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1
Nov
2020
The day after the election in BC, the same day as the election in Saskatchewan, another vote took place at the other end of the Americas.
The people of Chile voted overwhelmingly to abolish the constitution imposed by dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1973, after his military coup deposed elected president Salvador Allende.
The two Canadian elections didn’t change even the flavour of government in the two provinces, let alone their ideologies. The Chilean vote changed the direction of a whole country.
Chile’s current president called it “the beginning of a path that we must all walk together.”
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: change, Chile, Pinochet, constitution
29
Oct
There’s a patron saint for almost everything. Even Protestants carry medals of St. Christopher, the patron saint of travellers. St. Veronica has become the patron saint of photography.
There’s even a patron saint for the coronavirus. St. Corona, the saint for epidemics, plagues, and pestilence.
St. Corona was a 16-year-old girl in Syria, in the second century A.D. According to the legend, she saw a Roman soldier being tortured for converting to Christianity. She defended him. She claimed a vision of the two of them wearing crowns -- hence her name, St. Corona.
For becoming Christian, the soldier had his fingers chopped off, his eyes put out, and was beheaded.
For offering compassion, St. Corona had her ankles lashed to the tops of two palm trees that had been forcibly bent to the ground. When the trees were released,
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: Chile. Allende, Pinochet, referendum