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22
Jul
2018
Fake news didn’t start with Donald Trump. He merely raised it to an unprecedented level. Dare I say to an un-presidented level? And that’s the last time I shall refer to him in today’s column.
Because on July 19, 1692, 326 years ago this last week, the infamous Salem witch trials in Massachusetts had their first mass execution. They hanged seven women and one man.
One woman, Bridget Bishop, had been hanged a month earlier.
Wikipedia lists 110 people executed as witches, mostly in Europe. By the 1600s, the hysteria had started to fade in Europe. But not in the Puritan colonies on this side of the Atlantic.
Salem had a reputation as a fractious town, divided by local feuds. Town meetings tended to turn into physical fights. Most histories now portray the witchcraft trials as an extension of those feuds.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: child trafficking, mobs, salem, witches, lynching, vigilantes
21
At a guess, the little girl would be about eight years old, her first year as a piano student. When she squirmed up onto the piano bench, her red patent leather shoes hung high above the floor. There was no way she could reach the pedals.
She poised one finger to hit the first note.
She followed that note with a second, and a third. And she stopped. Something wasn’t right.
She tried again. One note, another, a third. And stopped again. She didn’t know how to go on.
She froze. Afraid to make another mistake. Afraid to risk another try.
Utter silence filled the room. No one breathed. The audience – parents, grandparents, siblings, fellow students – leaned forward as one. Wishing her on, willing her unwilling fingers to continue.
The intensity was physical. The old cliché says “You could cut it with a knife.” Well, perhaps not that palpable. But there was certainly something there in that room, a presence that filled the space, a spirit that moved in waves to support the little pianist.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: prayer, piano, recital, good intentions
15
Like the rest of the world, I rejoiced when that boys’ soccer team and their coach were rescued from the cave in Thailand after being entombed for 16 days.
I have a phobia about caves in general. I can feel panic rising even thinking about having to strap on an unfamiliar scuba mask, wade into murky water, dive way down into a hole in the rock in total darkness and then turn and feel my way towards a narrow cranny I have to wriggle through, rock walls scraping my skin…
So I am in absolute awe of the courage and compassion of the divers who risked their own lives to get those boys and their coach out of the cave alive.
I suspect the Thai cave rescue will become a text-book case study for students of ethics in the not-too-distant future.
Tags: ethics, rescue, Thailand, cave, soccer team
11
I got an email from my friend Doug Hodgkinson the other day. Which was odd. Because Doug died seven years ago.
I wondered where he was writing from. And if they have wi-fi connections there, wherever “there” is. They don’t have gmail addresses, anyway. Doug had a gmail address before his death, but this message came from Hestbript@ibh1mnhk6k.rereprsente.us, which reads like the proverbial roomful of monkeys whacking typewriter keys at random.
Just in case there’s any doubt, I don’t think the message came from either heaven or hell – unless it’s the kind of hell that exploiters of human weakness and gullibility create. I gave up believing in hell long ago; I gave up on heaven a little later.
The two go together, because they both assume a God who hands out rewards and punishments.
Tags: life, Hell, heaven, death, email
8
Last Sunday, provincial MLA Norm Letnick and I were cooking pancakes together for the Canada Day celebrations in Lake Country organized by the Lake Country Rotary Club.
“What does Canada mean to you,” Norm asked, flipping a pancake.
“That I don’t have to be an American,” I replied flippantly.
“I can’t say that,” he laughed.
So I tried again: “I like what Joe Clark said, years ago. That Canada is a community of communities.”
Norm nodded. Then he used that line in his speech at the opening ceremonies.
Good for him. Because it really is a good description of how Canada differs from the much larger nation south of us.
Tags: Canada Day, community, individualism