re the captain of a spy vessel, working as a clandestine operative for the galaxies highest authority. You uncover a plot by a rogue spy, who has aligned themselves with an evil artificial intelligence. Not only are you tasked with eliminating the threat, there’s a multitude of worlds to explore and missions from various people to complete. To top it off, there’s a steamy sex scene, that certainly caused headlines. Nine years ago.

I’m talking about the game Mass Effect, and yes, it’s a great game that’s aged well. Yes, I’ve sunk over twenty hours into it over the last month and a half. Yes, it totally feature a sex scene between your character and another character. And yes, it was a big deal years ago, earning both critical acclaim and journalistic scorn for showing naked bodies. Games at the time still carried more of the stigma of ‘Children’s toys’, but the people who believe that, well, they’re not in high of numbers as they used to be.

Now, you might be asking yourself why is Mr. Charlton talking about a game that’s almost a decade old. And that would be very astute of you. The reason I’m bringing it up here is that I’ve got nowhere else to bring it up. Over the last decade, I’ve been barraged by new media in the form of books, movies, games, music, you name it. Because of the burst of creativity from all sectors, I haven’t been able to keep up. That leaves me in a position where I’m no longer in the pop culture loop.

Pop culture is the culture that’s popular right now. It doesn’t have to be good, it doesn’t have to have a meaning (in fact it rarely does), it needs to be hot. Without using Google, can you name some of the hit songs of 1996? What were the hot new games coming out? What movie was breaking the box office? What books were on the bestsellers list? There’s a couple of things that come to mind, but nothing concrete. When I think about 1996, I have a hard time remembering how old I was.

Getting back to my game, Mass Effect still holds up. It has an intriguing story, the graphics still look pretty good, the gameplay is solid. It was a good game then, and it’s a good game now. But because I’ve chosen to play the game at a much later date, the only thing that’s missing is the water cooler talk. I can’t bring this up with any of my friends or co-workers, people on the internet haven’t posted about it in several years. The only thing the game is lacking now is the ability to dissect it with other people. It’d be like trying to talk about a baseball game that happened five years ago. It may have been a great game, but it certainly isn’t fresh in the minds of the masses. That’s the downside.

Mr. Charlton tend to consume his media years later, when it’s lukewarm and you can tell if it’s aged well, and that’s the plus side. Something that was hot and tasty yesterday might still be great after a couple seconds in the microwave. Other media might be great when it’s piping hot and fresh, but when you take a look or listen a number of years later, you might come to the conclusion that it was made for consumption then, and now it’s stale and tasteless.

I usually have a lot to say, and I usually have a lot to say about what’s trending at the moment. Most of my posts deal with what’s going on at the moment, because it’s easy to write about something when opinions are everywhere. Consuming media years after it’s been created makes it tough to talk about what I’m reading or what I’m consuming. So should I get back in the game and start keeping up with a Game of Thrones? Or should I put my Netflix account to good use and re-watch Escape from New York?

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Let’s be honest people, everyone knows I have Escape from New York on DVD and watch it at least once a month.

On June 6th, 1944, Operation Overload began as the largest seaborne invasion in the history of mankind took place on the beaches of Normandy France. The beach was divided into five different sectors; Utah, Omaha, Juno, Gold, and Sword beach.  It was a gamble and the stakes were high. Should this operation fail, the Allies may never had another chance to gain a foothold on Axis territory on the Western front. Allied casualties were in the thousands, with over 4,000 confirmed dead. Even though the Allies eventually succeeded, it was a slog. It wasn’t until June 12th, six days later, that all five beach heads were connected. The first day, June 6th, is now referred to as D-Day.

I’m not a historian, in fact, I know a few people who are. They’d be far more qualified to talk about the landing than I ever would be. But we are not talking about D-Day, we are going to talk about it’s virtual recreation in video games, and why it was so popular a decade ago.

To anyone reading this who isn’t familiar with video games, don’t worry, this article isn’t going to go into depth regarding the mechanics of video games. What you might find interesting is that during the late nineties and the early naughts, a genre of video game became increasingly popular. The first person shooter, a genre of game where you take direct control of an avatar, with a gun pointing forward, and shoot enemy opponents. This is still an incredibly popular genre, with some notable games including Halo, Call of Duty, Half-Life and Battlefield. A large percentage of these games took place during World War 2, and the games that used World War 2 as a backdrop often featured the landing on Normandy beach.

I’m not joking when I say a large number of games use WW2 as a backdrop; there are literally hundreds of games that take place during WW2. Hundreds of games where you play as the Allies, sent of missions to liberate Europe, killing Nazi soldiers to progress. You can walk, run, drive a jeep, drive a tank, fly a plane, take command of a massive battleship, there isn’t a vehicle used in the conflict that hasn’t been put in a video game. From the beach heads in France, to the Eastern Front in Russia, to the deserts of Northern Africa, and the Pacific battles of Pearl Harbor, Iwa Jima, and Midway; there is hardly any battle in the history of WW2 that has not been in a video game.

For a while, it seemed like every other game released was set in WW2. It’s easy to see why this was popular. The Nazi were an easy antagonist to portray, and it wasn’t difficult to shot them. The conflict saw a huge advancement in military technology, so there’s a lot of different guns, explosives and vehicle to arm your player with. And it was easy to create a sense of immersion, as these were real places you were playing in, in real battles.

Why was the landing of Normandy, D-Day, constantly featured in these games, so much so that it became a video game trope? Keep in mind that a quarter of the games that took place in WW2 had a level or a map with the Normandy landing. Out of all the battles that took place, the recreation of that particular battle was by far the most popular.

Honestly, when I started looking at timelines of when WW2 games became incredibly popular, you find that they really took off after the film ‘Saving Private Ryan’. After the movie was released in 1998, the game Medal of Honor was released a year later, although it’s important to note that it did not feature a D-Day landing level. After the success of Medal of Honor, the next decade saw a massive increase in the number of games based on WW2, with many of those game seeking to recreate the iconic and terrifying scene from Saving Private Ryan.

That’s my best guess, anyways. Truthfully, the first FPS (first person shooter) to be set in WW2 was ‘Wolfenstein 3D’, which was also one of the first FPS to see commercial success. It wasn’t until Medal of Honor was released that the genre took off. If you’re curious to see exactly how many game were released set in WW2, here’s a list on Wikipedia. Like I mentioned, literally hundreds.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. It’s weird to think that we ‘play’ through some of the greatest tragedies that have befallen humanity.

 

Word on the street is people are not eating cereal anymore. The sales have been slowly declining since 2000, and cereal producers are scrambling to try and win back a bunch of finicky customers. The last time Mr. Charlton here got grab nasty on a bowl of cereal was so long ago that I can’t remember what it was. Cocoa Pebbles? Something with chocolate in it, I would imagine. Why aren’t people eating cereal the way they used to? I’ve got some theories.

1. People are going with healthier choices. The content of a lot of cereals happens to be grains and sugar. Now, while I can get behind the grains aspect, a number of people have straight up tossed out anything with gluten in it, and other grains like corn and quinoa are either nutritionally devoid or expensive. Toss in the fact cereal is often coated in sugar, and you can see why someone trying to eat healthy is going to skip it. Personally, I’m kicking back on some tasty lentils or beans in the morning. Great way to start the day.
2. It’s inconvenient. Yes, you heard me, cereal is kind of a pain in the ass, at least for the newer generations. I’ve read articles claiming millennials are lazy, and can’t be bother to deal with the ‘mess’ that cereal causes. Those articles are a bunch of malarkey. You know why cereal is hassle? Because it’s full of milk. If you’re on the go, and you need to take something with you, or you’re commuting to work and you’re in the car, cereal’s now a no-go. People today want smoothies or granola bars, food that you can eat out of one hand. You have to be sitting down at a table to eat cereal. And if I’m going to be sitting down, it’s going to be the lentils and beans I mentioned earlier, or a mess of bacon and eggs.
3. People really aren’t supposed to be drinking a whole pile of milk. It’s not just cereal on the decline, but milk has taken a hit in the last decade as well. What was once a corner stone of the food pyramid, milk is considered less and less valuable by nutritionists. The much toted calcium that milk provides can be found in less fatty vegetables. Not to mention that naturally, human beings become generally lactose intolerant after growing into adulthood.
4. Breakfast is a lousy meal. Out of all the meals of the day, breakfast is by far the worst. Lunch rules supreme by far, as I’ve mentioned in the past. They say it’s the most important meal of the day, but if an entire meal can be replaced by a shake or a granola bar, then how important is it really?

A number of cereal giants, like Kellogg’s and Post, have started branching out into other sectors, like shakes and whole grain cereals. There’s also some bizarre marketing ploys popping up, like cereal that’s supposed to improve your sex life. Which just goes to show you that they will use sex to sell anything.

It’s also worth noting even though cereal consumption is declining, a strange new trend has been popping up in the culinary world, and that’s restaurants dedicated to selling you bowls of cereal. I wish I were making this up. But all over The United States and Britain, cafes that deal primarily in bowls of sugary cereal are becoming popular. For the absolute life of me, I cannot fathom why anyone in their right state of mind would be willing to drop a bunch of money for someone to make you a bowl of cereal. It would boggle my brain that anyone would actually go to this place more than once, just so they could say they went. I’m honestly struggling with this right now.

“Well, we could do brunch at this new place, they make an amazing blue cheese and broccoli omelet.”

“Nah, I’ve got to take you to my favorite place. They’ve got killer cereal.”

“… Cereal?”

“Yeah man, their cereal selection is amazing. Honey Combs, Raisin Bran, Frosted Flakes. You name it, they have it.”

“… I might have to go take a rain check on that one, but if I’m ever interested in not eating adult food, I’ll take you up on it.”

Look, I’m not against cereal, my old man used to love his Raisin Bran. But I get why the popularity is waning, even if trendy cereal bars are opening up. Because if you’re going to sit down and enjoy something, take the extra five minutes and make a damn omelet.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. Seriously, if you have the time, try my blue cheese and broccoli omelet. Perfect if you have some blue cheese on hand and have some leftover broccoli from the night before.

Right now, the lawmakers in Canada are debating over a controversial bill, bill C-14 regarding Doctor-assisted suicide. This is the same bill causing the ruckus a few weeks ago, where the Prime Minister of Canada got physical and started throwing elbows. Now the bill is being stalled, and the June 6th deadline, which is two days from the writing of this post, will more than likely be delayed.

A number of groups are up in arms over what they call ‘Legalized Murder’. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, the Physicians’ Alliance Against Euthanaisia, and the grassroots organization Living with Dignity organized a protest and rally on Parliament Hill, and attracted hundreds of protesters. There were speakers from the disability rights group Not Dead Yet, the Coalition of Physicians for Social Justice and the Catholic Women’s League. A number of Senators spoke to the crowd as well. On the other side, you have the organization Dying With Dignity, who want to allow people the choice to be able to end their own lives on their terms, rather than rot away in a hospital bed.

Should people be allowed to choose how they die? Or is that choice left to their physicians and loved ones?

That’s a terribly difficult question to answer. Some diagnosis’ are terminal. Medical science has come a long way, but there are still many conditions, cancers, and diseases that are not curable. If given one of these death sentences, would you want to stay in a hospital, waiting for the inevitable moment of your passing. Do you want to be pumped full of drugs, hardly lucid and in incredible pain? Even though there was no chance, no hope for recovery?

On the other side, what if a cure was found the next day? What if some miracle happened, and you suddenly pulled through? What if the diagnosis was incorrect? What would happen if the terminal diagnosis made you suicidal, just wanting to relieve you of the stress of having the hour of your death handed to you?

Law is complicated and often subjective. If you are curious as to why this bill has been stalled, the last two paragraphs have your answer. There is a lot of grey area concerning this bill, and even though I believe it will eventually be passed, I’m almost positive they won’t meet the June 6th deadline.

Here’s what I know about myself. I’ve seen a number of people die in hospitals. I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals. Hospitals are wonderful places to be if there’s a chance of recovery. They are the worst place to be if you aren’t. Hospitals are sterile environments. They smell unnatural. They’re boring. The food may be nutritious, but it tastes lousy. I’ve played a ridiculous amount of cards around a mall table, waiting for time to pass. I’ve seen people wilt away from cancer. I’ve seen people hooked up to every available machine. I’ve seen people in incredible amounts of pain, being kept alive. I’ve seen people hopped on so much morphine that they couldn’t hold their heads up.

Personally, if I had a choice, if I had to choose between four months of agonizing treatment, or a shot in the arm followed by death, I’d choose the latter. Even though I’m a fairly young man still, I’ve lived enough to lack any regrets. I don’t need to see the Eiffel tower, swim with dolphins, or cross off a massive bucket list. I’m content with the life I’ve led so far, and if it got snuffed out tomorrow, then that was the hand that I was dealt. My friends and family on the other hand would probably have other things to say.

Here’s the kicker. We don’t often keep people alive because they are going to get better, or a miracle cure is just around the corner, or that it’s in the person’s best interest. We keep them alive because the people that love them have a difficult time of letting go, of accepting their death. We want to wish that someone, tomorrow, that people will go from a sickly yellow to a healthy colour, that they’ll gain thirty pounds, that they’ll spring from their beds and start dancing around the room.

I don’t believe in killing people. I believe in choice. I believe this body I inhabit is mine, and I get to do what I want with it. And if that means cashing in my chips and walking away from the table, rather than staying until the end and losing everything, I want to cash in my chips.

Sincerely,

The Illustrious Mr. Charlton

p.s. If I ever do buy the farm, however it happens, know this. I want a big target board, and I mean big, setup. And with a circus cannon, people can take turns firing my corpse into the target board. Bulls-eye gets a prize.