Author: CLARION

GERMANY AWAKENS

There’s almost nobody left alive today who would remember this from a first-person perspective.

For over eighty years, European security has been guaranteed by the United States.  The continent that had given birth to two world wars, and plenty of others before that, has seen a peace that is virtually unrivalled by any other time in its history.  And as I mentioned, that’s primarily the dividend of having the Americans as a strategic ally.

The enemy is Russia, once known as the Soviet Union, or even the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) as they were once formerly known.  From 1945 until 1991, the Russians were the existential threat, poised as they were to roll right over Western Europe, but held in check by NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) which had the United States as its most powerful member.  During this time, known as the Cold War, the two sides stared each other down over the barricades erected by the Russians, not to keep us out, but to keep their occupied populations in.

Then, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed upon itself, the victim of its many unsolvable problems, primarily involving Russian incompetence and a general backwardness.  From that point, with Russia a mere rump of its former self, Western Europe, and in fact Eastern Europe as well (formerly members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact) began to experience e a peace dividend, where money no longer had to be spent in untold billions to manufacture and procure arms with which to defend their sovereignty against the big bad Russian bear.  The bear was off licking its wounds, and Europe thrived as a result of it.

But the Russians never go away.  Never.

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MIGRANT WORKERS

They come from places where the standard of living is well below ours. In fact, their standard of living makes it a necessity for these people to leave their own country to find work so that they can send the money home to aid their families.

They work in what could be considered an essential service, the harvesting and processing of food. Without them, the seasonal agricultural industry would be in crisis.

How much should they be prepared to endure when they arrive in Canada on Closed Work Permits? And how much are we willing to look away when we see the obvious abuses?

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

Everyone talks about Freedom of Information as if it was some absolute right guaranteed by the highest authorities in the land.

Our own local council talks about it as if it was the Holy Grail, and when combined with transparency and accountability, the Holy Trinity of municipal government.

I say that’s all horse-hockey.

HOW DOES POLICE INVESTIGATION IMPACT MA-TE-WAY?

We’ve had a third-party report with detailed recommendations. We’ve had all kinds of discussion and recriminations. There’s been finger-pointing and counter finger-pointing.

And now, apparently, a police investigation.

Does this “investigation” reflect a change in course? A change in tempo? A change in anything?

CHARLES III COMES TO CANADA

Something will happen today that doesn’t happen very often, if at all.

Parliament re-opens today, or at least that part of it known as the House of Commons, and all the recently elected MPs, or Members of Parliament, will take their seats and ready themselves for the Throne Speech, or Speech From the Throne, an event that officially opens any new session of Parliament.

The Throne Speech is usually a task undertaken by the Governor-General, in this case the Right Honourable Mary Simon, on behalf of the sitting monarch.

But today, Governor-General Simon will yield that privilege to the monarch himself, in this case King Charles III, King of England and Great Britain, and also King of Canada.

To my knowledge, a reigning monarch has read the Throne Speech twice in our nation’s history, with Charles’ mother Elizabeth II having done so both times, once shortly after taking the throne, and the second in 1977.

So why now?

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THE STRIPES OF HBC

When Sears went swirling down the drain a decade or so again, I don’t recall shedding any tears.  I mean I shopped at Sears, more for something to do than anything else, but I had no real attachment to the place, even though I’d been around since it was Simpson’s, then Simpson-Sears.

I have to admit that Eatons hurt a little more when the doors closed, probably because it was a high-end department store and the place I used to get my Simon Chiang dress shirts, back when Simon Chiang used to make me dress shirts.  And Eaton’s, like Simpsons, was one of the Big-Two department stores that boasted a catalogue that would arrive quarterly, including the Christmas catalogue that kids from my generation would remember well.  They weren’t

wrong when they called it the Christmas Wish Book, because that’s exactly what it was, a book of Christmas wishes.

Plus the models were pretty.

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FEEDING KIDS AT SCHOOL

You can go ahead and call me crazy if you want, but I’m adamant in my belief that Catholic kids have the same right to eat as their non-Catholic counterparts.

And, of course, who’s going to argue with that?

Times are tough all over, as the saying goes, and when times are tough, it’s often children that bear the brunt of it.  And sadly, they often pay the price for tough times by going hungry more often than they should.

It’s easy to say that no child should ever go hungry, ever, but the sad truth of it is that it happens all the time.  Derelect adults, neglectful parents, down and out care-givers more concerned with their next fix or hit, all of this kind of stuff happens in the world, and you’d have to be wilfully blind to think that it does’t happen right here in Renfrew.

Right under our noses.

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TABLE FOR ONE

“Well, at least you graduated.”

I think all of us can remember our own graduations, and how important they were to us.  The poor cousin of prom, grad was when you were recognized for four, and perhaps five years of secondary school study and achievement.  It was a night of speeches, awards, and pride of achievement for both graduates and their families alike.  The pomp and pageantry is almost a once-in-a-lifetime event.

It can be emotional.

For most of us, maybe all of us, it will be the last time we’re in the same room and at the same event with all the people you shared the journey with.  And although the friendships crafted in high school are the most vital, you realize that many of these relationships, even the tight ones, are now going to drift as you, and your peers, go your own ways and chart your own course in life.

So it’s kind of bittersweet.

Nevertheless, it’s a day and an evening that we’re likely to remember for the rest of our lives.

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SMITHS CREEK

It gets its start in Hurd’s Lake, and from there it winds and m wanders its way through McNab-Braeside and Horton Townships, before entering the jurisdiction of the Town of Renfrew and eventually emptying into the Bonnechere River across and just downstream from Air Force Memorial Park.

Smiths Creek — aka Smith’s Creek — is one of those things that you see just about every day, but the familiarity of it allows you to just walk on by, or drive on by, without giving it a thought, much less a second one.

My doctor told me to start walking routes that are different from my go-to route, something to do with mixing things up being good for me, especially if, while mixing things up, I incorporate some hills and terrain into my walk.

Never one to dismiss the advice of my doctor, I did just that, mixed it up a bit.

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