Incompetence

"The French resistance during WW II consisted of a few people hiding under the bed listening to the BBC."  So wrote journalist Mark Steyn a few years ago.  I burst out laughing at the time because it rung pretty much true.  We were a long way away from that war when I read Steyn's article, but his words came immediately back to me as I watched "officials" from the City of Ottawa, the RCMP and the Ottawa Police hold an absolutely meaningless press conference yesterday. 

Five hours after the event, they were still in deer-in-the-headlights mode, with absolutely no clue about what was happening on those bloody streets and Parliament Hill in Ottawa?!  In a moment of incredulity, the Ottawa police chief actually blurted out, "We were completely taken by surprise."  Had it not been for excellent coverage by the media, citizens all across this country would have been completely in the dark.

Here are a few obvious questions:

• Why were police and other officials unresponsive for so long?
• Why did security officers on the Hill appear to be hiding behind columns?
• Why was the Hill so completely unprotected?
• Why did officials have no answers when they finally faced the cameras?
• Why did we have to learn from a "tweet" that Corporal Cirillo had died?
• Why did we have to learn the name of the perpetrator from the Americans?
• Why was our Prime Minister unavailable?
• Why did he give absolutely no information when he finally did appear a full nine hours after events took place?

It's all so incomprehensible.  Wonder what Rudy Juiliani was thinking?  Remember him?  On 9/11 he was out in front of everything and everyone, marching fearlessly towards the World Trade Centre -- come what may have.  We didn't do that.  Everyone ran for cover.  You can bet the Americans are pretty much relying solely on the Blackberry video footage shot "par hazard" by a brave Globe and Mail reporter who just happened to be in the hall.

Even more incredible is the fact that caucus members had to resort to piling up chairs against a door to protect themselves!  They trapped themselves in and would not even allow the RCMP to enter to remove the PM.  Well, why would they?  For Hill security, it was Nero-fiddles-while-Rome-burns.  Except for the Sergeant-at-Arms, who sprang into action and saved the day, the rest of the mess simply rolled out in chaos.  Kevin Vickers is a true hero, but it should never have come to that.

In spite of the jumble made by officials, I agree with Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente who wrote today, "We Canadians are steadfast and a bit phlegmatic. These are among our finest traits.  We don’t get that excited, and we won’t be cowed into giving up our freedoms. Also, when necessary, we can shoot to kill.  So long as we retain these virtues, the terrorists don’t have a chance."

Today at the pool Calgarians behaved normally.  No one even spoke of the events.  We simply behaved as Canadians behave.  The saddest photo of all appeared in the Globe today:

Corporal Nathan Cirillo, left, minutes before he was shot.  RIP. 



The trouble with single mothers

How can you be a "single mother" of eight? I mean, don't you know how you get pregnant?  Having one "oops" kid is one thing, but eight??!!  You have to be doing this on purpose. 

Reading Jane Taber's piece on childhood poverty in The Globe and Mail today gave me great pause.  She had interviewed this Nova Scotian (Taber had incorrectly written "Nova Scotia") single mother of eight who was having difficulty feeding her children nutritious food.  Well, duh, of course you are.  You are unemployed and have brought eight innocent children into the world here and there, willy-nilly, sired by who-knows-how-many-fathers and you can't feed them! 

Selfish, unwed mothers are the biggest cause of childhood poverty.  Too bad no one will actually say it out loud, but giving birth to children you can't afford to feed is a most egregious act.  Of course Ms. Taber never mentions this reality, just writes a "crying" piece about the poor mother.  It's scandalous.  Thankfully, my single mother went into hiding, gave birth and gave me up for adoption to a wonderful family.  Had she not, I would have been raised in poverty a boarding house in Kingston.  Privileges such as ballet, swimming and piano lessons?  Forget about it.    
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What is Justin Trudeau doing writing a biography?  He's twelve years old.  G-d help us all if he becomes Prime Minister.  We're doomed.  He's just so dumb. 
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"We can't just go to the stage door and ask to be let in," I said to my nervy friend in London in 1968.  "Of course we can," she replied.  "We're from Canada."  So, we did.  "Wait a minute," said the doorman.  Back he came and ushered us into the dress rehearsal for "Hair", the famous musical.  I now have a lot more nerve, but when I was 21 I was more inclined to play by the rules and hang back a bit.  The guy who wrote the music for "Hair" was Galt McDermot, a Montrealer.  Somehow, my friend knew all this and was convinced he would host us into the dress rehearsal.  She was right.  He did and we enjoyed a wonderful evening.  I have been recalling this because I hear one of the songs being played often on the radio of late. 

Well, that's what's on my so-called mind these days.      

They used to hide them in the attic

"Thanks a lot," said a voice mail from a cousin.  "It's your fault 'H' is on heroin."  I actually laughed because this cousin should be stored away in an attic, where they used to house and hide insane family members. 

H is her daughter, who I have met maybe three times, but not since she was a very young child.  The reason it's my fault?  Because daughter H asked to "friend" me on facebook and I accepted.  Apparently, a photo of B and me in Bermuda also revealed a glass of wine on the table.  Horror of horrors!!!  Yep, that was all H needed to get onto smack.  Seriously.  You could not make this up.  I used to have this cousin on call block, but can't figure out how to trigger this feature on my phone here in Calgary.  Need to get on that!

Her children had her committed a few years ago, but good old Canadian laws prohibited the state from keeping her locked up in a straight jacket.  Sadly, they are the ones who suffer and suffer with a crazy mother.  I used to share an apartment with her a hundred years ago in Toronto -- before she got into marijuana and LSD.  That's what flipped her over to the dark side and she's been there ever since.  One before-call-block night she called me 23 times and threatened to kill me.  All in front of her poor kids, I presume.  I have reached out to H and I hope she gets back to me. 

All so very, very sad.

Although my childhood was idyllic, not everything turned out perfectly rosy when we all grew up.  When another cousin died from ovarian cancer twelve years ago, her brother had been dating a mutual friend for about 10 minutes.  The church was filled to overflowing, her husband having been a big cheese in the Toronto investment community.  Every bank president and a few Ministers of Finance were there, but what galled me was how inappropriately family members managed the service. 

This cousin and I were best friends, grew up around the corner from each other and toured Europe together.  I used to spend lots of weekends in Toronto visiting her and loved her dearly.  What happens at her funeral?  My family and I were seated at the back, while the girlfriend-du-jour marched in with the family!  This latest squeeze had never even met my cousin.  Not once!  But there she was up front, clutching tissues with the widower and children.  It was appalling.  The widower was also to blame.  I had written a beautiful eulogy which I wanted to give, but he refused to allow it for some bizarre reason?  Guess he didn't know I was a writer who had loved and adored his late wife.  He had another acquaintance manage the entire event.  Not only did this idiot spell my uncle's name incorrectly, she also forgot to mention in the obituary the baby sister who had died before the age of one.

Of the three hundred or so people in the church, I had known and loved her the longest.  Oh, and the 10-minute girlfriend?  Gone within weeks to marry someone with REAL money.   

That's life friends.

Note:  This same at-the-time girlfriend also crashed our wedding, when we were re-married in the Catholic Church in 2004.  I explicitly limited the service and dinner to family only.  Guess who "happened" to be sitting in the lounge at the Royal Ottawa Golf Club when we arrived for dinner?  Yep, you guessed it.   



 

          

Leaders versus all the rest

"Good morning," said a young man as I walked in Cochrane this morning.  "Is your baby cold?  We are", he said, laughing.  These two chaps -- most likely from the Tsuu Tina reserve -- were about as down-and-out as you could get, but they were polite, friendly and quite obviously harmless.  No begging for money for them, just pleasant banter.   

The baby I had strapped to my front was my six-month-old granddaughter.  Facing out, she has a habit of smiling and cooing to everyone she meets  We were walking through a side lane, heading to a grocery store, while her mother did a swim set at the local pool.

My point is that ordinary native communities are not the problem.  With few exceptions, it's their leaders all across the country who are causing the impasse.  Be it pipelines, roadways or mines, any attempt to get across their territory is, without fail, met with stringent opposition.  One local example is the years and years and years it took to negotiate with the Tsuu Tina just to get tiny part of a ring road through a small piece of their land in the bottom-right corner of the reserve.  And it wasn't as if that section were a pristine wilderness.  No, it was a dump, riddled with abandoned trailers and shacks.  How does this help their people?  How does denying prosperity generate reserve income for the benefit of all? 

It doesn't.  And it's not as if these reserves were well-springs of organized and prosperous industrial hunting and fishing which would be harmed by a pipe or rail line.  No, most of these remote reserves are poverty-ridden, with residents living in abject conditions thanks to the intransigence of their chiefs.  And speaking of chiefs, how do you negotiate with 600 of them?  They now want to deal "nation to nation", one on one, with the federal government, effectively castrating the now-meaningless National Assembly of Grand Chiefs.  So, we now have another impasse.  My cousin's late ex-husband was one such lawyer in Kenora who fought anything-and-everything on behalf of his mostly-native clientele and made a fortune doing it.  He wasn't part of the solution, he was part of the problem (G-d rest his soul).      

One could argue that all of Canada is native territory.  And that's about what they and their teams of lawyers and consultants now claim.  The price of oil is falling and our traditional US markets are drying up because the US has decided to become self-sufficient in oil, much to the serious detriment of not only Alberta, but of the entire Canadian economy.  Unfortunately, Canada remains a hewer-of-wood-and-drawer-of-water economy which has relied for too long on natural resources to fuel its economy.  The unions have done a masterful job of pricing manufacturing out of worldwide competition -- just ask Ontario.

It's all so sad.  I am no economist, but mark my words, unless we can cooperate and work together to get our vast resources to market, our children face a much bleaker future than we enjoyed.

My encounter with those two young men this morning made me sadder than ever.    

 

Post-turkey marathon

Pea shoots.  What are those?  When I see an ingredient such as this in some smarty-pants recipe, I move on.  I am looking here and there for dishes to concoct to use up leftover turkey and I'd like to try and get away from my old standbys.  But pea shoots?  Who has those handy? Who knows what they are and who even knows where to get them? 

The other ingredients were things like "panko".  Is that just breadcrumb?  If so, just say it.  Then I had to scrounge around for fresh basil, coriander, cumin and turmeric.  I know I have these (well, not the fresh basil) but I'd have to get a ladder and rummage around in the back of my spice cupboard to track them down.

Same problem I have with the quarterly foodie magazines you get at liquor stores.  They are so pompous it's ridiculous.  I never have anything they call for.  Ever. 

But I do know what to do with the carcass, after I spend an entire morning pulling off and sorting all the meat.  Soup it is.  A few years ago, when I saw a son-in-law just throw the entire thing in the garbage, I almost cried.  And I could hear my grandmother and mother crying from heaven too.  I love turkey soup because it's so versatile.  You can throw anything at it and it'll enthusiastically rise to the occasion.  But first you have to boil the bird for about two days and then refrigerate the whole thing so the fat will rise to the surface and harden off for skimming.  Here's my bird giving up its life a second time in order to render its gorgeous broth:

 

Had to boil it for two days to get it to fit into the largest pot I own.  The broth is now cooling and will be ready for its transformation into soup tomorrow.

By the way, having failed to find anything really interesting for last night's leftovers, I made hot turkey sandwiches, complete with fries (but oven-baked) and frozen peas.  A real throwback to the old diner days of the fifties, sixties and seventies.  They were scrumptious.

Note:  Speaking of cooking, just watched 'Jamie's 15-minute Meals'.  Let me tell you, there is no way those meals are ready in 15 minutes.  None whatsoever.  Oh yeah, forgot, he has a staff of 50 prepping everything. 

No sympathy whatsoever

I have none for Theresa and Joe Guidice, who are going to prison for tax fraud -- she for 15 months, he for 41.  So what?  They broke the law and now have to pay for it. 

Hey, folks, this isn't Italy.  Or Greece.  Or Spain.....where citizens break the law all the time and take great pride in fleecing people and evading tax.  Why do you think those countries are in such a mess?  They steal from themselves by not paying taxes -- another of my favourite hobby horses.  Pay your taxes, pay your taxes, pay your taxes.  That's my mantra.  What kills me is how unjust they think it all is.  "We're family, we stick together no matter what," say all the reprobates on the 'Real Housewives of New Jersey' debacle.  Against my better judgement, I watch now and then -- mainly to try and figure out how they get those monstrous false eyelashes to stay on.  I still can't.

Having been raised in an honest, law-abiding, Protestant family, I cannot wrap my brain around how this culture gives rise to the mentality that being a criminal is just fine, thank you very much?  Had I done anything such as this, my own mother would have turned me in.  After paying at least a $million in taxes over their lives, my parents still fretted about whether they were paying their share.  "Who is paying for my care," said my dying mother in the hospice she finally entered.  "Don't worry," I replied.  "You have paid for it many times over."  Nonetheless, I made a very generous donation to The Maycourt to cover her needs and then some.

Next time you visit a restaurant, be in Chinese, Italian, Greek or.....whatever.....pay at the cash register and see if the drawer is open when you pay.  If it is, the proprietors are cheating on their taxes.  You'd be surprised at how often this occurs.  They take your money, give you change, but don't ring it in.  Not to come down inordinately hard on ethnic cultures, but they do not like to pay taxes.  Just a fact and a badge of courage.  And ditto, by the way, for everyone else operating in the booming underground economy.  I refuse to play.

The kicker is that Joe Guidice has just realized he does not have American citizenship.  I guess his parents were so devoted to Italy they neglected to obtain proper papers for him.  Oops!  He will probably be deported after serving his sentence.  All very sad for his little daughters. 

But don't worry, the American system will look after them.   

       

Turkey Weekend

Creeping down the stairs at five a.m. this morning, I was transported back to my childhood.  I had to get the turkey dressed and into the oven so the bird would be ready for the family, scheduled to arrive at one p.m.  The darkness and chill of a Northwestern Calgary early morning surrounded me, but there was work to be done.  I got at it. 

In earlier years, I experimented with goose, duck, Cornish hen.........you name it.  Didn't we all in the early seventies?  Afterall, we were smartypant's.  Fruit stuffing, rice stuffing, potato stuffing -- anything went, but over the years, I have reverted to turkey and the Stapledon family dressing:  bread crumbs (made from frozen crusts stored over the past few months), onions, celery, sage, savoury and sausage.  A big tube of it.  The secret's in the fat.  Yeah, fat tastes wonderful. 

I remember my grandmother and then my mother and aunts doing the turkey in the early morning because we always had "dinner" at noon, a holdover from their rural beginnings in The Ottawa Valley.  Dinner was at noon and supper the evening meal, a much lighter fare.  I started remembering festive dinners at my grandparents' on Cartier Street in Ottawa.  My grandfather was in charge of buying a live turkey at the market, which he brought home, killed and then de-feathered in the back garden.  I think he burned them off.  It was mesmerizing to watch.

It's now 7:30 a.m. and everything is in the oven and starting to smell beautiful.  The sun is rising and it's a delightful day.  I am grateful for the many gifts I have been given in my lifetime.  Today, our granddaughter is six months old.  What an exquisite Thanksgiving gift she is.