STAND ON YOUR HANDS DAY

Saturday was National Handstand Day in Canada, in case you missed it. I know I did.

At 2:00 PM precisely, fitness freaks from coast to coast to coast went wrong-way-round and tried to stay that way for as long as they were able.

I must admit that, even if I had known about the event, you wouldn't have found me there.

There was only one course I ever flunked in school and that was Phys Ed. I failed to do a decent chin-up or handstand. And when it came to the parallel bars, I was unparalleled in demonstrating my incompetence - a positive menace to myself and anyone else who was standing too close.

I suspect my problem was motivation, since I'd never seen the point of standing on one's hands and (no matter how I tried) could never imagine an occasion on which such a position might prove useful.

Of course, that was before I'd heard of National Handstand Day.

Now, when it's much too late to take up the practice, I'm finally able to understand the value of looking at things from an inverted perspective, of standing a cock-eyed world on its head by doing the same with my own.

After all, inversion of logic seems the order of the day. The country's currently run by a minority government which represents no more than one out of every three Canadians yet acts like it's been given divine permission to seize the reins of power and drive us straight back into the Nineteenth Century (or over a cliff, which is pretty much the same thing).

The fellow we call Prime Minister has even prorogued the next sitting of Parliament (in other words, told the Members not to bother showing up). 

There were English kings who were dethroned or even beheaded for pulling a stunt like that. But this PM insists he only did it so that our elected officials could "enjoy the Olympics" without troublesome things on their mind like Afghanistan or the economy or threats to democracy from religious extremists.

Of course, there are some folks who figure he's doing it because his Party has been slipping in the polls, and he needs time to scramble for an excuse to stay in power. But there's not much chance of those cynics making a fuss with Parliament shut down.

So, I can't really blame Canadians for going wrong-side-up to see if they can't find a way of understanding what the hell is going on.

As for me, I'll content myself with simply watching my fellow citizens stand on their hands, while I do some exercises to strengthen my right hand - the one I use to mark a ballot. 

And while I train, I'll do my best to sustain the hope that an election will be coming soon and apathy won't win the day. Because if it should, it wouldn't be long before we began having National Sit On Your Hands Days. 


And then, we'd be in even worse shape!