Isn’t that how you’ve lived during the summer months? A bit of this and a bit of that?
I recollect three of my experiences. First, I examined the sources of information on
which I rely to form my views and opinions, once the news has passed through my
personal conscience and understanding.
As a result, I recommend as a reliable source, CBC NEWSWORLD, from 5 to 7 p.m.
each weekday, where Canada’s finest television journalist, David Cochrane, presides
as host. He is affable, well- informed, and perfectly at home with all kinds of guests with
widely differing political points of view .Cochrane, 52, who was born in Mount Pearl,
Newfoundland, and embodies all the virtues of Newfoundlanders, was appointed host in
2023, after a long stint as a local TV journalist with the CBC affiliate there.
That was an astute appointment. Cochrane informs his audience with solid facts and
analysis, and at the same time reassures us with his good humour and frequent wit.
There is a collegiality about the show which I appreciate. It’s about as different in tone
and watchability from American news channels as it is possible to be. Take a look at Al
Jazeera too.
I met Cochrane once in Ottawa and congratulated him on being the only Canadian
journalist covering Pope Francis’ reconciliation trip to Canada’s North who knew the
meaning of the word “vespers”. It’s a monastic time of prayer. He laughed and said, ”
That’s thanks to a Catholic childhood”. I responded, “I’ve got one, too”.
On the serious side, in 2025 after a debate in Montreal, Cochrane said “ Democracy is
fragile. It’s not guaranteed. It’s got to be fought for and protected, not just on the big
moments like leaders’ debates but in all the smaller moments in between. The rage-
farming that has gone into politics is corrosive, destructive and toxic. It is disrupting the
norms of civic virtue in this country”.
Can participation in politics be positive? I answer in the affirmative, after an evening at
Market Hall August 17 when Emma Harrison M.P. played host to the Ontario federal
Liberal caucus. There were about 50 MP’s ,,, a lot of young women…. who introduced
themselves, complimented Harrison on her work in Ottawa and praised today’s energy
agreement between Newfoundland and Quebec. I was in a room with many people I
admire. Made a beeline for Mark Gerretson, M.P. for Kingston and the Islands, to thank

him for the way he informs Canadians and defends the government without rancour
and insult. Can’t forget the ovation given to Bruce Fanjoy, the smiling man in the red golf
shirt, who knocked on Ottawa doors for 3 years before defeating Pierre Poilievre in the
last election. Next ,I made my way to say hello to Dr Danielle Martin, a socially-
conscious physician who recently won the seat University- Rosedale, formerly held by
Chrystia Freeland, who is now in Ukraine.
Dr Martin is a former director of Women’s College Hospital and an articulate defender of
Canada’s health system.
So that’s another recommendation I have for fellow Peterburians . Join the political party
of your choice. Here you meet other Canadians who care about our country’s overall
welfare. Meet people who agree with you. Develop your civic virtue and declare
yourself. Have some fun. Practise your good manners and show the young that this is a
worthwhile activity.
My father, a Kirkland Lake lawyer, followed Parliament closely through subscribing to
Hansard, the newsprint edition of the House proceedings each day .As a kid, I met
Prime Ministers Louis St Laurent, Lester Pearson and Pierre Trudeau. At 12, I was
attending nomination meetings for the riding of Temiskaming.
Let me leave the third story to the gatekeeper at the friendly Peterborough Folk Festival
at Nichols Oval. Here a cheerful volunteer kept track in her head of the cars coming
and going, and allowed just the appropriate number to enter. No technology needed!

I write on August 25, Tuesday after the trade talks in Washington broke down. They
have always been about much more than trade. They reflect toxic American
expansionism. Greed, for resources such as water. Jealousy ,that our centrist
governments work so well. Hunger to dominate. A society with an ill- educated
population, where the worst members have risen to the top.
I continue to be shocked at the low intelligence of Republican politicians. Sean Duffy, a
Cabinet member, said recently that Canada has no military. Howard Lutnik, a hawk who
is Secretary of Commerce, was the last-minute villain in the piece last Friday night. He
inserted into the draft agreement two conditions: that the U.S. have final say over what
countries we trade with, and that the bilingualism, which Canada requires on all
products, be removed .It was “too irritating” he said. No, said the prime minister; It is a
cultural value and the law.
That strike against our sovereignty was a bridge too far. Mr Carney withdrew the
negotiating team and cleared the room. I was moved today to email a brief note
of thanks to M.P. Dominic LeBlanc, the New Brunswicker who was our chief
negotiator during long months of travel up and down ,among Moncton, Ottawa
and Washington, dealing with difficult people.
The president made one recent throwaway reference to the ultimate weapon being
military. That remark has given me nightmares of Nazi troops marching into a part of
Czechoslovakia called Sudetenland in 1938, after the British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberland, began his policy of appeasement, which ended disastrously when Adolf
Hitler, by then a dictator, continued to increase his demands for territory. That led to the
deadliest war in history.
The similarities between the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany in the thirties and the
modern manifestation of it in America give one chills. After all, Adolf Hitler was elected
at the start, too.
No doubt our capable leader, Mark Carney, knows these lessons well. He has an other-
worldly sense of calm, and a powerful way of speaking, probably coming from a strong
intellectual and spiritual life, bolstered by experience heading up the Bank of England

during the misguided Brexit affair. His approval rate is 75%. The premiers and territorial
leaders are behind him, though not all use the colourful language (“Kiss my A”) that
Doug Ford of Ontario did .
The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, ordinarily a right-wing paper, said in a
front -page piece last Sunday that these tariffs are folly. “The U.S. has contrived an
array of pretexts, including fentanyl trafficking ,to bludgeon Canada with tariffs”. The
tariff war on Canada, the paper said, is “the dumbest trade war in history, making no
economic or political sense’”.
Heather Cox Richardson, a professor who writes daily, said, “The attack on Canada
seems to make sense for a decaying president”. The Atlantic magazine says Trump
makes himself feel better by “kicking Americas allies. At a better moment in American
history, an enraged Congress would step in and demand answers to such dangerous
idiocy”.
We are angry ,worried and determined. Betrayed . But united. With agency of our own.
Citizens’ actions now include canceling trips to Florida and Disney World, reading labels
and returning to shelves any item made in the States, buying local, and counting our
blessings. Oh, and booing the U.S.A. national anthem at sports events.
Not at you, American friends, but at the regime you have put in power twice. We can be
forgiven for doubting your judgment, when listening to MAGA supporters and watching
the madman in charge.
Prime Minister Carney said,” America has changed” and any signature on a
commitment from this president “must be considered to have been written in pencil”.
Trump faces voters in 9 weeks at the midterms, and his role ends in less than 2 years,
unless in a final act of treachery, he declines to leave office.

On a clear August evening at the T Wharf on Little Lake in Peterborough, a gathering of
some 50 people- Quakers, youth, children, grandmothers, poets and musicians- came
together to remember the day, 81 years ago, when the United States military dropped a
nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later on August 9, 1945,
another nuclear bomb obliterated the city of Nagasaki.
It was the first time in the history of warfare that such a deadly weapon had been used.
Together, the attacks caused 200,000 immediate deaths, mostly Japanese civilians.
Thousands more were maimed; and the "bomb sickness" (cancer) affected the
remaining populations of the two cities for the next fifty years.
It was the culmination of the secret "Manhattan Project". Tests and explosions had been
carried out for two years in the desert of New Mexico. The moral reason given for the
nuclear bombs use was that it would shorten World War 11 and save Allied lives.
"We come together tonight to lament the deaths and the unimaginable
suffering. We are inspired by this memorial to take up the cause of banning nuclear
weapons once again in a newly- militarized world" said Sheila Nabigon- Howlett, an
organizer.
Clifford Skarstedt, the talented photographer for the Examiner, took two moving photos
which appeared on the front page of the paper, one of a senior man setting aside his
cane to launch a small, lighted boat wrapped in colourful crepe paper. The lanterns
were made by four St Peter's Secondary School students. They floated gently in the
current of Little Lake as Dennis O'Toole sang quietly. and dusk fell.
Four local leaders spoke briefly. Artist Micky Renders reminded the assembly that the
perils we face have no military solution. She told the hearers that Canada had some
involvement in that event. Port Radium, a mine on the shores of Great Bear Lake in the
Northwest Territories, produced uranium from 1942 to 1960. It was processed in Port
Hope. Historical evidence indicates that uranium from Port Radium was used in the
bombs on Japan.

A brother and sister duo, Karen and Dennis Howlett recalled growing up in Japan
where their parents were United Church of Canada missionaries.
I was honoured to be asked to reflect on my recent visit to Vietnam, where the 20- year
war with America (1955-1975) is acknowledged in several ways, including a museum in
Ho Chi Minh City. There were atrocities on both sides. In a population that numbers 100
million people, 2 million Vietnamese and 60,000 Americans were killed. The Buddhist
faith practised there accounts for the remarkable forgiveness. In 1995, diplomatic
relations between Hanoi and Washington were restored.
We saw the famous photo taken by Nick Ut of screaming children in a Vietnamese
village, their skin alight with burning napalm from attacking planes, running to escape.
That photo changed American public opinion about continuing the war. In a happy
sidelight, the girl in that photo, Kim Phuc, now lives in Pickering and gives talks about
peace in schools.
Over the past forty years, Canadian commitment to peace has led to giving leadership
in securing the Ottawa Anti-Personnel Landmines Ban (1997), the founding of the
International Criminal Court in the Hague in which our Governor General, Louise Arbour
has played a prominent role, and the creation of the Arctic Council.
The world responded slowly, with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970, aimed at
preventing the spread of weapons, and promoting peaceful nuclear energy. Currently it
has 191 signatory countries, including Canada. The two countries possessing the most
nuclear warheads are the U.S.A. and Russia. Seven others have weapons: France, the
U.K. China, Pakistan, India, North Korea and Israel.
There is a chance to do more to make the world safer. Alex Neve, longtime executive
director of Amnesty Canada has, with 1000 Order of Canada recipients, launched a
project to breathe new life into the Non- Proliferation Treaty. It meets in Winnipeg in
October.

I’m so old-fashioned I only watch feature films on a big screen in a movie house .I
thought there were only a few of us left. But the afternoon in mid July when I drove to
Galaxy Cinema in downtown Peterborough, the underground parking lot was crammed
full. I simply drove around and left. Realized later it was a “Reduced Price” Tuesday.
The buzz around British director Chriopher Nolan’s retelling of famous Greek poet
Homer’s epic work, “ The Odyssey “, written in 800 B.C., has meant that a massive,
widespread education in the classics is underway in our society. I needed first to clear
up why it was I kept referring to the hero of the Trojan war as Ulysses. That was
because “Ulysses” was the term the Romans used for him .
In university English class, I read “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” with help from Coles
Notes. Then I became an English teacher. Ah, the ways of the world. I had some grasp
then and more now, that great stories can shape one’s view of the world and one’s
moral sensibility, as well as entertain.
Christopher Nolan, the British screenwriter and director whose impressive earlier work
includes “Oppenheimer” and “Dunkirk”, obviously grasps that too. He was knighted for
his work in 2024. My film companion told me Nolan had the funds collected for 100 days
of shooting, and he wrapped it up in 91 days. In several countries, with hundreds of
actors.
In the story, after ten years of war in Troy, with their victory in hand, the Greeks just want
to go home. The return trip takes another ten, so rich is it with challenge and
misadventure.
Vivid accounts such as the one escaping the Sirens that had the frightened mariners
putting wax in their ears to keep out the attractive but deadly sound, and then rowing
like mad, or the one with the murderous Cyclops with one eye in the middle of his
forehead in a dreaded attack ,or the one on the Lotus- Eater island where Odysseus is
tempted to give it all up and stay, or the one with the enchantress Circe turning mariners
into pigs.
Anne Hathaway does a strong turn as Odysseus’ wife ,Penelope, waiting for Odysseus
for 20 years in Ithaca. surrounded by persistent suitors. Perhaps the best- known
adventure shows Odysseus’ cunning in constructing a giant wooden horse, and filling it

with Greeks who emerge to attack the Trojans once they have dragged the horse into
the city.
The Trojan horse has become part of western cultural history, ripe with meaning. I was
keen to see what Nolan and his star, Matt Damon, would do with these stories.
I am told that in Greek schools today. every grade seven student studies “The Odyssey’.
I appreciated the low tech of the times: fights with bows and arrows, no explosions,
rowing as a means of transportation. The focus is on the characters. and their
intelligence and cunning.
Much is made of the gods’ influence ; Zeus, first of all, but Athena and Poseidon too.
There is a strong and shared sense of morality and right order, which the director seems
to recommend.
Matt Damon is strongly built, suitably a leader, and clever, as in showing up for the
homecoming as a beggar. There will be Oscar buzz for his performance, and for the
ensemble as a whole. I especially like Samantha Morton as Circe.
Still, one would have benefitted from some training in endurance before this show. No
movie, no matter how noble, should stretch to 3 hours, and this one does. And costs
$20. The volume of the film had my companion remove her hearing aids.
It is finally a not- to- be-missed experience and an education in the great themes of
classical literature brought to you by a thoroughly modern filmmaker who has touches of
genius.

You remember our excellent Medical Office of Health for 12 years ,Dr Rosana Pellizzari-
Salvaterra?
When she left Peterborough, she managed to get us another excellent M O.H., Dr
Thomas Pigott, who has a similar commitment to public health that includes everybody,
and who has a similar understanding of the “social determinants of health”: a livable
income, decent housing ,access to good food, and the availability of education and
leisure .Plus a network of friends and acquaintances.
I have come to value a friendly neighbourhood as a determinant of my health. Last
evening I walked the three blocks in my north- central area en route to the Dairy Queen
,and I encountered several homes where people sat outside, chatting, on their porch.
Each had company, but even then, they called out a welcome and inclusive greeting to
passersby. I met three new people that way, and caught up with the kids and dogs of
several more. Two of these teens I met again today at the YMCA. Lovely kids, able to
greet and chat with an elder. I must remember to tell their parents.One woman, who is
inspiringly active, had broken her elbow falling off her bike two days before, and we
could all commiserate with that misfortune.
The one common factor enabling such socialization was that every home has a usable
front porch with chairs facing the sidewalk. No scuttling around to the back door and the
back yard in search of the vaunted but over-rated privacy. After all, we are just over
COVID 19, where distancing was a virtue. Many of us suffer from isolation anxiety
.Living alone, I find there are days when I don’t use my vocal chords for human speech
until four o’clock in the afternoon.
This same Dr Pellizzari has recommended to me the latest book by California
philosopher Rebecca Solnit, entitled” The Beginning Comes After the End”. Reading it is
a tonic in these times. One reviewer called it “restful”.
Just today, after the misbehaviour of the American president at and after FIFA ,comes
his announced punishment of our wildfire currents . Bad science, bad will, bad omens.
How much longer will we be tested by his malice and stupidity?

Solnit is a go- to writer these days, counselling patience and advising increasing our
connections . Her previous titles ,among 17 published books, include” Hope in Dark
Times” and ” Men Explain Things to Me”.
Her topics include feminism, capitalism, science, culture and ecology. Her main point is
that the time we are living through is a backlash against so much social progress over
the last 65 years. She quotes Antonio Gramsci, the Italian anti-fascist, who wrote from
prison under Mussolini: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born:
now is the time of monsters”.
And our day is offering up monsters, some well- known, and the rising up of
opportunistic and authoritarian personalities. But we should remain steady, aware of the
achievements made in solidarity since the 1960’s. And connected; always seeing and
making connections.
Solnit cites immense progress in global human rights, in food production, in gender
awareness, in anti-colonialism. She herself, an activist, had just been at a “return”
ceremony where settlers in California had handed back to Indigenous groups a vast
swath of land. She writes “Hope does not mean saying this is not bad, and it does not
mean saying we can defeat it. It just means saying we will keep showing up.”
Rebecca Solnit is 65. She was born in Connecticut but spent all her years of school
from primary to graduate school in California. She also writes for Harper’s Magazine.
She manages to paint a convincing picture of a brighter future if we can overcome “the
ideology of isolation.” “Woke” is for her and legions like her, a good and positive word.
The age is awakening to many truths.
This all leads back to front porches and what happens there.

It is a very troubling time. A rupture, as our Prime Minister says.
Great unease is present in all quarters, unpredictability rules. Bad, and very rich men all
over the world seem to be setting the rules for behaviour. Who is there to lead confused
masses of people?
In this column, I admit to lack of certainty, but at the same time, I offer the names and
ideas of four thinkers who impress me with their moral depth and perceptiveness, and a
style of speaking and writing that rings true.
They are 2 women and 2 men; 2 Canadians and 2 Americans, all using a substantial
format by which to communicate their ideas: an essay, a newsletter ,a book or a
Substack post, to make their point: Katharine Hayhoe, Heather Cox Richardson and
Charlie Angus. There is a fourth who immediately comes to mind, a broadcaster on
CBC Newsworld, David Cochrane, whose learning and wit make the daily news intake
somewhat bearable. He puts lively questions to impressive guests, and does it all with
abundant Newfoundland good humour. Five p.m. to seven p.m. weekdays.
I feel so relieved to have them in my life and mind and spirit. And I can skip and delete
the noise and lesser comment, the Facebook, YouTube,Tiktok and screaming “breaking
news”. After reading and hearing them, I feel able to participate in discussion as a
citizen, around campfires and dining tables and election rallies. I can develop my own
response to outrage or to good news, whatever the source.
Katherine Hayhoe is a Canadian in Texas, of all places, teaching environmental studies
at Texas Tech University. Born in Ontario, she earned her first degree at Victoria
College, U. of T, where, it is interesting to note, she will appear this fall with fellow grad
Margaret Atwood in October. That is one event I’d like to get a ticket to.
Hayhoe went on for her master’s degree and Ph.D. at the University of Illinois, where
she met her husband, Andrew Farley, an evangelical pastor and writer. Together they
wrote “A Climate for Change: Global- Warming Facts for Faith- Based Decisions“.
Hayhoe’s Ted Talk, “Saving Us”, drew 1 million viewers.

Her down- to- earthness and appeal to religious believers put her in my inner circle. Her
weekly newsletter, which Is free, is clear- eyed and hopeful. “‘I study the amazing
planet we live on, and I believe that together we can solve this”.
Meanwhile on the coast of Maine, a calm historian named Heather Cox Richardson,
who has a Ph.D. from Harvard focusing on the Civil War and Reconstruction, writes
1000 or 2000 words each evening. analyzing the madness of the Trump administration,
and by morning has several million readers consulting “Letter from an American”. Solid
facts and interpretation. She reminds us of recent history and thereby calls Americans
to better behaviour.
I admire her productivity since I am hard put to churn out 650 words a week.
Charlie Angus is an all- time favorite. In the early 2000s, I was co editing a weekly leftist
Catholic newspaper out of Toronto. He was our favorite columnist. A particularly popular
column was “God is a Trucker” .Then he spent years on the back benches of Canada’s
Parliament. Then came the threat to our sovereignty from the big bad Americans, and
Charlie has found his true calling: save the country.
Tell the truth, announce the scandals, travel to every nook and cranny of Canada, be a
spokesperson for a movement. That’s what he is doing. And he is from my neck of the
woods. He keeps a home in Cobalt; my views were formed in Kirkland Lake.
We are what and whom we consume. Let it be the best.

​Cambodia is a country next door to Vietnam, with 17 million people, and a
suffering past, especially in the late eighties, when brutal dictator Pol Pot
committed mass murder against his own citizens, especially the well- to-
do, journalists and intellectuals. He said anyone who wore spectacles was
suspect.
He led a dreaded political party whose name recalled the glories of the
past: he called it the” Khmer Rouge”. Khmer was an ancient civilization
most prominent between the 9 th and 15 th centuries .A feature film recalls
Pol Pot’s era: “The Killing Fields” .An estimated two million Cambodians
were killed in civil conflict.
But before that time, the U.S .had carried out 60,000 bombing raids
between 1965 and 1973, depositing a deadly legacy of small hidden
bombs as part of their war on Vietnam, an action which seeded the country
with small explosive devices, the results of which continue to this day.
There is still at least one death each day, an unsuspecting villager ,often a
child, stumbling upon hidden ordnance left over from that time.
It was a relief to visit a hero of dismantling these small but deadly bombs,
which have killed and maimed many. He was 50-year- old Aki Ra, a man
who had been once a Khmer Rouge child soldier planting bombs, and then
became a “sapper” of great effect, defusing them, training other
Cambodians, establishing a centre for the wounded and working with an
amazing small animal, the rat, to smell them out. Aki Ra has written the
story of his landmine museum and has been honoured by the American
channel CNN in its series “Everyday Heroes Who Change the World.”
Ra tells me that the planting of hidden bombs was authorized by President
Nixon , advised by Henry Kissinger.

Today an international voluntary agency called Apopo works, making use of
a Belgian program that has trained rats and dogs to ferret out landmines.
”Hero-rats” and “Hero-dogs” they are called, and they work in several
countries.
Another sign is co-operation is ASEAN. In what is called “bamboo
diplomacy”, eleven countries in the region are part of a group called the
Association of South East Asian Nations.
Most languages of Asia use a different alphabet from the Latin one, and
make use of different tones to indicate various meanings. Duolingo gave up
on me, after I found Vietnamese too difficult to master. Ease with the
currency also was beyond me. Vietnam uses the dong ,which is, for
westerners, funny money. Fifty dollars U.S .converts into over a million
dong, in denominations of 3000 to 500,000. Most of us just spread out our
loot, and let honourable vendors pick out what was owed.
Cambodia’s currency is the riel, which co-exists with the American dollar in
all transactions in a relaxed way.
One flies from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to the medium- size city of Siem
Reap, Cambodia, from one spanking new airport to another in a couple of
hours. These countries are serious about tourism. And indeed, a million
visitors a year come to the famous Buddhist religious site, Angkor Wat,
near Siem Reap. Built in the 14 th century, it is five times the size of St
Peter’s Square in Rome with a towered structure that is featured on the
Cambodian flag.
I must report on the most vigorous massage I’ve ever had. It was called the
“Khmer” massage, sixty minutes for $16 USD. No oil ,but the masseuse
supplied a jumpsuit and then climbed up on the table to work me out. I’m
still sore, but have flexible hip joints.
I will be a long time sorting out my impressions of Asia. It is a mystery,
inside a puzzle, inside an enigma. Westerners need to have a good deal of

humility before Asian ways. Many smiles, friendliness and courtesy are
offered, the gesture of hands clasped in greeting. They are real and
sincere.
But that is not all. One continues to seek understanding.

(This is article two of three columns I will write on my recent visit to
southeast Asia with 20-year- old granddaughter, Sarah.)
I knew the world’s airline industry has developed rapidly, and that it is well-
integrated, but when I bade my battered purple suitcase farewell in
Edmonton, and the WestJet agent printed my 3 boarding passes,
Vancouver, Seoul and Hanoi ,I seriously doubted I would ever see it again.
But I did.
And my favorite airline is now Korean Air, with the turquoise colour of
planes and the attendants with perfect skin and uniforms complete with
perky, well- starched bows at the neckline and in the hair.
But to reality. One day in June, we drove north of Ho Chi Minh City
(formerly Saigon), about 70 kilometres to the rural region of Cu Chi ,where
Viet Cong soldiers, during the years 1960-75, built an astonishing system
of underground tunnels where soldiers and peasants hid from the bombing,
lived, met, stored munitions and fought in a wooded area, just before the
attack they launched on U.S.- backed South Vietnam solders, and the
subsequent fall of Saigon to these forces from the north.
The tunnels have been preserved as educational historical artifacts. In fact,
the smaller, slimmer members of our group of 14 were invited to slide down
a hole, draw a mound of grass over the hole and creep along for fifty yards
or so to emerge, to cheers, from another hole. Not recommended for a
parent or grandparent to watch.

A happier event was planting rice near the city. Again the more youthful
members of our group : (we were two Canadians, 7 Americans, three
Europeans and two Filipinos) went to a rice field where husband and wife
farmers showed us how to drive a water buffalo by walking him in a circle
of sorts in a mud pond, holding on to a small plough which turned up the
soil. They were wearing those emblematic conical hats, with bare feet and
brown shirts ,and looked for all the world the part of peasants.
Our mood changed rapidly day to day, from lament to regret to admiration
at human ingenuity.
Vietnam is a 2000 mile long, narrow strip of land running north-south with
shoreline along the South China Sea. It has 100 million people, and its long
history has included 1000 years of domination by China, and 100 years of
colonization by France. French rule was ended in 1954 by the battle of
Dien Bien Phu. That presence accounts for the small majority of Catholics
in a largely Buddhist population.
The flag of Vietnam is a gold star on a bright red background. The head
quarters of its government ,the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), is
Hanoi. It is headed by Le Minh Hung, who studied in China and Japan. The
administration plans for continued economic development. Tourism figures
largely in the country’s growth, after textile-making, but it has been halved
since Covid. The majority of visitors are Japanese, then Chinese.
No account of travel there is complete without comment on the number of
motorbikes and the skill of their drivers. There is a joke that traffic lights and
cross walks are not really law but “mere suggestions”. I found I needed to
be alert and wave my arms overhead as I proceeded , but then also alert
were the biker- drivers. One entire lane is devoted to this mode of
transportation. Men and women, holding kids and cell phones, all wearing
helmets and flip- flops, and often face masks, come to smooth stops
within inches of one another. And pedestrian me.
Culturally, we attended a performance at the National Opera House of a
kind of Cirque de Soleil , where 20 young Vietnamese ,barefoot, ran about

the stage lobbing long bamboo sticks and playing with wicker lids in which
they hid. It was joyous.
Except for the long distance and flight to get there, I think Vietnam and
neighbours make a fascinating destination.

The last time I was in Asia was 31 years ago, when I went to the United
Nations Fourth Annual Conference on Women in Beijing, China.
More accurately, I went , along with 35,000 other women from all over the
world, feminists in saris, sarongs, business suits, khangas and jeans, to
meet each other, in the village of Huiarou, and to lament the state of the
world’s women, while keeping tabs on the claims and promises of their
official representatives meeting in Beijing, 15 kilometres away.
That experience was transformational, politically and personally .It was
where Hillary Clinton said “Women’s rights are human rights”. The meeting
produced a 40- page document called the Beijing Platform for Action. No
other writing on women’s status has been better in the years since.
But this time, it is in the company of a bright and tech-savvy nursing
student at the University of Alberta, my granddaughter, Sarah, from
Edmonton. And it is on a guided tour of 3 countries in south-east Asia:
Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. Each is a modern miracle of
development, each has a harsh history of conflict and colonialism, and
each is a proud, rising culture with a different political model.
Some years ago, believing ardently that there is no education like travel, I
asked my eight grandchildren where in the world they would most like to
visit. I’d sponsor them, as long as I got to go.
I found out that there is an award-winning agency with an office in Toronto
which respects and celebrates local culture .It is called Education First Go-
Ahead Travel, and we started to talk. Four years ago, another
granddaughter, an animal lover, longed to go to the Galapagos Islands, that
haven for nature well protected by Ecuador. So away we went, she solving

every challenge with her skill on the cellphone, I, taking notes on the
turbulent politics of the region and managing the moves from the “mother”
boat where we slept, to the dinghies as they banged up against the sides
in the heavy surf carrying us for the day to one of the 19 islands with no
human habitation.
Trip number two of my promise was with another globally- minded
grandchild. To a completely different part of the world: southeast Asia.
Vietnam is the country most in western consciousness because of the two
decades- long war there (1955-75).It was the time of fright that communism
could take over the area, a fear called “the domino effect”. The Americans
sent funds. equipment and training to South Vietnam, then considered
mildly democratic, and then sent “boots on the ground”. Protests developed
at home in America as the casualty list grew to 58,000 American deaths.
North Vietnam, supported by China, has no count of its dead, though
estimates say 2 million people.
Some people have seen the classic movie with Robin Williams, “Good
Morning, America” about a radio host broadcasting to American troops on
site. It was a brutal and dirty war that had many atrocities. The wondrous
thing is that fifty years on, the Vietnamese have preserved the history in a
large museum, and largely moved on to a kind of forgiveness of the
invaders. Is this a result of the practice of Buddhism, we wondered.
The north “won “ the war and renamed the capital city “Saigon” to “Ho Chi
Minh City” .We saw the American Embassy building where the dramatic
rescue of staff from the rooftop was immortalized in the musical “Miss
Saigon”.
Since the end of that conflict, Vietnam has become “an Asian tiger.” in
economic development. In 1986, it became a Communist-capitalist society.
There is no parliament, nor free press, or protests, but medical care is
inexpensive, as one of our group found out when she fell and needed x
rays of her face. The population is still 60% engaged in rice farming, but life
expectancy has risen to 72.

I am pondering all this as I examine my conclusions about life. Travel does
that.

I screwed up my courage, overcame my disdain, left my cell
phone at home, and went to Detroit. For the weekend. Just
another harmless little old lady on an outing. Never mind that her
cell phone messages and postings are fiercely critical of the
present U.S. regime.
As a patriotic Canadian, disgusted by the America of today, its
bullying ways, war -mongering and disgusting leadership, I had
taken the pledge to stop buying American as much as I could, and
stop travelling there at any time.
Even a favorite younger brother couldn’t entice me to go to
Arizona this winter, for some climate warmth.
The motivation for reversing my pledge at this time was strong. A
group of American, Catholic- rooted, feminists was meeting at a
retreat house near Detroit to mark their 50 th anniversary of
advocating for the ordination of women in the R.C .Church. Many
of them are growing older now. But the movement continues to
draw younger women who see ordination as important for the
welfare of women around the globe.
There were 250 women and some men at the gathering: some 7
Canadians, a few Europeans and a few from South Africa. The
Women’s Ordination Conference employs two young women,

Kate and Katie. The first Kate has a home in Rome where her
spouse is Vatican correspondent for Reuters News Service.
The good cheer of the gathering, their ways of dealing with
constant rejection, convinced me again of the value of sticking
with it, through thick and thin, although one’s efforts might well be
seen as “losing causes”. That is too disparaging This is a noble
losing cause, and is only lost so far. We had fun tearing up and
making confetti of the 1994 statement issued by Pope John Paul
that forbids women’s ordination.
It is only “lost” for a time. Someday, the current policy of excluding
women from the seventh sacrament will bear the mark of
quaintness. Something like the party-line phone.
We went to encourage our American sisters. What they face is
truly huge :the MAGA world. Their adversaries are strong: both
those of Church and those of State.
Compare the scale and significance of each entity’s behaviours:
on one hand, the dismantling of democracy by the state, and on
the other, the offences of gender injustice by the church. Each
harm is lasting and universal.
Which of these global harms is the greater? Long term, I’ d say
that voicelessness, as happens in totalitarianism, leads to
powerlessness and is therefore worse. But women in the religions
know the atrocious harm that comes from those religions and is
endorsed by them, as in “Christian nationalism”: war, hatred,
abuse, ignorance, violation of rights, and a massive skimming-off
of leadership potential.
We Canadians were women from New Brunswick, Kitchener ,
Peterborough, and Annan, On; all leaders, all confident, all with a

sense of purpose, along with a sense of humour. Another woman
from Toronto sent a check in support of our action .It was to buy
everyone a drink at the end of the day.
Peacemakers in Peterborough must have similar feelings of near-
despair. Margaret Slavin keeps in touch with suffering friends in
Gaza. Stephanie Benn and Micky Renders organize public
gatherings to plead for Gaza and Ukraine. Charlie Angus reports
that his 86- year- old mother takes her walker and demonstrates
against genocide on the streets of Toronto every Wednesday.
A sense of purpose, an ardent love of country, a valuing of one’s
religious heritage, along with patience, enjoyment of one’s peers
in the struggle and a commitment to persuasion. One can also
exercise withdrawal of consent to take part in the practices of the
entities. A kind of walking out.
As Canadians have discovered, many Americans are quick to
apologize for what their president has done to us, and to
international morality in general. These citizens have courage and
clarity.