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13
Oct
2019
Today is Thanksgiving Sunday. It’s also just nine days away from a federal election. One of the things I’m thankful for is that Canada is not mired in the political lunacy in the U.S.
So far, about the only thing the various Canadian parties and candidates have been able to agree about is that the other side has more flaws than they do.
I suspect that if our ballots had a “None of the above” box, we’d elect a non-government with a huge majority, made up of members who didn’t get elected.
In today’s elections, traditional labels don’t work. A conservative is not necessarily a Conservative, let alone a Progressive Conservative. And a Liberal is not necessarily liberal, especially out here in B.C.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: politics, parties, labels, election
9
I enjoy good discussions. On almost any topic. Although my aging body no longer allows some physical activities I once enjoyed, I haven’t lost my love of a lively discussion. Yet.
Along the way, though, I’ve learned that there are many ways of destroying a discussion -- from saying too much to saying too little.
Still, in my experience, the most pernicious fault is dragging in an external authority. Perhaps a quotation from a famous writer. A statement from a scientist, ripped out of context. A dictionary definition.
Or selected verses from the Bible.
Especially, perhaps, from the Bible. Because the Bible can be used to support almost any stance, from slavery to prostitution, from genocide to a flat earth. The same is probably true for the Qur’an, the Hindu Upanishads, and the Analects of Confucius. They were never written as reasoned arguments for a unified worldview.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: rules, discussion
6
No, I don’t need a holiday. No, I don’t particularly deserve a day off. But on Thursday, the managing editor of the newspaper that gets the first lick at my Sharp Edges columns sent an email: “Take this weekend off. I need your space for election coverage.”
I had a column partly complete. Mostly complete. But I wasn’t happy with it. It was about the federal election, of course. More specifically, about the candidates in my local riding. About which, I daresay, no one outside this riding cares a whit.
(A “whit” -- in case you’re wondering, is a literary or archaic term meaning “the least possible amount.”)
So I accepted my weekend off.
All I can give you, this weekend, is your own letters about last week’s column, in which I excoriated (there’s another word worth looking up) a leadership conference here in Kelowna that involved two former prime ministers.
Tags:
2
On the last day of summer, before all the kids went back to school, I walked along our beach, watching families having a final day of fun.
A young girl offered a salted potato chip to a duck swimming near the shore.
Nervously, the duck paddled towards her. It snatched the chip. Then it retreated to deeper waters.
A second girl came down to the water. She kicked water out over the duck. Again and again.
It was -- pardon the cliché -- like water off a duck’s back.
And I did nothing.
What should I have said? What could I have done?
And how would the girls’ parents react, if a total stranger had lectured their daughters on right and wrong? The parents themselves apparently saw no reason to intervene.
Because both girls were doing something I objected to.
Tags: ducks, decisions, Ogden Nash, sins