12 January 2025 – First, “D” for the Everything, Everywhere Doctrine, which has set its targets for 2025: Greenland, Canada, Panama.

It is beyond alarming & insulting, it is surreal to hear the duly-elected incoming leader of a supposedly principled (and supposedly freedom-loving) country announce his intention to subjugate his neighbours — my country included.

Greenland he plans simply to buy, though upon questioning he explicitly does not rule out the use of military force. Canada he believes he can crush “by economic force.” Panama… well, the U.S. has a history of intervention in its southern neighbours, so there must be a long list of strategies already in the arsenal.

It is stirring, but not comforting, to read David Suzuki’s account (Toronto Star) of why he chose to return to Canada from the U.S. and why he hopes all Canadians “will fight to preserve our differences from [that other] great nation.” It is no comfort that some Americans (cf. this comment on my previous post by a Seattle-based reader) think that members of the incoming administration are “evil, twisted… and some are very stupid.” And it is no comfort to read that the subjugation plans are bound to fail (cf. Stephen Marche analysis, Maclean’s Magazine) since “at this point in history, America has come off 70 years of failed imperialist adventures.”

Even when the target nations are united and patriotic, even when the leaders of the aggressor nations are stupid and bungle their projects — even then — those projects still inflict great damage and suffering on the way through.

…

Shall we move on to a happier pair of D’s?

Doorways and Details

Fresh off a visit to a stunning exhibition in Equinox Gallery, I prowl my way back down this southern extension of Commercial Drive.

It is still home to vintage architecture and to small, independent shops and activities. Doorways are individual, and expressive.

This café with its door wide open…

and a collection of vintage bottles overhead.

This crafts workshop…

with its glorious live-edge door pull.

This café one block farther north, where the door may be physically closed but the signage welcomes you…

and a small notice apologizes for the need to bar pets…

and offers a free “puppiccino” in compensation.

An adjacent door, barred and locked, appears unfriendly, but is deceptive.

It guards something very friendly indeed, a tool-lending library — “an affordable community-based alternative to personal tool ownership or tool rental.”

Sadly, its window detail, hard to read through bars and glare, suggests neighbourly puppiccinos may become a thing of the past.

“How can you call this a development when the only thing going up is my rent.” Later I see land-acquisition notices in front of other vintage properties, citing CD-1 zoning, i.e. Comprehensive Development.

Another, much smaller doorway, this time near the north end of a narrow linear park threading its way parallel to Commercial Drive, on down to East Broadway.

One Little Free Library door, with two heart-warming details. First, the pointillist celebration of whales on the door…

and, second, the introduction to Harmonious Joan taped to the frame inside. (You don’t need to be a ukulele player, to be glad that people like HJ exist.)

One final “doorway” for you, and note those punctuation marks of uncertainty.

I debate its inclusion, and then decide that, yessiree! it qualifies. True, it is an intersection…

but are not intersections the doorway to a pair of streets?

Anyway the detail, another of the city’s sidewalk mosaics, deserves attention…

even if I cannot find a reference to it anywhere and so cannot identify it for you.

All these small things — ordinary, everyday, and worth defending.