As T.S. Elliot wrote in his epic poem The Wasteland, “April is the cruelest month of all.”

If you are a devote Christian, that poetic line could refer to the crucifixion and death of Jesus Christ, religiously estimated to be sometime in April between 30 and 33 CE. Or it could refer to a delusional President Trump posting images of himself as Dr. Jesus. If you are Canadian, the line definitely refers to the weather. If you are a member of the Conservative Party of Canada, it painfully refers to Monday, April 14, 2026.  To honour that day, the following poems … starting with a Limerick …

There once was a Con named Pierre
Who was so puffed up with hot air
He floated away on Majority Day
“Unfair! Cons care” cried Pierre.

One by one the Cons crossed the floor
To sit down at Carney’s front door
In the Liberal tent, they could do more than vent
Those three word rhymes we abhor.

Puffy Pierre just floated away
And hasn’t been seen since that day
But his voice can be heard, still sounding absurd
“Axe the Tax”, “Jail not Bail”, Crime Don’t Pay!

And of course, every struggling English student’s favourite, the more sublime Haiku:

A bright flash of red
A song high from the tree top
The promise of spring.

And for the classicist, a Shakespearean Sonnet:

Is this the way the world will always turn?
From lightness to dark, from darkness to day.
After the ice time, the fire we yearn
After the war work, in peace will we play?
Who will we follow, the wise or the fools,
Who will inform us, humans or machines?
Will we home learn, or in corporate schools?
Will we have teachers or computer screens?
If the world needs changing it starts with “we”,
We need to rise up, and not break or bow,
“If not us, who; if not now, when?” we plea.
it must be us, and it must be us now!
The torch has been passed, we hold it up high
Hope in the darkness, a light to live by.

That’s all for now, but during International Womens’ Week I heard a song that stuck like an ear worm in my mind. The Celtic tune remains, and the lyrics ended something like this:

“You’ve tried to break me but I have a choice,
I’ll not bow my head, I’ll not  bend my knee,
And I will not lower my voice.”

A noble torch to carry in these chaotic days. The way I see it.

The downfall of dictator Viktor Orban in Hungary also sounded the death knell for Stephen Harper’s dream of eviscerating the Liberal Party of Canada. Before he was soundly defeated in yesterday’s national election in Hungary, Orban had stated in 2023, “International cooperation between right-wing conservative governments is more important than ever. Chairman Harper is a great ally.” Chairman Harper?

Yes, since 2018 our former Prime Minister has been the Chair of the International Democracy Union, a coalition of over 80 right and far right wing governments. The Conservative Party of Canada is the only Canadian member of the IDU. Interestingly, all of the stops on Pierre Poilievre’s recent “diplomatic” trip to Europe as Canada’s “official Leader of his Majesty’s Loyal Opposition” were to IDU affiliates. Besides being IDU’s Chair, Harper also appears to be their travel agent.

Also interesting is that Viktor Orban’s dictatorship in Hungary was so far right that his Fidesz Party was removed from official membership. Poilievre and the Conservative Party of Canada were asked by the Canadian Press “if Ottawa should have stronger ties to Orban’s government.” No answer. None needed now, but this all goes to show the true stripes of of our loyal opposition, and the total irrelevance of its leader.

Despite American media appearances, and his recent leadership endorsement by the Party Faithful, Mr. Poilievre is losing his caucus, Not since 1869 has Parliament seen this many floor crossings, and that was to establish the Confederation of Canada. Today’s three federal by-elections could confirm a solid Liberal majority and be the final nail in the coffin for a faltering Conservative Party and Poilievre’s lack of leadership.

On the other hand, right wing politics are alive and well in Ontario as Boss Doug Ford makes Mike Harris’s dream of a Common Nonsense Revolution a reality. Provincial control of school boards, sidelining trustees, devolving the curriculum, enabling Strong Premiers, Strong Ministers, and Strong Mayors was the starting point. Now the government wants to completely take democracy out of municipal politics by giving the provincial government the power to appoint Strong Regional Chairs.

I live in Peel Region, an amalgam of Brampton, Mississauga and Caledon elected representatives. Want to take a bet on who the first appointed Strong Chair for Peel Region will be? As Leonard Cohen sings in Everybody Knows:

“Everybody knows that the dice are loaded,
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
Everybody knows the war is over,
Everybody knows the good guys lost.
Everybody knows the fight was fixed;
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.
That’s how it goes,
Everybody knows.”                               The way I see it.

Dear Readers, it is with a heavy heart that I announce the cancellation of April Fools’ jokes for this April 1, 2026.  Due to the vast surfeit of actual April fools, AI fakes, and a disillusioned, disheartened and dissatisfied society, our world needs more than a joke.

What our world really needs is a complete and thorough cleansing of all of the April fools who are causing so much angst and anger across the globe. At the top of the list are the three Supreme Leaders who are now having a pissing contest in the Middle East: Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald J, Trump, and the mysterious Mojtaba Khamenei.

The biggest joke in this unholy trio is Mr. Trump, who has now “totally obliterated” the same military and nuclear targets many times over. Now, even the neediest students in my first Grade Five class knew that the word obliterate meant ” to destroy, to totally wipe out.”  Obliterate was what the Chicxulub Impactor asteroid did to the dinosaurs. However, the very existence of these three fools may put that event into question.

Along with Mr. Trump on the North American side of the ledger are the hyper masculine displays on the public stage by the bombastic and theatrically aggressive Pete Hegseth, the President’s Secretary of Defense, of War, of Excursions and most recently, of Endeavours. “Kill  ’em all” Pete does not believe in taking prisoners or leaving survivors, an attitude which serves Mr. Netanyahu’s interests quite nicely.

Sadly, no one in Palestine, Iran, and the other Middle Eastern countries is laughing after being drawn into a war started by Israeli-USA aggression. Before this conflict began, the Strait of Hormuz was open to shipping. The global disruption to energy, fertilizers, food and other goods has been caused totally by Israel’s ultra-orthodox quest for total control of the Middle East, and MAGA mega stupidity. The most cruel joke is that Mr. Trump is asking the other Gulf states who have been targets of Iran’s defensive response to pay for the cost of his Iran war.

Hilarious. That’s like starting a gang fight in a schoolyard and then asking all the innocent bystanders who got hurt to pay for your bandages and broken baseball bats. As former President Barack Obama said In a recent interview, “You cannot make this stuff up. If you saw it on Saturday Night Live you’d say “Oh, that’s going a little too far.”

They may be laughing in the Knesset and the White House, but the rest of the world finds these April Fools guilty of very unfunny war crimes against  humanity. Consider this: Israel has been ranked as one of the happiest ten countries in the world, How can you be happy when 75,000 dead lie scattered around your borders, the victims of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), what “Bibi” calls the “most humane and moral army” in the world.

T.S. Elliot was right. “April is the cruelest month of all.” That’s not a joke.

The way I see it.

When I was researching my Earth Hour blog for March 28. 2026, I was startled to discover that the human population of Earth had just reached 8.3 billion, give or take a few million. For the last few years in speaking engagements, I had been using the 2011 milestone of 7 billion. It was catchy to say that the world’s population had tripled since I was born in 1946. Time for an upgrade.

From historical estimations, the relatively small human population of a few million in Africa, East Asia, and Europe was kept in check by high mortality rates. From there it took over 200,000 years to reach a global population of 1 billion in 1804. But it took only 200 years to reach 8 billion by 2022. Gotta love that Industrial Revolution.

When we moved into our little home in North York, Ontario in the 1950’s it was heated by a coal furnace. I remember driving down with my Dad to an industrial warehouse on Mount Pleasant Avenue in Toronto to pick up bags of coal and charcoal. That ended when Hurricane Hazel flooded our basement and our coal furnace blew up.. A new oil furnace replaced it with a storage tank at the side of the house.

But we still had an icebox refrigerator. My serious job was to empty the water tray under the fridge every day. The fun time was chasing the ice wagon down the street to steal ice chips.

Then one day we got the first electric refrigerator on the street. A Westinghouse with a butter keeper. All the neighbours lined up to see it. Entertainment was all piano, harmonica, singsong, and radio … until the first black and white TV arrived. I was allowed to watch three shows on the weekends: Lawrence Welk, Ed Sullivan, and the Wonderful World of Disney. Then we added The Dick Clark Show – rock & roll, and wild dancing!

How times have changed. I remember getting my first “smart” phone, taking a picture on a hike, sending it to my daughter overseas, and my shock in realizing she had received it instantaneously. No more long distance letters that took weeks and months to arrive from “the colonies” to relatives in Europe.

You see, it’s not just the population and the temperature that are on the hockey stick curve. It’s also the amount of stuff that has pushed us faster into the future, as one mentor described it: ” driving at high speed towards the edge of a cliff looking in the rear view mirror.”

When I look back, my favourite times were going through our neighbour’s backyard to explore the Don Valley ravine. They were making up radio shows with my Dad on his new tape recorder, where we created all of our own sound effects. They were watching my uncles and aunts sing around the piano. They were canoe trips with my students when we moved with the rhythm of the wind and the water.

Perhaps time seemed to move more slowly then, and we were allowed to enjoy the moment. 8.3 billion of us, moving fast, consuming more, does not seem to be bringing us community happiness in the North American world of my childhood. Certainly not in the global community. Perhaps it is time to slow down and listen to the grand liturgy of the universe, as Thomas Berry would implore.

Time to get humble again. The way I see it.

***

Historical footnote:

1 billion at the start of the Industrial Revolution to 2.5 billion in 1946 to 8.3 billion in 2026

CE 1: million

1804: 1 billion

1927: 2 billion

1946: 2.5 billion

1960: 3 billion

2016: 7 billion

March 28, 2026 : 8.3 billion

You draw the chart.