The world is a meaner place since the first community garage sale in support of Mountains of Relief, the local charity replacing a school flattened by an earthquake in the mountains of Nepal two years ago.
President Donald Trump’s executive orders should not be any surprise to anyone who is aware of his Twitter habits, which appear to be anchored in starting fights over breakfast. They appeal to his very scared, very Caucasian and heavily Christian base.
The orders, tweets wrote long, expel Mexicans, ban Muslims, flaunt accepted science and roll back human rights, particularly for women, gay and transgender individuals. They would be more troublesome if the judiciary branch hadn’t already started striking them down.
The rhetoric orbiting them would be less so if it hadn’t given closet bigots the guts to act on their prejudices and a new set of supremacists clothed in a new set of prismatic adjectives surges of support in political races around the world.
It’s here, too. As recently as last weekend enough of the bright yellow spray paint on an outhouse at a rest stop at Moose Lake in Mount Robson Provincial Park remained to make out the word “mosque” in capital letters.
The bewildering logic behind painting over 75 per cent of something like that and calling it a day aside, those hate-inspired tags - another found at the toilet at Jasper House went viral when an Ontario trucker stopped and posted a video before covering it - were a piercing reminder that feelings that intense and misguided exist here in Jasper, or at least within range of it.
It inspired such a sobering reaction because it was so out of place. So, too, was the vandalism of a number of the Pride flag stickers on the exteriors of a number of businesses in the core Monday night.
Fortunately, events such as the flag raising marking International Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia Awareness Day last Wednesday, or the second Mountains of Relief garage sale next weekend, are more commonplace in Jasper.
The flag raising was so powerful it inspired the father of a transgender teen now living all the way over in the nation’s capital to take part, and a local teacher to bring her Grade 9 students in the freezing cold for some experiential learning. No small feat.
The garage sale offers another chance to feel like a part of a global community that looks after its most vulnerable. If you’re going to take a weekend off buying local, June 11-12 is the one.
Jasper doesn’t need an executive order to lead by example. Let’s not need a third garage sale. Let’s celebrate Canada 150 by finishing that school.
