Feeling Funked Up

The past couple of weeks have not been happy ones for coyotes. After a series of events that would confound even the most optimistic contrarian among us, we have been reduced to sitting in the dark, sucking our frozen paws in what might be considered an anguished funk.

Why am I so depressed? I mean!

City buses are running around with HO HO HO on their route signs so they can whiz by you in the freezing dark, a topic Shorty has already raised in some detail.

The mayor, as some appalling cynic infamously predicted, now mistakes his erstwhile legal acquittal as a resounding endorsement of his term in office. Worse, he is flying trial balloons about running again, now that he's nearly finished his error-ridden first term of egregious cluelessness.

The current federal government's unprecedentedly aggressive campaign to prove that it can out-yell, out-lie, and out-sleaze all previous comers continues unabated. If possible, with a side-dish of fatally hobbled democracy.

Stephen Harper's Canada increasingly is being revealed as a wannabe-autocracy that only serves people who have the same shamefully narrow world view as he. The fact that people who think like him are still (Yay!)in a minority does not stop him from pulling Bush-administration-style dirty tricks, so he can pretend.

The prime minister has also heartily approved of the non-binding sorta-not-quite-agreement on global warming mitigation that came out of Copenhagen, which to thinking coyotes everywhere is pretty much a dead-certain sign -- emphasis on the 'dead' -- that the deal sucks for this small blue planet we share.

All of this relates to people elected by far less than a majority of the franchised voters, in each case. Weakening democratic underpinnings effectively gives control to people who are not necessarily entitled. And makes coyotes froth at the mouth. Not rabies! Just the soap I use to wash out my mouth after reading and commenting on what I see in the morning papers.

The increasing loss of daylight through December has really been the last straw. We semimythical coyotes get Seasonal Affective Disorder, too, people! So: get out there and celebrate the passing of the Winter Solstice. Days are getting longer again. And about bloody time. And start thinking again about the things that make democracy work. Like voting when there's an election. It's also about bloody time...

Image: Arctic solstice, by Eric Hoogstraten at Cambridge Bay Blog, Victoria Island, Nunavut