A new era of book burning

With the cancellation of Frances Widdowson's lecture at the University of Lethbridge, that's what it amounts to.  Widdowson, you'll remember, is the Mount Royal University professor fired in 2021 because she dared to say that residential schools did a lot of good for Indigenous students.

How dare she!!  Off with her head!!  Former senator Lynn Beyak's cranium was also put on a spike in the public square when she had the gall to say the same thing out loud a couple of years ago.  She became a "former" pretty quickly after that outrageous comment.  

Trouble is, both these women are correct.  Residential schools -- although blighted by scandal and abuse -- educated thousands of natives who would otherwise have remained illiterate.  I have blogged countless times about the smearing of the schools by vested interests, so I won't bang on about it here.  But the truth of the matter is that every, single Indigenous leader and spokesman on the airwaves and in the ether today went to one.  

Residential schools, or boarding schools as they are called by everyone other than a native "victim", turn out some of the most well-educated citizens around.  Every British prime minister, for example, went to one, as did countless other prominent and successful leaders.  But, for some reason, only residential schools -- and in particular the Catholic variety -- are singled out for condemnation.  

Odd because recently I read about a Jewish rabbi charged with sexually abusing students in New York.  And here I thought it was only Catholic priests who were guilty of such aberrations.  Silly me!  And did I mention the overly-enthusiastic male health teacher I had in grade school, who was a tad too keen on graphic, hands-on sex ed, if you get my drift?  As as for my orthodontist, who sexually assaulted me when I was 12, well, we won't go into that here.  I forget, did I mention that the abuse that took place in residential schools was principally perpetrated on younger students by older?  No?  Oh, well, let's not let that inconvenient truth get in the way of a good headline.

Suffice to say, perverted adults have always preyed on the vulnerable, but with so many being outed, fewer instances are occurring.  

But back to Prof. Widdowson.  Her topic was to have been, "How 'Woke-ism' Threatens Academic Freedom," but Lethbridge President Mahon chickened out and now refuses her a forum on university grounds because of the all-hell that broke loose from the "woke" mobs who screamed, marched and waved placards in protest.  Yep, like University of Ottawa coward, President Alan Rock, who bowed to pressure from rabid Middle Eastern students who became hysterical when arch-conservative Ann Coulter was invited to speak, Mike Mahon too has folded. 

Ms. Widdowson avows that the 'Black Lives Matter' movement has trampled all over free speech and academic freedom. "The open exchange of ideas and the ability to debate a wide range of topics are under threat in universities today," Widdowson wrote.  "Promoting critical thinking has been gradually overtaken by identity politics and cancel culture that has become totalitarian, which is the focus of the de-Enlightenment agenda of 'woke-ism,' " she writes.  This is exactly what the Indigenous leaders are doing here and we're sitting back letting it happen.

Queen Elizabeth II and Sir John A. Macdonald are also suffering from hysterical, book-burning blight, as statues of both have been torn down across Canada by marauding Indigenous gangs.  It's unconscionable.  But has anyone been charged?  No because the people doing it are natives.  Plain and simple.

So, if you don't think we're deep into book burning, google the plight of Prof. Widdowson.  And while you're at it, look into the thousands of books officially banned and taken off school and university shelves in states like Florida and Texas.  It's not only shameful, it's destructive and wrong. 

A further clarification about the 'Black Lives Matter' movement.  “For every black person killed by the police,” says Glenn Loury, a black professor at Brown University,  "more than 25 other blacks meet their ends because of homicides committed by other blacks.”

According to Loury, "We need to put the police killings in perspective.  There are about a thousand fatal shootings of people by police in the US every year, according to the documented database kept by 'The Washington Post'.  Roughly, 300, or one-fourth, are African Americans, yet Blacks represent only 13 percent of the American population.

"Black people are over-represented among these fatalities, though they make up far less than a majority.  The fact is that twice as many whites as blacks are killed by police in the US every year, but you wouldn't know that from the activists' rhetoric.

"Most of the public has no idea of these facts because mainstream media does not want to acknowledge them.  Yet, it is all true.  The media are fooling the public because they want to feed the narrative that racism is baked into law enforcement.  Their deceit is appalling."

So, there you have it.  Those annoying facts.  Again.

As a former journalist, I did research on every column I wrote in the pre-internet era; it remains a habit I cannot write without.  At Maclean Hunter, I had ruthless editors with sharp, red pencils who let me get away with nothing.  "Where did you get that figure?" Mrs. Portugal (never Jean) would demand.  I had to have a reliable source, or else she would scrap the copy.  As you can imagine, I quickly learned to always have a reliable source -- something today's journalists don't bother with.    

Footnote:  A word about Maclean Hunter, back in the late sixties and early seventies -- actually, two words:  Mad Men.  That was the workplace culture in that wonderful, debauched and raucous world of journalism and publishing in Toronto.  Everyone smoked all the time.  Everyone drank all the time.  And everyone had affairs all the time.  For a young scribe in her early twenties, it was magnificent!  So much fun -- something no one seems to be having today.  But we can thank the "feminist movement" for that.  I mean, a poor, young guy can't even tell a colleague she looks good, without being accused of sexual harassment.  Who wouldn't have had fun with Don Draper?!  He looks exactly like one of my editors, back in the day.  Irresitible.

I must state that I am a true feminist, albeit not the bra-burning, barricade-crashing sort.  My cohort invented feminism, but we didn't have to be man-haters to do it.  We just did it.    

The state of affairs today is all so sad and boring.    

Chaos

"News coverage over the last few months has been hard on me and my family and friends," moaned well-paid, interim director and CEO of the National Art Gallery, Angela Cassie.

Well, Angela, the coverage has merely reflected the mess you are making at the gallery.  Suck it up.  During a zoom meeting with staff -- luckily recorded by a participant -- Cassie also actually added, "My mother's family fled Stalin's brutality in Ukraine in the 1930's (Really? We're still gonna dine out on that?!).  Throwing in more irrelevant bon mots, she added, "My father's family suffered under the repressive regime of Duvalier in Haiti, so it is deeply hurtful and deeply insulting to have my leadership of this museum likened to a dictatorship."

Really?!  Can you imagine a man offering such a pathetic excuse after screwing up?  Rhetorical.  You can't.  But, according to Cassie, the chaos at the gallery is because her mother fled Ukraine more than 90 years ago and her father hails from Haiti.  OMG!  Here's a bulletin:  I worked with the daughter of a mother, a successful psychiatrist, who also fled Haiti under Duvalier and yet her whole family excelled brilliantly in Canada.  Her father was a brain surgeon.  Doubt Duvalier ruined their careers.  As I said, stop with the excuses and blame game.  You get handsomely remunerated to fix it.

And while I'm at it, with 16 directors under you, why did you have to hire an outside consultant to the tune of $525,000 to run the place?  Here she is, Tania Lafreniere, whose bio says she is an expert in human resources and conflict resolution.  In spite of your $1,100 a day, not working out too well at the gallery these days, eh Tania?  Her post looks more like a cheesecake shot on a dating site than that of a professional executive:

It's outrageous, but here we go again with Affirmative Action (AA) run amok.  Cassie was hired -- and I quote -- under the gallery's "diversity and inclusion program"  (Pearson airport CEO anyone?)  According to the gallery's stated culture, "The internal debate hinges on efforts to cultivate more diversity in staff, visitors and the art in its care, with a particular emphasis on Indigenous ways of knowing and being."  This is presumably why the sign in front says, "PlJASHIG, WELCOME, BIENVENUE" -- the Indigenous name first because the gallery must be situated on someone's "unceded" territory.

How can you drum up more diversity among visitors?  Either people want to go, or they don't.  Cassie then played the old, familiar racist and misogynist cards played by everyone who has ever been hired, thanks to AA, but then proceeds to f-ck up.  

Staffers on the call wanted to know why the gallery was so top-heavy, while rank and file positions were left vacant?  Another employee said that much of the discussion around the gallery's new direction focused on the importance of having "brave conversations".  What does that even mean?  More diversity and inclusion, one supposes.  Said another, "Decisions are handed down that we don't understand?"  Way to communicate, Angela and Tania!  

All that was just, "Normal growing pains in a place in transition," said Cassie.  As for opposition, or even questions, "All that is rooted in resistance to progress.  What we're seeing is what pushback looks like."

I'll say.  More like incompetence looks like to me -- especially when taxpayers had to fork out more than $1.2 million in severance to staff who either quit, or were fired in recent years.  Is the gallery an art museum, or a personnel agency?  I'd say the latter, judging by its singular focus on hiring, firing and severance payouts. 

And let's face it, Canada's National Gallery is a joke.  The only things worth seeing are a couple of Group of Seven paintings that were rejects from the Kleinberg Museum in Hunstville; everything else is mediocre.  I'd suggest focusing on buying and curating better art, not on internal cat fights, squabbles and payouts.

Sadly, dear readers, this is what AA continues to look like.  It does no one any favours -- especially those of us who share the gender.  Many of my posts may lead you to believe I don't like women.  Wrong.  I am all for women getting ahead, but based solely on merit -- not gender, ethnicity and inclusion.  It's that kind of AA that I abhor.  And it's ubiquitous.

Bottom line, the gallery is magnificent on the outside, but clearly rotten on the inside.  

  

  

To have it all.....

....you have to "lean in", as American, billionaire businesswoman Sheryl Sandberg wrote.  More like "bend over backwards" in my view.  It's not easy and as part of the first cohort to "man" the feminist barricades, back in the late sixties, I ought'a know.  

I decided early on I was not going to forfeit a career to have kids.  But since I wanted kids, figuring out how to bend over backwards was the issue.  When I had my kids, there was no such thing as subsidized $10-a-day daycare; you had to pony up the money.

After my marriage crashed, I was blissfully on my own with my two kids and a "wife", i.e., a live-in nanny, in my own home humming along under my own steam.  No child support, but this was the happiest time of my life.  Then, I had the misfortune to meet and marry a wonderful man.  Trouble was, he was wonderful, but came with a shrew of an ex- wife and two kids.  

What kind of shrew?  At a time (1983) when it was unheard of, B -- the father -- was awarded custody of his kids, so, ya, that kind of shrew.  His having custody meant that I also had custody and had to deal with an ex-wife who was a certified psychiatric hysteric who argued over every cookie and disputed the colour of socks a kid was to wear.  Was it a nightmare.  Yes.  I ended up with supporting four kids.  Did it cost me a fortune?  Yes.  Did I resent it?  Yes, still do.  We had custody and yet had to pay her support!  Shouldn't she be paying us child support?  "Well, I'm afraid that's the judicial attitude," said our lawyer.  So much for "women's lib".  

But I did it.  I digress.  What I really wanted to blog about was a column I read the other day by Vicky Mochama, a sporadic columnist in 'The Globe and Mail' and occasional talking head on CTV, I was struck by how uninformed women without children can be about what it takes to find that elusive work/life balance.  Vicky said she wanted to be a husband, not a wife, because husbands have an easier go of it.  Frankly, I can sympathize because, when it comes to finding childcare, it's the wife or mother who still has to do the heavy lifting.  

So, I submitted my letter.  At first I thought they had rejected it, because it wasn't in for a few days.  But evidently they saved it for the Saturday edition, which is read by many more.  Here's the letter:

Dear Editor,

The wrinkle in the wish that women could live the life of the average husband is the biological fact that women birth children, which means that the traditional and primary responsibility for caring for them defaults to the mother, or wife.  When I was building my career and family, I realized that to accomplish the former, I had to purchase supports for the latter.  This came in many forms – from having a live-in nanny (or pseudo wife), to daycare, neighbours, grandparents and after-four programs.  Some solutions were expensive, but I recognized they had to be purchased.

The fact is that more than 50 years since women’s first trips to the equality barricades, it still falls to them to find the work/life balance.  But care-givers – even live-in ones – have to be off work by a certain time and children collected at daycare centres to deadline.  That restricts the overtime required in many cases to get ahead because the workplace doesn’t care if you have to get home to collect kids.  Hard to believe, but it still looks bad if a woman clocks out, while her ambitious male colleagues are burning the midnight oil.

So yes, women can be spouses, but they can’t be traditional husbands because the latter have partners to cover the home front.  As I said, hard to believe, but biology still bites.  Here's the letter:

________________________________

Will things ever change?  I doubt it.  As I have written before, I was pregnant when I was up for a new job in 1975.  During the interview, I had to hide my condition and even though I won, when they found out I was pregnant, they cancelled the competition.  A few months later, when I was on leave (unemployment, not maternity; the latter didn't exist back then), the job went to the guy who had come second.  

Unfortunately, women continue to be penalized for having the biological function of bearing children.  Here we are for eternity..............

 

Your health!

Whew, we can all go back to using this Irish toast.  'The Globe and Mail' ran a column today by Dan Malleck, professor in the Department of Health Sciences at Brock and medical historian specializing in drug and alcohol regulation.  Entitled "Canada's drastic new alcohol guidelines demand a closer look", he writes that alcohol has many benefits.

Folks, you can take your finger off the panic button.  And don't throw out your wine collection just yet!

Apparently, the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) left out a few facts.  The CCSA is basing its recommendations on a relatively narrow understanding of how alcohol functions, he points out. If you look at drinking as the only factor, you miss many other contributors.  

"We don't know, for instance, whether they spent their time drinking in smoky bars or restaurants (back when that was allowed), or did so while eating less healthy foods -- all factors marginalized when alcohol becomes the only focus," writes Malleck.

Guilty!  When it comes to smoky bars and bad (but delicious) food.

As for the risk, the study only presents relative risk, not absolute.  Many of the cancers the CCSA associates with alcohol have very low incidence rates in general, he notes, adding that everyone has a different level of risk for various conditions, based on lifestyle and genetics.  

"The CCSA made its recommendations without consideration of the potential and well-documented positive effects of alcohol on the lives of individuals.  It also neglected to mention the potential harms caused by excessive and patronizing recommendations in the name of 'for your own good' science."

Another point to note is that studies also show that abstinence can cause greater health harm than moderate consumption.  Who knew?!  Alcohol also enhances lives in positive, social ways.  I'll drink to that!  We drink to commiserate, rejoice, mourn and blow off steam.  Cheers!  

The bottom line is that this study only presents data largely removed from actual human behaviour, interactions and experiences.  In other words, the very things that give life meaning.  Prof. Malleck concludes by saying that, "The CCSA recommendations are worse than useless.  They are downright reckless."

                                   Here's mud in your eye!                                         

 

    

Now they're displacing kids' hockey tournaments

I'm talking about the hotels the government books to accommodate the thousands of illegal migrants who stream through outrageously huge, unguarded holes in Canada's border with the US.  The government likes to call them "irregular" migrants, but make no mistake, they are illegal interlopers.

Don't countries have borders for a reason?  Aren't they to keep illegals out and force them to go through proper channels?  Ya, that's what I thought too.  But all that's over now, as this government literally welcomes migrants into the country and puts them up in expensive hotels.

Last year Canadians had to pay....wait for it.....$94 million in hotel rooms to house those gushing into the country from the US.  Never mind the "safe country" agreement we have with the US, which stipulates that migrants from South America must take refuge in the first "safe" country they enter, which would be the US.  But they don't honour -- there's a forgotten word -- that agreement and simply proceed on into Canada to stay in a cozy hotel, rather than a harsh migrant facility in the US.

Most of these illegals are economic refugees, thanks to the sh-thole dictatorships they flee.  They are not leaving in fear for their lives; they are leaving because they are poor and have no hope in places like Venezuela, from which most are coming.  And there's lots of money to be made by criminals trucking and dumping them at the border, where some have been found tragically frozen to death   

It's a complete mess.  But guess what?  All these people vote Liberal because they are so grateful for the hotels in which the Trudeau government puts them and the money provided.  That, coupled with a years-long wait for processing, means they'll be comfortably ensconced forever.  That's a sweetheart deal if ever there was one -- and you're paying for it!

Last time I checked, you have be a Canadian citizen to vote, but when was the last time an enumerator came to your door and asked you to show proof of citizenship?  That's right, never.  All they ask is how many people of voting age live in the dwelling.  And when these people show up to vote, presto!  Their names are on the list and they vote Liberal.

Most of the hotels are block-booked near two crossings in Quebec.  That has meant that kids playing in hockey tournaments in the region can't get hotel rooms because the provincial government has booked them all for illegals.  It's outrageous and wrong.  This has to stop:

________________________________

On another note in the stupid file, the Philadelphia Flyers, currently in the hockey toilet, came up with the "brilliant" idea to have a Pride Day and force the players to wear multi-coloured jerseys in support.  Except it didn't work because Ivan Provorov refused to don one.  What happened?  Cue outrage.

Why in Gawd's name does a hockey team wade into the "woke", gay-swamp debate in the first place?  For publicity, that's why.  But it backfired, thanks to Mr. Provorov and good on him.  Now everyone just looks as stupid as they are.  Dare we hope this will stop the politicizing of this sport and many others -- thanks to the knee the vacant Colin Kaepernick ridiculously took a few years ago?  I mean, these athletes are making millions.  Why do they have to whine, take knees and wear pride shirts?  

Just stop, shut up and play.

Well, I'm certainly dead

And so are all my friends and family.  We now learn that Health Canada, based on a new study, says that to be safe, you should only drink two drinks per week.  PER WEEK!  

Try telling that to the French or the Italians, whose entire lifestyles revolve around alcohol.  And how about the Germans?  That culture incorporates beer into everything-everywhere-all-the-time.  And as for the Brits, they're either working, or hoisting a few at the local.  It almost seems as if working is the excuse for drinking afterwards -- at least that's what every 'BritBox' show I watch tells me.  Everyone is salivating, anticipating the pub after a long day of catching killers.  I mean, they're almost checking their watches to see if it's time to bugger off and get a beverage.

So, there'll be a lot of disoriented folks if they heed the latest booze guidelines.  I won't be one of them.

My late Mother, Father, aunts and uncles come to mind.  All long-livers into their nineties, five o'clock to them meant it was time for an adult beverage.  But I never saw any of them tipsy, let alone drunk.  Never ever.  Watched an Alfred Hitchcock film?  Every one one features a living room bar in the background and the characters all enjoying a civilized cocktail at an appropriate hour.

Now, however, it'll be tea.  But wait, doesn't tea have negative health affects?  All that caffeine can't be good for the heart.  But wait, what about those ancient "tea grannies" who lived on nothing else into their nineties like my Grandmother, but had the odd regular tipple?  You bettcha. 

 

The problem with this study is that it factored in alcohol-induced violent behaviours, during which drunks killed people.  Well, of course those numbers would inflate the problem.  If you're drunk and you kill someone, drinking-induced fatal incidents shoot up.  Eliminate those and you have people like my family members who drank in a responsible, ritualized and civilized manner, thus rendering this study stupid.    

It's all so ludicrous.  Can't wait for the next study to tell us what we can't eat or drink.  But I'll have to excuse myself now.  I'm off to pour a civilized scotch before dinner.  Maybe I'll even recklessly throw caution to the winds and imbibe in a glass of wine with it!           

   

Another Christmas letter

I have blogged at least twice about a Toronto acquaintance who writes the most pompous, boring Christmas letters.  My blogs happily deterred her from sending us one for a few years, but this year we were back on their Christmas list.  

We got the letter.  Two pages of the most self-affected and portentous drivel I have read since her last letters.  Why do people turn the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ into an account of their lives over the past year?  No one cares, or at least we don't.  Here are a few excerpts:   

"Cape Town Vice Chancellor Professor blah blah came for tea on the patio in June, after receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Ottawa.  She'd come from England meeting with Cambridge Vice Chancellor and Professor blah blah with regard to international research.  He now heads the Canadian Institute for blah blah.

"Mary blah blah was given an honorary Doctorate of Sacred Letters by Trinity College in May.  After I had given the citation, citing her work in Vancouver to highlight and redress injustice towards Japanese Canadians and others, Chancellor Bill Graham - tears glistening - expressed gratitude for Canada's Bill of rights that prevents repetition of this kind of suffering."

On a visit to England, she goes on.  "Their living room rug is the same teal blue as the one in my mother's living room.  Contemporary art everywhere.  A red, fruit-laden crab apple bough, hills on the horizon in almost every direction through big windows, magical meals, an owl hooting, a traditional country fair at Frampton Manor on the Severn, where the highlight in the main ring on the polo ground was a terrier race.  Lunch at Burford Garden Centre's open-air café.  

"An 1864 'Southey's Life of John Wesley' with reference to our ancestor, John Fletcher, in the index, thus learning he was of a noble Savoy family, born in Nyon, Canton of Vaux, educated in Geneva of Huguenot background."

It goes on and the name-dropping is breathtaking.  In addition to her grandiose snobbishness, she has the most affected mid-Atlantic accent you'll ever hear -- exactly like that of another affected snob, Margaret Atwood.  (By the way, this woman was born in Winnipeg.)  But the ridiculous thing is she doesn't seem to realize how ridiculous she is!

I should add that we hosted them (B's insistence because of his background with her husband when they were at at school in London) for dinner at the Royal Ottawa Golf Club and up at the Gatineau Fish & Game Club over a weekend, but were we mentioned in earlier missals?  Of course not.  Apparently hooting owls, apple trees and blue rugs are more deserving.   

As an adopted, Heinz 57 hybrid townie from Kingston, I can bear neither pretension nor artifice.  This woman is defined by both.  Me, reading her dreadful and pompous missal:

 

_________________________

A word about the wonderful Vassy Kapelos.  She has moved from the CBC to CTV -- a move most likely triggered by harassment from CBC President Catherine Tait.  I used to babysit Catherine and her sisters and am sure Catherine's management style was nurtured by her overbearing mother.  The mother actually has her own website, which I googled.  

I am sure that President Catherine interfered in Vassy's editorial work and journalistic integrity.  The former would not have been able to help herself.  Happily, CTV is the beneficiary.