It was Animal Planet here this morning. Tommy had words with a black cat and I had to doctor a couple of scratches on the nose. I hope there aren’t any more. With fur it’s hard to tell until a scab forms. It turned out the cat Tommy tangled with was our neighbour’s indoor kitty who found her way out via the second floor window. There is a very aggressive black cat around the corner, so I just assumed it was her.
The neighbour’s cat has jumped out of the window (unharmed!) a couple of times in the last 24 hours. When I heard her calling to Tommy the other day from the window it sounded to me like she was in heat and wanted out neoow! I spoke to my neighbour this morning and it turns out that she isn’t spayed, so my assessment seems quite probable. She was out last night when they came home so there’s a good chance she found what she’s looking for!
Just before all the feline excitement, I spotted a robin’s nest in the tree by my door. I’d noticed a bird flying off yesterday when I opened the door. She doesn’t mind me sitting close to the nest, but no pictures please! I did take one. I don’t know if there are any eggs yet; she still seems to be adding twigs and mud to the nest. All the best to Mrs. Robin and her nest and to Mrs. Kitty as well!
Dick Cavett was my favourite talk show host when I was young. Hands down. I read his first book, Cavett, years ago. He slipped out of my sight when I moved into rural mid-western Ontario without the benefit of cable and, therefore, PBS. Then I heard an interview on CBC radio with Mr. Cavett a couple of years ago. The same voice that had amused and charmed me in my youth worked its magic again. It took a while, but I eventually obtained this book, which is a compilation of his New York Times blog:
I was not disappointed. He’s not lost any of the intelligent wit that entertained me years ago. I was regaled with stories of John and Yoko, surprising friendships with Bill Buckley (after all Nixon had inquired of his henchmen, Haldeman and Ehrlichman, how he could “screw” Dick Cavett), and one-time employer, then late-night rival, Johnny Carson, and chess champion Bobby Fischer. There were perceptive quotes about “the vinyl Mitt Romney” during the 2008 campaign. He also quoted John McCain, “Referring to Mitt’s so readily adjustable convictions, McCain said, ‘We agree – you are the candidate of change.’” Oh yes, and Dick Cavett doesn’t spare himself in an account of a very uncomfortable encounter with Richard Nixon and daughter Julie.
Dick Cavett devotes a couple of chapters to Richard Burton and there is a very surprising story about John Wayne (you’ll have to read the book to find out, but I promise you’ll never view John Wayne the same again!). Both men were interviewed by Cavett at a time when they were in the midst of the illnesses that would lead to their death.
In a book entitled, Talk Show, he doesn’t leave out his account of the Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer showdown on The Dick Cavett Show on ABC and he also talks about the death of Rodale Press founder, J.I. Rodale, while he was taping the show.
Not all the pieces are about the famous. He writes about Buck, a typical beach bum youth from the early seventies whom he regularly encountered on a remote Long Island beach. He pegged him as a “dropout with a middling IQ.” Buck surprised him one day when he referred to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s appellation of fame as the “Bitch Goddess.” Cavett wonders how often our snap judgements of people are so far off the mark. To his great disappointment, he never saw Buck again. Cavett struggles with the thought that Buck may have OD’d on one of the substances of choice of the seventies and his own moral obligations to warn him.
Cavett also writes about his battle with depression. With gun control brought into the spotlight again after recent tragic events, it is worth reading Dick Cavett’s 2008 comments on gun control and depression in the chapter, “Smiling Through.” In “Smiling Through, Part 2” he writes, “Whatever wicked gods invented this torture should come down with it.”
The short chapters are packed with wonderful stories, observations and wit. Whether or not you remember Dick Cavett and that time, you will enjoy this book.
After writing blogs on Scottish and American politics, it’s time to return to my home and native land. There’s plenty going on in this country to keep an eye on. This weekend there were three articles about our current government that caught my eye.
Doug Saunders in Peak Oil? More Like Peak Canada writes about how the Canadian government has squandered good will toward Canada with its short-sighted energy policy from the perspective of a future instructor reviewing our time period.
Ordinary Canadians embraced the hubris, spending far beyond their means, believing that our oil-boosted economy was permanent and invincible. In November of 2012, the peak of the Great Hubris, Canadians reported record levels of personal non-mortgage debt, piling on expensive cars and credit card bills – everyone believed theirs was a rich petro-state and it would last forever.
Of course, reality checkmated us:
… That fateful November, just as their personal debts were red-lining, most Canadians failed to notice the annual World Energy Outlook, published by the Paris-based International Energy Agency.
It predicted what we all know now – that the U.S. would become the world’s largest petroleum producer by 2017 and a major world exporter not long afterward …
Saunders uses bit of dark humour on the topic of petroleum deals and pipelines:
Of course, the ecological consequences of this were horrendous. That’s why we don’t talk about that shameful era, or the politicians who turned “Canadian” into a swear word in many countries. Who’d want to be reminded of that when we’re getting our January suntans on Churchill Beach?
However, nothing was as disconcerting as reading the words, ” … as Prime Minister Bieber used to say”!
In the Huffington Post’s article, Romeo Dallaire Slams Harper’s Foreign Policy, Romeo Dallaire is not only critical of Harper’s foreign policy, but also that he is bypassing both houses of Parliament and making foreign policy announcements outside of Parliament:
“They announce new policies all over the place before they even introduce them in the House of Commons, let alone the Senate,” Dallaire told The Huffington Post Canada after a recent speaking engagement at Free the Children’s We Day youth rally in Toronto. “[Harper] holds more power than the President of the United States in his country, and because we’ve been strong on convention, and not on written decrees or documents, it permits someone who doesn’t want to play by those rules to have all kinds of room to manoeuvre. And this is what we are seeing now.”
Dallaire also noted that Canada has spent years trying to convince other countries that using child soldiers is a crime against humanity:
“I was recently in the Congo and South Sudan … and it’s fine for me to go out there and try and stop them recruiting child soldiers, but when they turn to you and say, ‘What about your own?’ I mean, it’s like being stabbed in the back.”
Dallaire plans to introduce new domestic legislation regarding child soldiers that he hopes will prevent the Harper government from “pulling back from the grey areas of humanity and trying to keep it dumbed down to black and white.”
And finally, a report that the government is keeping an eye on our blogs:
Google’s latest Transparency Report shows that the Canadian government is increasingly requesting that Google remove content from its websites, primarily for reasons of defamation.
The Canadian government requested the removal of 405 pieces of content between July 1, 2010 and June 30, 2012. Of these, 325 were because the content was deemed defamatory. The Google service most targeted by these removal requests was Blogger, followed by YouTube.
At the outset I would like to establish that I am a Canadian with a Scottish heritage (among other nationalities) who really didn’t know much Scottish history until recently. However, thanks to a family who was very proud of their Scots heritage, I probably knew a little more than the average Canadian. This summer I watched the BBC’s A History of Scotland hosted by Scottish archeologist and journalist, Neil Oliver. The last program with its host’s barely disguised nationalist fervour had just aired on TVO when I heard the news that on October 15, 2012 British PM David Cameron and the Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond, had signed an agreement to hold a referendum on Scottish Independence in 2014.
There are a couple of points of contact for me. As intimated, my family history goes back deep into the roots of Scottish history. The Clan Mar, of which Marr is a sept, is one of the seven ancient kingdoms of Scotland. Those roots have planted themselves firmly in my DNA.
Additionally, as a Canadian, I have some experience of separatist movements. In my youth Canadian political news was filled with reports about the Front de Libération Québécois (FLQ), René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois (PQ), and the 1972 October Crisis when civil liberties were suspended and the army sent into Quebec after the British Ambassador was kidnapped and the provincial Justice Minister kidnapped and later murdered by the FLQ.
I lived through two referendums on Quebec independence in 1980 and 1995. The latter squeaked out a victory for the federalists (those in favour of remaining within Canada). I felt very Mrs. Miniver-like when we said goodbye to our neighbour’s husband (British-born) as he volunteered his time to drive a bus filled with Canadian citizens to Quebec to rally Quebec’s citizens to the Federalist cause.
The modern Scottish Independence movement, led by the now-ruling Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) in the Scottish Parliament, has a less dramatic history. But the Scots in their own way are as passionate as the nationalist French-Canadians. Whether that bodes greater or less success for the Scottish movement, time will only tell.
These are the reasons for this information hunting and gathering. The results follow.
The Scotsman’s article, “The Elephant We Can’t Forget“, takes its title from former Canadian PM Pierre Trudeau’s famous quote that living next to the US “… is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant: no matter how friendly and even-tempered the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt”. Like Canada, Scotland has 1/10th the population of its neighbour to the south and is also subject to its larger neighbour’s twitches and grunts. The difference is that Canada is an independent country. Written by Scottish historian Tom Devine the article is an excellent backgrounder on the history of Scotland’s union with Britain and the emergence of the Scottish independence movement.
Written before the signing of the referendum agreement, The National observed in “Scottish Independence Movement Gains Momentum“ that rather than killing Scottish independence, the creation of a devolved Scottish parliament has fueled it. As to what independence would mean for Scotland, David Torrance, author of the Alex Salmond biography, Salmond: Against the Odds, offered, “I tried to think the other day of what Scottish independence as defined by the SNP would actually entail – and all I could come up with was the lowering of corporation tax, which they can’t do just now under the existing settlement, and the removal of nuclear weapons, which would take an awful long time anyway.”
Ewan Crawford, former private secretary to one-time SNP leader John Swinney offered more, “What independence will do, among other things, is give Scotland control of macro-economic policy, full taxation – the opportunity, as the SNP would see it, to create a better and more prosperous society.”
The EU has taken a dim view of Scottish independence and promises a rocky road for the Scots if they seek to join the EU according to Walter Russell Mead’s article, “Scottish Independence Movement Shot Down by Europe“. Mead writes, “What the Scottish nationalists seem too dim to have figured out is this: The EU is a club of countries, and many countries besides the UK face secession movements. None of the central governments want to encourage breakups because they all fear the fever will spread.” Which leads me to muse, how much strength would the French-Canadian nationalists derive from a break-up in the English mother country? It would certainly be a strong talking point.
Canada’s national newspaper, the Globe and Mail had some interesting things to say about Scottish independence and Quebec independence. William Johnson, former leader of Alliance Quebec compares Quebec’s two referendum questions and Scotland’s referendum wording in “Independence Referendum? Scotland has it Right,” and appears to be trying to head off any favourable comparison between Quebec’s nationalism and Scotland’s.
Another Globe and Mail article, “Scotland Could Thrive on its Own,” says that thanks to Scotland’s North Sea oil it could do very well economically on its own within the EU, and might even prefer the euro to the pound.
The Globe and Mail’s David Saunders explores some of the thorny issues that would bedevil separation from the UK in “A Disunited Kingdom: The Promise and Perils of Scottish Independence.” What about the offspring of this union: the oil, the submarines and the debt in the event of a split?
The Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt says that Scottish opinion in favour of independence is at a record high, as high as 49%, in “‘Liberty’s in Every Blow’ as Scots March to Referendum”. She also notes predictions that the vote will be held on June 24, 2014, the 700th Anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn,when Robert the Bruce defeated Edward II, and gained freedom for the Scots. Too on the nose, perhaps? We will see. One thing I’m learning through my reading is that First Minister Salmond is a canny Scot.
Ms. Delacourt also points out that Scotland is traditionally more left-leaning and having to endure Margaret Thatcher, a PM whom Scots did not vote for, was an important factor in the resurgence of Scottish nationalism.
Recently, former US president Bill Clinton commented on the wider implications of Scottish independence, stating that “… the issue of independence was a “classic case” of identity politics which, would dominate 21st century.
“We’ve got to keep working for common ground all around the world,” he said. “I think the 21st century will be decided by how we handle the identity crisis. How do we keep our special identity? You’re going to see this, you’ve got the Scottish referendum here. Classic case.”
I was interested to see what the New York Times had to say on the subject. They noted that Mr. Salmond had wanted to include the option for greater powers for Scotland within the union (devo-max, as some articles labelled it) in the referendum, but had been forced to limit the question to a “yes-no” on independence.
So where does that leave me? I have a lot more information than when I started. I entered the search with my sympathies aligned with the independence movement, and I remain of that mind, largely because Scotland is a unique country with its own long history and unique identity. I also believe Scots deserve a representative government of the people, by the people and for the people, as the Scots who settled and influenced America believed. I also recognize that there are many issues at stake that the Scottish people must weigh. I will remain an interested observer, whose ancestral ties ensure that a piece of her heart remains in Scotland.
December 1, 2012 updates: The BBC reports that 143,000 Scots have signed the Yes, Scotland independence petition. Alex Salmond aims to have 1,000,000 signatures by 2014.
In the November 30, 2012 Montreal Gazette, Harry McGrath, a Canadian now living in Scotland, wrote an opinion piece entitled, An independent Scotland could look a lot like…Canada? Sadly, under our current government, it’s the Canada of the past.
In January 2005 I received an email from Veteran’s Affairs Canada (VAC) saying that George Wilkinson wanted to contact the person who had posted a picture of Lorne Marr on the Virtual Memorial website. In August 1944 Dad’s brother, Lorne, was killed in France and George is my cousin. I had posted Lorne’s picture after seeing an unfamiliar picture on the site, taken in England. This message led to many fascinating emails from George. He kept me on the edge of my seat as I waited for the next installment as George was able, writing on his lunch hour, outlining his adventures and the contacts that had led to new information about our uncle, particularly during his time in service, beginning in 1939.
A particularly interesting part of George’s quest was his search for the young boy that Lorne, a dispatch rider, had hit while on his motorcycle – in Jamaica, George’s mother had told him. George learned that the picture that had appeared on the VAC website in 2004 had been taken from a book, The Maple Leaf Army in Britain. He managed to locate the book and discovered that the accident had occurred in England, not Jamaica. He also learned that the “boy” in the picture, Peter Hunter, now a retired police officer, was the child Lorne had hit and befriended. Among the surprises awaiting him was that Peter had been hunting unsuccessfully for members of Lorne’s family since he’d retired in 1992. He’d concluded that Lorne must be an only child, ironic since Dad was the oldest of eight!
Peter had wanted to make sure that Lorne was remembered, even if he had no family. He attended a writing workshop and wrote two letters to Lorne. The workshop leader was so impressed that the letters were read as a paradigm for a writing contest on the BBC.
George also learned that a compilation of day-to-day memories of the Argyll and Sutherland regiment soldier, Black Yesterdays, included a photo of Lorne. The book was out of print, but George was thrilled when he was given a copy shortly after we started corresponding. In March 2005, Mike Strobel, a Toronto Sun columnist, interviewed George, featuring Lorne’s story. In June of the same year, George and his lovely wife Darlene, flew to Britain to meet Peter Hunter and then travelled with Peter for an emotion-filled visit to Lorne’s grave in Calais.
There is so much to this story I can only touch on a very small part of it. Peter posted an account, “Lorne – A Canadian Soldier” on the BBC site, “The People’s War.”* Another cousin gave George Uncle Lorne’s medals. A dispatch rider who answered directly to Lorne confirmed George’s research, particularly the circumstances of Lorne’s death in a “fog of war” incident. Mike Strobel told George “he’d be crazy” if he didn’t write a book about his quest. All this in 2005, the Year of the Veteran.
George did go on to write the book. You can read the story of his quest to find out what had happened to our uncle in Peter’s Argyll. Every November 11th, George still attends a Remembrance Day Service and remembers his journey of discovery to uncover the story of the uncle who had taken hold of his imagination and captured a piece of his heart.
*There are a couple of errors in Peter’s account. There were eight children, not six, as noted above, and Lorne had two brothers, not one, who survived the war, my father and my Uncle Dave.
I’m so glad I heard this Sunday Edition interview with Jim Wallis. Wallis is a Christian writer, political activist and the founder of Sojourners. He has been a spiritual advisor to both President Bush and Obama.
He noted that poverty was not an issue in this campaign. In Washington it isn’t an issue, but he believes the country is ready for a new engagement with this issue. More people have fallen below the poverty line than has been the case for 50 years.
Wallis said that a wide range of church representatives met with Obama. They stated that the Bible does not say, “As you’ve done to the middle class,” but “As you’ve done to the least of these.” The President knew the text. They told him he must not make cuts that would hurt the poor. While he didn’t make any commitment at that time, he did follow their advice. Wallis was later told that these provisions would not have been made without their input.
Addressing the question of why Obama, who had been a community organizer and entered politics to help the disadvantaged, hasn’t focused more on the poor, he noted that David Brooks wrote in the New York Times that the political process has become bitterly partisan, divisive, and obstructive. They don’t try to solve problems; they blame the other side. They don’t govern; they’re always running, trying to win. A senator told him that he has to raise $20,000 a day. One of Obama’s people said they didn’t realize how really broken the system was until they got there nor did they appreciate how much money controls Washington.
Wallis noted with regret to a class of college students that climate change had not been mentioned in the campaign, an issue that will likely influence their children and grandchildren the most. Energy companies control energy infrastructure. Regulations on the environment and the financial markets have been eroded. Regulations are not in place as they used to be to watch over the behaviour of the financial markets because those who pay for the elections had regulations removed that would have prevented the meltdown of the financial system.
This election demonstrated that it is no longer white males who control America. This fact will cause Americans to rethink what kind of country they want. The fact that the poor were scarcely mentioned by the media in this campaign is a moral indictment of the media. The Biblical prophets all said a nation’s integrity is primarily determined by how we treat the poorest and most vulnerable. They become the sign of whether we are committed to all God’s children If we are leaving out the least of these, we are making a fundamental mistake about the soul of a nation.
Now that Obama has won a second term, Wallis’s message to the President is that he must not reduce the deficit in ways that increase poverty. He must also pass immigration reform.
Sojourner’s polling shows that people do care about the issue of poverty, which is fundamentally an issue of broken social contracts in America. The country is ready for that conversation, he believes. The Obama administration did make decisions that benefited low income people but they didn’t talk about it as a moral issue. Wallis hopes that in the second term they will make it a moral issue and that the leadership will find a path to fiscal sustainability that is not at the expense of the poorest and most vulnerable.
A while ago my cousin said he’d been drinking Rush Limbaugh’s Kool-Aid (his words, although I managed an LOL Freudian “Kook-Aid” typo in the first draft) and asked me why I favoured Barack Obama over Mitt Romney. Since we’re down to the wire and since I have an extra hour this weekend, I’m going to use it to answer my cousin’s question.
The observant among my readers might note I’ve used the Canadian spelling of “favoured.” Neither I nor my cousin are American citizens, but like many Canadians with an interest in politics, we follow the American political scene.
A large part of the delay in answering my cousin is that there are so many reasons for opposing Mitt Romney, I can’t begin to touch on them all. I’ve given myself an hour for research (I don’t write off the top of my head), writing and revision (I’m of the “a good piece is not written, it is rewritten and rewritten and rewritten” school of writing). So let’s see what I can cover, in no particular order, given these constraints.
1. Romney’s record as Governor. Thank goodness Obama is finally calling Mitt Romney to account on his record as Governor of Massachusetts. Under Romney, the state was 47th in job creation, the infrastructure had been neglected, and it has been said that he was away from the state more often than he was there during his last year as Governor. Comments such as these don’t inspire confidence:
3.“Trickle down economics is bunk.” Or as I once heard, that’s the problem; it just comes down in a trickle.The middle class is contracting while the wealthy become wealthier. The rich should pay their fair share. And how objective is a multi-millionaire on this matter anyway?
7. Would the real Mitt Romney please stand up? A corollary to the win-at-any-cost tactics, Mitt has been roadrunner-racing to the centre on a number of issues in order to win votes.
8. Romney’s Ryan’s Economic Plan would be a disaster.No one says it better than Robert Reich.
9. There is so much more. However, I’ve gone way over my budgeted time. I know I’m open to criticism that I’ve relied heavily on Robert Reich. Shall we say that for today he’s my Rush Limbaugh? I’m not sure how that works as I can see very little comparison. Anyway, it’s my post and I’ll use who/whom I wanna. I’m going to give Reich the final word with this summary of Mitt Romney’s world view. That alone is enough for me!
