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18
Oct
2022
Sunday October 2, 2022
Friday September 30 was Orange Shirt Day, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Forty years ago, such an event would have been unthinkable.
And then, in March 1985, a woman named Alberta Billie did the unthinkable. She told a meeting of the United Church of Canada’s Executive that the church should apologize for its role in running “Indian” residential schools.
A little more than a year later, on August 15, 1986, the church’s moderator, the Rev. Bob Smith, led the church in Canada’s first-ever apology to Canada’s indigenous peoples.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: United Church of Canada, apology, Indian, Sudbury, consensus
Thursday September 28, 2022
I took my kitten out for a walk, for him to discover the world outdoors. Something launched a filibuster at us out of the catalpa tree.
It took me a while to discern the source. A squirrel. It leaped effortlessly from branch to branch, uttering a stream of profanities that would make a teenager blush.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: Squirrels, invasive species, cute, profanity
Sunday September 18, 2022
Municipal elections are held every four years in B.C. The next election is coming up fast – October 15.
On the political spectrum, municipal elections are the poor cousins, the runt of electoral litters. You don’t think so? Consider at the emotions they arouse. Federal politicians get hated. Provincial politicians, ridiculed. Municipal politicians? Mostly a shrug.
Especially, in a rural municipality sandwiched halfway between two much larger cities.
I attended an all-candidates’ meeting for the District of Lake Country. Out of curiosity, mainly.
To their credit, no one attacked any other candidate.
Tags: Elections, candidates, municipal
Thursday September 21, 2022
Municipal elections are coming up. “Why don’t put your name in?” a friend asked the other day. “You’ve always got a lot to say.”
I hope he was kidding. Because politics already has too many people in love with the sound of their own voice.
Besides, if I got elected, I would have to attend meetings. I’ve missed four meetings in the last two weeks, unfortunately. I suspect that my forgetter is telling me that I don’t like meetings.
Perhaps I never did like them.
In the past, I tended to resent meetings. They took a block of time when I could have been doing something productive. I felt obligated to attend because feared the organization might do something catastrophic without me.
Tags: meetings
28
Sep
I attended an all-candidates’ meeting for the District of Lake Country. Out of curiosity, mainly. I already know who I’ll vote for.
I didn’t go as a journalist. I went to see how the candidates treated each other.
Tags: Elections, promises