Unintended conquences

That's what colonialism has brought Britain.  Throughout the ages, Britain colonized many countries whose riches it wanted to plunder.  In doing so, the Commonwealth was created, consisting of many poor, Caribbean, African and South Asian countries which became richer in many ways via Britain's history, governance and infrastructure, but which in other ways became poorer, as Britain looted them.  What did this result in?  It's all documented in 'Caught on Camera', a hugely revealing and at times hilarious look at Britain today through the objective eyes of a vast CCTV network -- more than six million cameras in all.

We've been enthralled with this Netflix documentary series, which consists of a host treating viewers to hundreds of hours arbitrary and unfiltered coverage of the most unimaginable images of crooks and bandits running amok through the country's shops and streets in wanton acts of crime and destruction.

The sheer brazenness of the crimes amazes me.  Gangs storm their way into small shops and large department stores smashing, grabbing and shoplifting their way through in broad daylight -- often using small children to stash items, knowing that underage kids cannot be prosecuted.  

Watching it, I began to notice who most of the crooks were.  It became clear to my eye that approximately 90 percent were people of colour, but mainly Blacks.  "Wow, do that many Blacks now inhabit Britain?!" I asked myself, presuming that because most of the criminals were Black, Britain must now be teeming with folks from Caribbean commonwealth countries.  Now, before anyone screams RACISM! I want to assure you I immediately consulted the neutral and unbiased numbers on google.  

While comprising only 6 percent of the total population, Blacks make up 38.2% of all those incarcerated in Britain.  That's a problem.  I mean something is terribly wrong here.  The unintended consequences to which I refer have been caused, in my unscientific opinion, by the fact that any commonwealth citizen can emigrate to Britain quite easily.  So, Britain has a problem it caused itself by looting all those countries those many years ago because, guess what?  Many of those citizens are now returning the favour.

Ah, karma.  If you don't believe me, watch a few episodes.

      

Maybe I'll get a column?

 Do you think, now that Margaret Wente has retired and the great Christie Blatchford has died, 'The Globe and Mail' will offer me a column?  It would be nice because there are no sensible, no bullsh-t female columnists in it these days.  Here's a letter I had in yesterday:

As I have said many times, my cohort invented "feminism" in the late sixties; too bad it hasn't taken.  Women are still being penalized in the workplace for having the biological function of bearing children.  

An acquaintance of mine, the widow of an old friend of B's, was head of the Commission on the Status of Women for quite a few years.  Not long ago, she told me how much she enjoyed my letters to 'The Globe and Mail' and what a good writer I was.  So I sent her the link to my blog.  Haven't heard from her since, hahahaha!  And boy, she sure won't like this letter because it basically trashes her entire career and life's work.  She never had children, which makes her incapable of understanding the dilemma of those of us who did and who had to navigate a hostile workplace to get back into it after going on leave.  

When I had my kids, you didn't get maternity leave, you got unemployment leave.  And you didn't get your job back when you returned after your measly six months.  You got a job back and had to endure the sight of someone else sitting in your office, doing your job.  It was demoralizing and insulting, but "We've come a long way, baby" -- or have we?

It took 60 years

Finally, the Siksika people agreed to accept....wait for it.....$1.3 billion in a land settlement that they held out on for 60 years!  That's for 3,500 souls who are going to share the bounty.  Frankly, I can't even do the math on how much that is per person, but it's a hell of a lot!

So, what does the chief say?  "This settlement is not reconciliation," said Ouray Crowfoot.  "We will never be restored to the same as before these breaches took place, but it will offer financial opportunities, open many doors and help us move to financial sovereignty and a better standard of life for our people."  Does "financial sovereignty" mean they will no longer accept the annual grants given by Canadians?  Ya, right.  And does his claim that it is not reconciliation mean the door's still open to going for more cash?  That was a rhetorical question because it leaves it wide open.    

What everyone fails to grasp is that all reserves are located on Crown Land, given for a tribe's exclusive use.  But it is still Crown Land, so what I fail to grasp is why they are given more than a billion dollars for land they don't even own?!  Help me, someone, please!

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On another greedy note, Calgary's newly-elected mayor Gondek was one of those voting against a salary freeze for councillors.  She would not even table the motion, claiming it had not been studied enough.  Really?  Does she mean that more than $200,000 -- her annual salary -- isn't enough and that it needs to be further studied to see just how much she can up it?  At the same time, she's pushing for Calgary to donate $100,000 to help cover the legal fees for those fighting Quebec's Bill 21.  Hey, your worship, dig into your own bank account if you want to fork over that kind of money in a fight that has nothing to do with your dilapidated jurisdiction of Calgary.

As I keep bleating, Bill 21 is not discriminatory.  It simply upholds the principle of the "Separation of Church and State" that ensures the neutrality of public officials when dispensing a public service.  The public must not know the religion of a public servant when accessing such a service, hence no hijabs, yarmulkes, kirpans, crucifixes or any other religious symbol.

But the nasty spoke in the wheel of public service neutrality is the funding of separate schools.  If I were the lawyer representing those opposed to Bill 21, that's the card I'd play.  Boy, what an ugly Pandora's Box that would open!  Yikes! 

Getting sick of it.

Getting sick of her

Wrote a letter to 'The Globe and Mail' today about a typical column of disinformation by the  always-outraged native writer Tanya Talaga.  I tried to make it as objective as possible, but you can bet your last dollar it won't get in -- just as a similar one I wrote to 'The Cochrane Eagle' didn't.  

Dear Editor,

 With widespread coverage of Indigenous children and residential schools, I started to do research on what was leading to their deaths.  It was pre-vaccine diseases such as tuberculosis, yellow fever, scarlet fever, influenza, pneumonia and gastrointestinal infections – the same diseases that took the lives of non-Indigenous children at the time.  These diseases did not discriminate based on culture, race or background; they were equally deadly to all.  According to the Truth and Reconciliation Report, approximately 150,000 children attended residential schools from 1883 to 1996.  During that time, 4,100 died, or 2.73 percent.  In contrast, the mortality rate for all children during the same time period was far higher at 25 percent.

 Although sensational claims garner lurid headlines, it is disingenuous and misleading for politicians, special interest groups and columnists to claim Indigenous children were “killed” by those operating residential schools and buried in secret graves.  A little research will tell anyone who wants to know what happened and why.

Nancy Marley-Clarke

As to schools actually "killing" students, that is the exact word that came out of Jagmeet Singh's mouth the other day.  He said the Catholic Church (always open season on that bunch) killed students and buried them in hidden, secret graves.  A total crock, but as easy as it is to do the research, no one ever seems to do it!  

Here's another that hasn't yet been published, this one to 'The Calgary Herald':

Dear Editor,

 Say what?!  The mayor wants to spend Calgarians’ money in a law suit against Quebec’s Bill 21?  What has been completely forgotten in this debate is the democratic principle of “The separation of Church and State”  This principle enshrines secularism for all those dispensing a service at public expense.  Teaching at a public school falls into this category, which means that the public must not know the religion of a public employee when accessing such a service.  The wearing of any religious symbol, regardless of affiliation, contravenes this principle.

 The other detail that has been overlooked is that all municipalities are creatures of the province.  In other words, the City of Calgary has no jurisdiction in the Bill 21 debate.  If Mayor Gondek or other councillors want to personally contribute $100,000 they have every right to do so, but don’t spend the city’s money.   

 The separation of church and state applies to all religions and is the reason, for example, the crucifix was removed from the Quebec legislature a few years ago.  This principle ensures that the face of government remains neutral in all matters when serving the public.

 Nancy Marley-Clarke

Alas, I continue to whistle truth to the wind.....sigh.....

That would be $2,842

 If you bought everything advertised by 'Golf World' in 'The Herald' today.  That would get you a wedge, a driver, a putter, shoes, a couple of half sweaters and a push cart.  Wow, that's expensive -- one reason I don't play, the other being I can't hit the ball because the club shaft is too long and the ball too small.  The physics don't work for me.

But, oh how I loved being a social member of the Royal Ottawa Golf Club for so many years.  Frankly, it was the best deal around because if you were a golfer, you could play the back nine twice a week.  For me the attraction was that gorgeous verandah and the swanky parties held every year at Christmas and New Year's.  

Here in "Cowtown" there's nothing like that lovely place.  One reason we social members were (barely) tolerated at the Royal was because our fees kept the "real" members' fees down.  One club we were invited to join here was 'The Ranchmen's Club', to which I loved going.  Until we quit a few years ago.  Why?  Because at one dinner, Nenshi was the speaker (ugh!) and I asked in a stage whisper whether he would be passing the hat to cover his legal fees?  He was in a fight at the time with a local developer he had slandered in the media.

The next day, B was called by a club "official" who asked that he speak to his "guest", me, about my remarks.  I was flabbergasted!  Reminded me of when B was on the board of our condo and was asked by the president, "Can't you control your wife?"  This was because I had written a letter to 'The Citizen' about all the trees they kept cutting down instead of simply spraying them for insects.  "No, can you," replied B.  He quit the board.  

We also quit the Ranchmen's after that phone call.  Just to wrap it up nicely, I wrote the board members one of my scathing letters about how they treated women.  Hard to believe, but male chauvinism remains alive and well in some prehistoric quarters.           

$40 billion!@#$%^$#!!%$%^!!!!

That's what Canadians are going to give natives for "injustices" in the child welfare system!!!!!?????

That's insane!!!!!  That's over-and-above the billions natives are already handed every year.  I cannot believe this!!!  Where is the money going to come from??!!  Our children and grandchildren, that's where!!!!

Just heard the Manitoba chief, someone Woodhouse, say all that money should be given to natives to determine what to do with children taken into care.  Really?!?!  They've been running a foster kinship program, which places kids-at-risk with their extended families -- the same families that raised the incompetent parents.  How'd that go?  Obviously, not well.  Natives don't like it when they are fostered to white families, but giving them to kith and kin didn't work either.  Again, my question remains:  Why were they taken into care in the first place?  

That's a question neither asked, nor answered.  So, I guess $40 billion will cover and fix it.  NOT.

_________________________

Speaking of f-ck-ups, I refer to Theresa Tam.  As you know, I have been calling for her to be fired, charged and jailed for her incompetent and deadly handling of the pandemic.  Now, in a breathtaking display of idiocy and delusion, she has come out and written her own performance appraisal.  "Canada (isn't that you, Dr. Tam?) was not prepared for this pandemic," she said.  "Gaps in Canada's ability to collect data about the pandemic hindered the country's response."  Isn't that your data Tam??!!  

Incredibly, she went on to say, "This fragmentation, alongside outdated technology, has especially pronounced consequences during health emergencies when access to data for real-time decision-making is paramount.  There are still unacceptable delays in getting the right data to inform public-health decision-making.  These vulnerabilities could weaken Canada's resilience to future health threats."

OMG!  How can you say that when you are the chief officer of public health, er, "death"?  Thanks to her, mayhem and utter chaos also reign among travelers desperately trying to get somewhere for Christmas.  As I keep saying, no one knows anything because Tam has totally and repeatedly dropped the public-health ball.  Blood on hands. 

        

Even though she isn't blood...

I received her annual Christmas card yesterday.  I am talking about the wife of one of my late birth uncles, Charlie.  As an adoptee, I started to wonder about my birth family about 43 years ago (Wow!!)  Back then, there was no internet so it was an unrelenting slog through city directories and phone books, but I was lucky that mine had been a private adoption through a lawyer.  The Children's Aid helpfully would not grant my parents a child because theirs was a mixed marriage; Daddy was Catholic and Mum Protestant.  Feature that!  You can't.

Anyway, I casually asked my Mother one day, apropos of nothing, who had handled the adoption.  After she told me, I wrote the firm a letter and forged my Father's signature to get my file released.  It worked, but all that was there was her name and occupation -- no address, nothing.  But at least I had a surname, which allowed me to send $5 to the Ontario government to obtain her birth records for geneological purposes (you used to be able to get this easily).  This gave me her mother's maiden name, McKegney, and where she had been born; that turned out to be Marysville, a small town just outside Kingston.  At a dinner in Kingston a while later, I met an older woman with the same name as my grandmother's maiden name, so I asked her if she knew a Catherine McKegney.  "No, but I did know a Katie Latimer," she replied.  Bingo, I'd found my family!  

I told her my tale of search and she gave me the names of two maternal uncles saying, "They'll be so pleased to meet you."  So, I called and eventually met up with them and learned all about my mother, who had died just a year before at the age of 49.  Let me tell you, that hurt.  Nevertheless, I eventually found and met Shirley's (my birth mother) brothers and sisters.  

All this to say, Shirley's sister thought I was just after money and warned her kids to stay away from me.  One brother was civil, but the other effusive and thrilled because he had worshipped Shirley and considered me the closest thing to her.  (Apparently, when she did marry, she was unable to have any more kids, so I was her only issue.)  

So, long story short -- or is it short story long? -- Helen, Charlie's widow, and I always exchange newsy Christmas cards and I received hers yesterday.  That made my day.  She is the last connection I have with Shirley, for which I am very grateful.  So, Merry Christmas!

Shirley Latimer, my birth mother, taken about the time she had me.

Her obituary, above.

The search for my birth father wasn't as successful.  Talking to Shirley's best friend, I learned he had been a semi-professional baseball player in the border circuit -- which is how he had met my mother.  They had only one date, but that resulted in me, a scandal at the time.  So, off Shirley was shipped to the Salvation Army Bethany Home in Ottawa, where I was born.

Learning he had been an umpire in the American League of Baseball and armed with his name, I sent a request to the League's office in New York for some information about him.  I learned he had been married at the time he was with my mother -- oops! -- was living in Buffalo and had four children -- five, including me.  Sadly, he had no interest in meeting me, so that was that.  But my search allowed me to learn from whence I came and that was something.  

   

   

Do they suffer from too much money?

With all the super-wealthy professional athletes taking "mental health" breaks these days, I began to wonder what the problem was.  And then it hit me, it must be caused by the one thing they have in common:  Lots and lots of money!  If that's the case, they might try giving a bunch of it away, no?

The latest to suffer from this affliction is Bianca Andreescu, who just announced she was withdrawing from the Australian Open to, "reflect".  On what?  What to do with all that dough?  After winning the US Open, she bounded into the Australian last year full of vim and vigour, only to get clocked by an unknown in the second round.  Was she spooked by that?  What if it were to happen again?  So, she punted the tournament and will be reflecting for the foreseeable future.

Then there was Naomi Osaka, who needed a mental-health break and pulled out of the French Open, after losing the US, because of all those annoying pressers professional athletes are required to give after a match.  Hey, them's the rules, if you play professional anything, you are required to face the annoying media and answer bothersome and pesky questions.  When asked what happened today?  A simple, "I lost, or she played better than I today," would have covered it.  Unlike Pete Sampras, who used to say he had stomach troubles, or wasn't up to his normal game, whenever he lost.  The words, "He was the better player today," never left his lips.  Never.  In any case, it all proved too much for Naomi, so she too bolted.

Now, Robin Leher, goalie for the Las Vegas Golden Knights, has announced he can't face playing in the Olympics and won't be going.  Apparently, his psychiatrist recommended he take a pass.

Sticking with sports, the Vancouver Canucks just fired the GM, assistant GM, head coach and assistant coach in one fell swoop.  Boom, just like that.  Well, I guess if your team has been skunked in the last 15 games and sits in last place, any owner would have done the same.  Me?  I would have simply traded the goalie because he's the one on the ice not stopping the pucks.  Apparently however, according to B, it's more complicated than that.  He says it's the defence's problem because they aren't stopping pucks from getting to the net, where the goalie still can't seem to stop them getting in.

What about the players' jobs here?  Aren't they supposed to play their best for all the money they're paid?  Apparently not.  One was quoted as saying, "We were waiting for something to happen in the locker room and it didn't, so the coach had to go."  Waiting for something to happen in the locker room?!  The only thing that should be happening in the locker room is a shower.  The rest needs to happen on the ice.  

I'd still get a new goalie.  But now a veteran of the game over many years, Bruce Boudreau, will run the bench.  His ultimate stated goal?  "We just want to get into the division finals."  He actually said that his goal was not to win the Stanley Cup, just to get into the division finals.

Hard to believe, but there you are.  No Canadian team now expects -- or even aspires -- to win the cup.  Jean Beliveau and his ilk are spinning in their graves.

Note:  In case you think I am hard and unsympathetic, you're right. In many cases I can be.  

  

 

Brilliance at the school board

In a stunning moment of virtuosity, the director of learning services at the Calgary Board of Education said, "Literacy and numeracy are the building blocks of a successful educational journey for our children.  We need to set them up with a strong foundation."  (My first question is, are we setting up "literacy and numeracy", or does he mean "our children"?  He means the latter, but actually said the former.  You'd think a guy with his job would at least have had that right, but he didn't.  Sorry, I digress.)

Wow!  What a revelation!  Frankly, that explains everything that's wrong with most school boards today:  Too many "experts" being paid too much money to sit around, think up and spew out new hair-brained strategies such as "Discovery Math".  When someone explained that one to me, I nearly fell off my chair!  Apparently, kids learn how to "discover" correct answers, while getting marks for parts they may stumble upon and get right, even if the answer is wrong.

Beat that!  You can't, or maybe you can.  A while back, these same "experts" did away with phonetics in teaching kids to read.  "Sound it out," was what every teacher I had said when one of us stood up to read aloud in class.  Now, however, kids are supposed to just read whole words without bothering to know what sounds make them up.  Huh@!%#$%^##!@!?

When my kids were in elementary school, I had to tutor them in grammar because they didn't get it in class.  If you can't read or write your native tongue, you are in big trouble for the rest of your life.  During my career -- well, not really a "career", just a string of jobs -- the fact that I could write was a huge asset.  Even though something might not have been my job, someone would say, "Give that to Nancy, she can write."  

When I was head of consultations for GST, I was asked to write the departmental consultation policy.  The fact that it only took me a day or two stunned my boss so much he had to crap on it.  "These are just words on a page," he said, implying that no one could have come up with anything that good in such a short time.  (Seriously, everything one writes is made up of words on a page, but hey, why not insult someone with the remark?)  Much to his chagrin, when it was shopped around the branch for comment, it got nothing but praise; not a word was changed.  He emerged looking the dunderhead he was.

Another gesture I am convinced helped put my name forward for that job was when I sent the ADM a sympathy card when his very odd wife died.  To me, that was the normal thing to do, but when the position in question came open, he must have remembered the card and said to the DM over a round of golf, "Why not put Nancy Marley-Clarke into that job?"  I also went to the funeral parlour to pay my respects to the DM when his sister died.  I believe that paid off too.  These gestures show respect and civility -- all assets when you are doing consultations with pissed off merchants who don't like the GST.

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A word about the sham of panels, working groups, Royal Commissions and white papers.  Read today that the ombudsman -- or it is "ombudsperson"? -- for Canadian veterans has released a report slamming the federal government for leaving so many broken vets hanging out to dry.  The government didn't want to help them in the first place, so someone came up with the tried-and-true, sleight-of-hand known as the ombudsperson to "look into the mess" and come up with immediately-to-be-shelved-and-ignored recommendations.  

Same thing happened with the sad journey of Murray Sinclair and his incestuous band of roving investigators schlepping around the country holding "hearings" known as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Girls and Women Inquiry.  They came up with 99 urgent recommendations -- or was it 199?  Anyway, no one's done anything about any of them because they never had any intention of doing anything in the first place.

Same thing happened with the report five years ago into why there was so much sexual harassment and assault in the military.  What did they do?  Appoint yet another judge to do yet another inquiry into yet another mess.  Sexual assault and harassment happens in the military because, hey, it's the military.  Get it?  

The cynicism of this government is breathtaking and yet, Canadians put them back in.  As for the Conservatives, poor old misguided O'Toole's latest move is to demand an investigation into allegations of harassment and bullying in Conservative MP Shannon Stubb's office.  Doesn't he have other things to do -- like proving to Canadians he is ready to govern?

Now, the new defence minister, Anita Anand, is declaring she is going to revolutionarily change the culture of the military and the perfect guy to do this is General Wayne Eyre.  He may be, and good luck to him, but why did it take months to confirm him from his acting role?  Oh yeah, they had to interview every, single person he had ever worked with to be sure there were no salacious lurking female skeletons in any of his past closets.  It's all such a mess.             

    

He was the Chancellor

 I'm talking about Carleton University, where they named a building after him.  Now, the dunderheads who run the institution -- including the president, Benoit-Antoine Bacon -- in a breathtaking display of "cancel culture", have decided to remove Gordon Robertson's name from the building.

This is outrageous and led by a group of knuckle-headed students, natives and rabid devotees of the victimhood industry who can't even use google to see all the good work the Honourable Mr. Robertson did when he served as Commissioner of the Northwest Territories.  He followed his boss Prime Minister Mackenzie King's instructions and travelled there to see how and where best to ensure the Inuit (Eskimos back then) got an education.  This meant relocating them, which was logical at the time.  Now, it's apparently an outrage and the man who served as clerk of the privy council from 1963 to 1979 is being vilified -- along with every other Canadian leader who tried to educate the natives, including Canada's founder Sir John A. Macdonald.

This has to stop.  B worked for Mr. Robertson, as he always called him, in federal-provincial relations from 1977 until the latter's retirement in 1979 and was part of the elite team put together to patriate and write the 1982 Constitution Act -- no small feat because it involved working with all the provincial premiers, as well as constitutional lawyers from Britain.  Now, that would have been a real pandora's box to figure out, but it is one of B's proudest achievements.

Wouldn't it be nice if students stuck to the kniting and simply got an education, instead of trying to re-write history and cancel everything that's good about this country.

   

   

Christmas story

 My friend, Bob, sends the most wonderful stories at Christmas every year.  I will share a few, here's one:

_____________________________________

Unexpected Christmas by Marguerite Nixon

We were well over half way to our farm in East Texas when the storm broke. Lightning flashed, thunder crashed and a tree fell with a great ripping noise. When the rain poured in such a flood that we could not see the road, my husband drove on to what seemed to be a bit of clearing deep in the piney woods.  As we waited I sensed we would not get to the farm that night to celebrate Christmas with our family. We were sitting there, miserable and dejected, when I heard a knocking on my window. A man with a lantern stood there beckoning us to follow him. My husband and I splashed after him up the path to his house.

A woman with a lamp in her hand stood in the doorway of an old house; a boy of about twelve and a little girl stood beside her. We went in soaked and dripping, and the family moved aside in order that we might have the warmth of the fire. With the volubility of city people, my husband and I began to talk, explaining our plans. And with the quietness of people who live in the silence of the woods, they listened.

"The bridge on Caney Creek is out. You are welcome to spend the night with us," the man said. And though we told them we thought it was an imposition, especially on Christmas Eve, they insisted. After we had visited a while longer, the man got up and took the Bible from the mantle. "It's our custom to read the story from St. Luke on Christmas Eve," he said, and without another word he began:

"And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger . . . "

The children sat up eagerly, their eyes bright in anticipation, while their father read on: "And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night." I looked at his strong face. He could have been one of them.

When he finished reading and closed the Bible, the little children knelt by their chairs.

The mother and father were kneeling, and without any conscious will of my own I found myself joining them. Then I saw my husband, without any embarrassment at all, kneel also. When we arose, I looked around the room. There were no bright-wrapped packages or cards, only a small, unadorned holly tree on the mantle. Yet the spirit of Christmas was never more real to me.

The little boy broke the silence. "We always feed the cattle at 12 o'clock on Christmas Eve. Come with us."

The barn was warm and fragrant with the smell of hay and dried corn. A cow and a horse greeted us, and there was a goat with a tiny, wooly kid that came up to be petted. This is like the stable where the Baby was born, I thought. Here is the manger, and the gentle animals keep watch.

When we returned to the house there was an air of festivity and the serving of juice and fruitcake. Later, we bedded down on a mattress made of corn shucks. As I turned into a comfortable position, they rustled under me and sent up a faint fragrance exactly like that in the barn. My heart said, "You are sleeping in the stable like the Christ Child did."  As I drifted into a profound sleep, I knew that the light coming through the old pine shutters was the Star shining on that quiet house.

The family all walked down the path to the car with us the next morning. I was so filled with the Spirit of Christmas they had given me that I could find no words. Suddenly I thought of the gifts in the back seat of our car for our family.  I began to hand them out. My husband's gray woolen socks went to the man. The red sweater I had bought for my sister went to the mother. I gave away two boxes of candy, the white mittens and the leather gloves while my husband nodded approval.  And when I was breathless from reaching in and out of the car and the family stood there loaded with the gaiety of Christmas packages, the mother spoke for all of them. "We thank you," she said simply. And then she said, "Wait."

She hurried up the path to the house and came back with a quilt folded across her arms.  It was beautifully handmade; the pattern was the Star of Bethlehem. I looked up at the tall beautiful pines because my throat hurt and I could not speak. It was indeed Christmas.

Every Christmas Eve since then, I sleep under that quilt, the Star of Bethlehem, and in memory I visit the stable and smell again the beauty of that Christmas once more.

These letters didn't get in.....

 These letters didn't get into 'The Calgary Herald'.  In my opinion, they should have.....

Dear Editor,

 When checking out last December with my purchases, my mouth fell open when the cashier wearing a Hijab wished me a lovely, warm “Merry Christmas”.  To be greeted in this way by a non-Christian was heart-warming and yet shocking in this day of the secularization of this feast.

 Seeing my surprise, she explained that with my purchases this close to Christmas, she presumed I was Christian and therefore celebrated Christmas.  She added that she simply wanted to wish me Merry Christmas in honour of December 25^th.  That is a true story and if it doesn’t show mutual respect and honour for all in our multi-religious community, I don’t know what does.         

 Nancy Marley-Clarke

____________________________

 Dear Editor,

 I agree with the letter writer who lamented the absence of any mention of Advent in current media coverage of the upcoming festive and Holy Season.  The use of the word “Xmas” has also always puzzled me because it erases the word “Christ”, for whom the season was originally celebrated.  Why is that?  Cancel culture at work again?  December 25^th is actually Christmas Day.  It is not “Holiday” day or “Season” day, but happily the infectious joy Christmas exudes has spread and been embraced by all religions and creeds.

A few years ago, a friend gave me a lapel button which says, “Jesus is the reason for the season”.  I wear it to remind me that December 25^th celebrates the birth of the central figure in Christianity.  I am also grateful this date has spread to all corners of Western society, but I would welcome some acknowledgement that “Merry Christmas” need not be offensive, even if you aren’t a believer.

 Nancy Marley-Clarke

___________________________

 Dear Editor,

 Calgary’s new mayor Gondek came to office with a PhD in Urban Sociology -- an accreditation that would seemingly equip her well to come up with a solution to homelessness.  Yet she claims she doesn’t know what the answer to this chronic problem is and is looking to the provincial and federal governments to “get this right”.  Really? 

 Please don’t begin your tenure by playing the same tired, old game of shifting blame to other levels of government.  I would posit finding a solution to homelessness in the city you lead is your job, Madame Mayor.

 Nancy Marley-Clarke

____________________________

Just sent this into 'The Cochrane Eagle'.  Whaddya bet it definitely WON'T get in?.....

Dear Editor,

 It is wonderful every Christmas when Tom Jackson performs his Huron Carol.  In this article, Stoney Nakoda elder Tina Fox states that thousands of Indigenous children died while attending residential schools.  While this is true, we must be careful to put this number into the overall Canadian context.  According to the Truth and Reconciliation Report, approximately 150,000 children attended residential schools from 1883 to 1996 and during that time, 4,100 died, or 2.73 percent.  In doing some research, I learned that the mortality rate for all children in Canada for the same time period was a whopping 25 percent.

 Both Indigenous and non-Indigenous children died principally from pre-vaccine diseases such as tuberculosis, influenza, yellow fever, pneumonia and gastrointestinal infections.  None of these diseases discriminated based on culture, race or background.  Further research indicates that many Indigenous families brought or sent their children to residential schools in the hope they would get better care than could be given in the isolated areas in which they lived.  As to why many were buried on school property, this wasn’t an attempt to hide the truth, but because many families could not afford to bring their remains home.

 So, as we mourn Indigenous children being honoured by the Rotary Club’s efforts and the Huron Carol, let’s not forget the many more non-Indigenous who died during the same perilous time. 

 Nancy Marley-Clarke

The usual

Now the natives are complaining they aren't given enough money to operate and maintain the expensive water treatment systems they are given because they insist on living in remote communities with no water service.

We know why they insist on living on reserves, money, but with all the billions they are handed every year, why can't they hire people to maintain the treatment plants without demanding yet more funds be put in their bank accounts to do so?

Just as he ludicrously promised to bring in 40,000 Afghan refugees without having a clue how they would be processed under existing rules and laws, Trudeau recklessly vowed to eliminate all water advisories in his first five years in office without any idea about how that would happen and what it would cost.  Forty eight are still in place.  And with a nod to the "new math", they claim to have lifted 119 advisories, but failed to mention that 62 more have been added.  

All in all, they're $138 million short.  Thing is, without maintaining them properly, they will need fixing again and again.  Seems to be no problem finding billions for other countries, but Trudeau can't find the money to fulfill his phony campaign promises.  And speaking of maintenance, Indigenous water technicians -- trained using your tax dollars -- often leave as soon as their training is complete for better-paying jobs off-reserve.  

So much for that strategy.  

Why oh why do people keep voting for Trudeau??!!