Bores and non-bores

"I was sorry to hear your Dad died," I said last evening at a reception.  The non-bore nearly fell over.  "Thank you so much," he replied.  I had just introduced myself to Jaime Watt at a gathering of Concordia alumni at the Jack Singer Centre in downtown Calgary.  Mr. Watt is "Executive Chairman and Senior Partner of Navigator Ltd. and a Principal at Ensight Canada.  He specializes in complex public strategy issues, serving both domestic and international clients in the corporate, professional services, not-for-profit, and government sectors."  (This is from the internet.)

But I was thinking of him as a guy who had lost his Dad because I remember watching him on The National, when Pastor Mansbridge offered condolences.  We then started a long conversation about Alberta politics and the Montreal in which he and B grew up.  It's guys like Jaime -- guys who actually listen -- who have insight into what the rest of  "the great unwashed" are actually thinking.  He is..... 

"....a trusted advisor to business leaders, as well as leaders of political parties at all three levels of government, across Canada.  Jaime has led ground-breaking election campaigns that have transformed politics because of their boldness and creativity.

"Jaime is the president of the Canadian Club of Toronto, Canada's oldest podium of record, and serves on the boards of many organizations including the Canada Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, the St. Michael's Hospital Foundation in Toronto, and the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. As well, he chairs the Capital Campaign for Casey House, Canada's pioneer AIDS hospice.

"Deeply involved with efforts to promote equality and human rights issues, he was the inaugural recipient of Egale's Lifetime Achievement Award and has been awarded the Queen's Jubilee medal for service to the community. Jaime has also been elected to the College of Fellows of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society."

Naturally, I shamelessly had my picture taken with him.  By the way, the guy who took this blur was incompetent -- and he was the official photographer for the event!  Here it is:

 

The bore of the event was the president of Concordia, Alan Shepard.  An American, he was typical.  We talked for about 10 minutes and I finally excused myself, knowing he had absolutely no interest in anything I said.  Where's the bar?  I screamed.  Spare me, please, from this bone-headed intellectual.  All he talked about was.....Alan Shepard.....Alan Shepard.....and Henry F. Hall.  Now, the latter was certainly someone to talk about.  What galled me was that we talked about B having been the first-ever nominee for the Rhodes Scholarship from Sir George Williams University, nominated by President Hall himself.  Had I been Mr. Shepard, I would have been floored and a tad fawning, but he merely feigned interest.  Had Shepard ever been a Rhodes nominee? 

As if. 

I wonder how many Rhodes nominees have emerged from Concordia since?  President Hall graduated from Harvard in his twenties and was a force with which to be reckoned.  It was he who recognized B's talent and nominated him.  Takes one to know one.   

The Pecking Order at the Pool

Too bad many people have no clue.  We are all suffering the "Januaries" -- people who make resolutions about getting fit and thus clog the lanes for a month or so after New Year's.  I'm getting a little sick of them.  Can they not read, "slow, medium, fast"?  These signs denote who should swim where. 

Guess not. 

Pool etiquette dictates I not swim in the fast lane, only the medium.  And if I am in the medium lane with a "fast" swimmer, I will zig-zag behind him/her so that that swimmer never has to go out of his way to pass me.  Furthermore, when I have done my 50 laps, I switch to the slow lane with the flutter board.  That's just the way it is at the pool.  I would never swim with L in the fast lane, for example, nor would I bother R in that lane either.  Interestingly, I taught A how to breathe and change sides every third stroke and now she is in the fast lane way ahead of me.  Good for her.

What p-sses me off are the breaststrokers in the fast lane.  What are they doing there?!  As regulars, we all know each other and we all know who swims where. 

I just wish the "Januaries" would obey the rules or bugger off.         

Tempests in teapots

"Nancy Marley-Clarke's use of the phrase 'boys will be boys' is exactly why her attitude is part of the rape culture problem.  Take your victim-blaming somewhere else, Ms. Marley-Clarke.  Boys will be held responsible for their actions just like everyone else."
Madison Farkas, Calgary

"It's too bad Nancy Marley-Clarke doesn't hold boys up to the same standard as girls in the 'man up' department, whatever that really means."
Margaret Harris, Calgary

Those are two letters-to-the-editor that crashed onto the editorial page in response to a letter I wrote the other day.  Here's my original:

"As Licia Corbella points out, no crime was committed by immature students at Dalhousie.  The fuss and outrage are completely out-of-proportion to the silliness and dumbness of the posts.  Boys will be boys and young women need to drop their victim stance and man up."
Nancy Marley-Clarke, Calgary

Get a grip, ladies.  Went on facebook and learned that Ms. Farkas, who looks about 12, supports groups such as "social workers for social justice".  Ms. Harris must be in her early fifties, but couldn't see anything more on her site that would give me a clue as to her personality -- other than she is too old to have such long hair, in my opinion.  It's interesting that both these women don't want others to get tough and move on.  As my earlier post on 'Globe and Mail' columnist Margaret Wente's piece says, "Women need to man up because sooner or later we all have to learn to deal with jerks. Fear not, you can."

How can standing up for yourself and urging other women to do the same be part of the "rape culture"?  And while I'm at it, what exactly is "rape culture"?  I've got news for these women, rape is far less prevalent now than it was when I was subjected to it 40 years ago.  Back then, men felt entitled to cat-call and oogle any girl or woman they wished.  Trouble was many took it further, right smack dab into brazen sexual assault.  Today, if a man whistles at a woman walking down the street he is practically arrested. You know, there were times I was flattered when a man admired me -- as long as he didn't attack me. 

I think girls and women are far safer now than they were when I was a child, a teen and a young woman.  That's just a fact and it's women such as I who have made it that way.     

Man up

That's the watch word from Globe and Mail columnist, Margaret Wente, to young women who won't confront young men on public transit who take up two seats "man spreading", as she calls it.  Just one example, but yea, I know what she means.  Not that I take public transit -- in more than three years here I have yet to step onto a C-train -- but man-spreading is simply another form of discourteous conduct. 

Discourtesy is everywhere, but we don't need university courses about it.  Young women don't have to "victimize" themselves about it.  They simply have to "man up" and sit down.  "Give his leg a little nudge, if he doesn't respond," writes Wente.  She goes on:

"We need to stop monsterizing men.  We also need to stop encouraging women to believe they are as helpless as kittens with the vapours.  Women are not weaker vessels.  That is the fundamental premise of feminism, as I recall.  We've tried to raise our daughters to be strong and independent, confident and secure -- resilient, resourceful, tough-minded, able to deal with what the world throws at them  That is the road to equality."

Hear, hear.

"Where did we go wrong?  Instead of lionesses, we've turned our brave and fearless daughters into neurotic, quivering piles of jelly....utterly unable to cope with the garden-variety misdemeanours of boys and men who have been behaving badly since time began, despite our many efforts to civilize them?"

Wente says that universities -- hothouses for a grievance and rape culture that sees racism, sexism and misogyny under every rug -- are the problem.  In fact, many faculty derive their livelihoods from it by constructing increasingly-elaborate codes of conduct and large administrative apparatuses to detect and uproot these evils, says Wente.

Please.

Young women need to...."practice manning up.  Like it or not, the world beyond the cloistered halls of academia is teeming with guys who take up too much space and occasional act like total jerks.  Sooner or later you will have to learn to deal with them.  Fear not. You can."

As Nancy Reagan said about drugs, "Just say no".  Take a stand, young ladies.  Quit complaining.       

Whispering thighs

That's what we irreverently called one of the best writers and editors by whom I have ever had the pleasure of being red-penciled.  She was one of the first females to storm the male bastion of the Toronto Press Club and she was as tough as she was permitted to be in the sixties.  But buddy, she got into the Men's Press Club!   

Her name was "Jean Portugal" and she was my mentor/editor at Maclean-Hunter when I was privileged to have worked there in the early seventies.  Mrs. Portugal ruled our editorial office, where we newcomers worked for any and every publication that needed a quick article or book review.  I actually thought I was a decent writer.  Boy, was I wrong.  Mrs. Portugal taught me everything I now know -- where to stop wandering on, how to eliminate words, how to make a point without needing a run-on sentence.  She was pure magic.  We called her "whispering thighs" because hers were ample.  Not fat, she nonetheless had these majestic thighs.  Weird.  She was pure "fifties" and I eventually became in awe of her expertise.  I would write an article, which I thought pretty good, (see, Jean taught me to eliminate the "was" from that sentence) and would tell me (again, no need for the "she") what was wrong with it.  She was incredible.  She informed me that "more than" was to be used when talking about "things" and "over" was only to be used when describing actually "going over" something.  These distinctions are long-gone in public parlance.  Pity.

I tripped down memory lane about all this with an ancient colleague who also worked under Mrs. Portugal when we met the other day.  He and I started together at M-H, but I kind'a knew he was a better writer than I would ever be.  Eventually, he went on to be a columnist for 'Macleans' and is now a columnist for 'The Globe and Mail' and a published author.  We worked together 44 years ago and I had a drink with him the other day when he and his wife visited Calgary.  What a great meeting it was!  Forty-four years melted away, as we talked about Jean and various other personalities who trained us "back in the day".  "There's no way you are going to visit Calgary and not get together with me," I had written him.  And it happened.  Guess what, he was exactly the same great guy I had known in 1971-72.  I am so proud of him.  

The Internet has a lot going for it.         

 

The CBC's massive wimpy-ness

"We don't want to offend anyone.  We aren't showing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.  This area should be avoided as, quite simply, it's offensive to Muslims," said the wimpy-est politically-correct jerk I've ever heard. 

This nonsense was spoken by one David Studer, journalistic standards and practices director at CBC.  I guess he literally runs the broadcaster because he has to approve everything the network puts out.  Heard him twice on CBC Radio and I was appalled by....well.....his overwhelming wimpy-ness.  I am glad I am not a graduate of Carleton's school of "journalism" because this is from where this dope graduated.  I graduated from Carleton, but with an English degree; somehow I ended up in journalism.  Lucky me. 

Studer also decreed that no footage of the murder of the wounded Muslim police officer, Ahmed Merabet, be shown.  His view appears to be that the sensitive and fragile public be protected from offences that might upset them.  How ridiculous.  "There are better ways to honour and stand beside our fellow journalists."  What he meant, of course, was that there are safer (for the CBC) ways to honour them. 

An enlightened Muslim journalist on the program retorted that if depictions of the prophet are offensive to Muslims, then Muslims shouldn't reproduce them and shouldn't look at them.  "The rest of the world can.  We don't rule the world," he intelligently stated. 

Mainstream media -- including the CBC -- has no problem making fun of other religions.  Studer should step down.  What a wimp.     

Really?!

"It's your swimming and your water intake that has kept you healthy," said my 30-something female doctor yesterday.  "That's why you don't look your age.  In fact, you remind me of Jane Fonda, the way you dress and carry yourself."

The first thing I thought was, "What does "my age" look like these days?"  The second thing I thought was, "Really??!!"  Not falsely modest, I'll take her medical compliment and put it right out there.  G-d knows I work hard enough to stay stylish and healthy.  Must be my central Canada-ness when it comes to how I dress 'cause, outside of Stampede week, I'm not really a Western gal.  And it must be my daily 50-lap grind in the pool that keeps my heart pumping and my various other organs functioning relatively-normally.

The last thing any of us boomers needs is to be fat, lethargic and unhealthy.  "I see people all the time who don't drink enough water, who don't exercise and whose joints just dry up and quit working," added Dr. M.  The cost of hip and knee replacements anyone?  Mostly self-inflicted.  "Even with your torn hip whatever(?), you're still a low priority on the waiting list to see a specialist," she said.  Frankly, I think people who keep themselves fit, yet still run into problems, should vault over people who don't look after themselves.  But, of course, that's not the way the system works.  So, for my torn and painful hip whatever, I have to wait four months to be seen.

All I can say is, long live those bloody pool lanes!  Think I'll drink to that.       

Divorce "Vikki" style

"The money claws always come out," said notorious and brilliant North Jersey mediator and family lawyer Vikki Ziegler.  Have just started watching her reality series 'Untying the Knot' and it's depressing how many of her female clients have married men just for their $$$$.

Gee, really?  Who would'a guessed??!!

This says very bad things about women.  But it also says very bad things about the men they married -- men who must have known why they were being married in the first place by these vipers.  Then, when the whole arrangement predictably blows up in their faces, the husbands are dismayed and pissed off that their soon-to-be ex's demand bags of money.  "Judging by how much she has fleeced me for, she has a great career ahead of her," said one disillusioned cuckhold.

Thank you Michelle Triola, whose lawyer, Marvin Mitchell, took Lee Marvin for just about every penny he had ever earned in the famous palimony case about 30 years ago.  (Did you know that Dick Van Dyke eventually married Michelle?  By the way, he is still alive and 89 years old.  Totally weird.)

The thing about Vikki's cases is that these women have only been married 10 or 15 years, maybe less, and have no kids with their rich catches.  They seem to force themselves to stay the minimum amount of time to get the $$$.  Entitled?  In their minds, you bettcha.  They are there with their lawyers, out for blood.  I admire Vikki because she goes by the letter of the law, in terms of what's splitable and what's not, yet she takes into consideration which party is emotionally attached to which object. 

She is absolutely brilliant in how she gets the protagonists to "yes".  "Hey, do you want to just buy me this jewellery, or do you want to keep your money?" she says to one husband, arguing about a cookie.  To drive home the point, Ms. Ziegler actually holds out her diamond-adorned hands to demonstrate him how dumb the guy is. 

Yep, everyone's dumb. 

I hesitate to tell you again that I was in the vanguard of "women's lib", when we all decided to burn our bras and get good educations so we would never have to rely on men to support us.  I am disappointed that women have not advanced and still what to marry-and-fleece rich men.  Yes, I have been divorced, but I walked away, taking not a cent from my ex -- not even child support.  I had a decent career and enough money to support myself and my children and could not imagine dealing with lawyers and courts over..........whatever?  (And yes, I am still friends with my ex, who has always seen his children whenever he could, no strings.  He's actually a very cool guy.)   

Dragging through court is so degrading.  What kind of woman does one have to be?  I guess the kind who can't -- or won't -- earn her own living.  Yet, even if she can, many hunt aggressively for every nickel.  I know from experience with a female ex-spouse how women can belittle themselves and sacrifice their self-esteem over a cookie.  It renders pointless all the work the rest of us did to stand up and be counted.  And we wonder why we are still not take seriously?      

Women in divorce continue to short-change themselves by their greed. 

Whaaat??

Don't know how many blogs I've posted with that title, but here's another.  Last time I checked, Calgary police chief Rick Hanson is not in the pulpit in the Somali community mosque here.  The imam now blaming the police is.  This imam is the guy who needs to smarten up his flock and stop the murderous gang warfare that is killing so many of his community's young men -- about 30 in the last two years.

But who is he blaming?  Yep, the Calgary police and the entire Calgary community.  Whaaaat??!! 

Two young men were murdered by their own here over the Christmas holiday and guess what?  The rest of us are to blame.  I'm so sick of it.  The beleaguered police are trying to get to the bottom of the mess, but guess who will not cooperate?  Need I say more?  "As mourners exited the mosque following the funeral, several men pulled their hoodies over their heads and shielded their faces from television cameras," said one account.

Over to them, is all I can say.

On another note, Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente had an interesting take on the dental mess at Dalhousie.  "Dalhousie's dental hysteria" was the title of her piece.  "Here's what we've come to on campus today.  If you make a stupid, juvenile mistake, you can be utterly destroyed.  If you're male, that is," wrote Wente. 

Yep, that's correct.  Not that she or anyone condones the stupidity of their website, but let's not get too carried away here.  "Many think suspensions don't go far enough," writes Wente.  "They want them expelled -- or perhaps drawn and quartered.....It's too bad they didn't get a sharp smack across the chops from a respected elder.  Alas, that didn't happen.  So now they are the latest villains in the 'rape culture' witch hunt that has gripped universities across North America."

The same BS has destroyed the lives of the two Members of Parliament publically accused of sexual assault by two female MPs who chicken-shitedly won't identify themselves.  It's outrageous. 

I mean, boys will be boys -- especially in university.  I remember when engineering students at Queen's were reprimanded for hanging "No means more beer" signs from their dorm windows.

Let's get a grip. 

   

It's always time..........

..........to put away the Christmas stuff at Epiphany.  Frankly, I can't get rid of it fast enough!  Love getting it out and putting it up, but I equally love undoing the whole thing.  That's what I am up to today.  Bagged all the decorations, fought the tree into its box, put away the crèche, undid the mantle, put the powder room back to ordinary, re-laid the dining table and replaced the red tea lights with white.

The only task remaining will be to iron the Christmas linens when they're dry and stow them. 

Had grandson for a sleepover Saturday and exhausted though I am after dropping him off on Sunday, he makes my day.  Took him to Mass and boy is he fast!  "Don't talk again," he said to one of the lectors -- right out loud -- as she mounted the steps to give the second reading.  Actually, some Sundays I feel exactly the same way.  He loves the music and sways back and forth as he "reads" along with the choir.  Suddenly, in the middle of Father David's homily, he'd had enough and darted to the front of the church and almost up on the altar.  Good thing I was into track and field in school because I had to race after him -- in my high heels no less.

His favourite task is putting coins in the "Mission Mexico" jar on the altar.  That and the promise of timbits at coffee afterward, were the reasons I wrestled him under control.

Here's to a Happy 2015!