Social peace is found where inequities among people are minimized. |
| Book titles by Rosemary Ganley include "Soundings," "Gleanings," "Positive Community" and "Jamaica Journal." Access the Yellow Dragonfly Press "Books" page >here< for purchasing information. |
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A mission to bind us ever more closely together to face a tough world.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
January 11, 2025
Rosemary Burns Ganley C.M. with Governor General Mary Simon, December 12, 2024
Readers seem to enjoy details of my visit to Rideau Hall in December to pick up a beautiful, heavy medal, to be worn on formal occasions, and two small ones for everyday wear.
My granddaughter made me a good-looking cardboard replica of the medal, to “wear every day.” Do I wear a small one on my gym clothes at the YMCA? Do I bequeath the large one to a descendant, or does it have to go back to the Government of Canada?
Such questions tend to engross one, on entering the world of official protocols. One advantage is that it distracts one for a while from the troubling matters of state: conflicts everywhere, the dreary drone of Trump, woes and resignations, and the tiresome, unrelenting blame for everything laid on the now-resigned prime minister by Conservatives.
They do lack graciousness.
My three days in Ottawa compare to the delights of our wedding weekend in August 1961, in Kirkland Lake. This time, I was accompanied by three handsome men — two sons and a grandson — plainly enjoying themselves as they met and mingled with Canadian achievers of all kinds. We gravitated to the sports figures and the people with Jamaican backgrounds, having lived in Kingston, Jamaica for three years. We had a “yardie” picture taken: Hamlin Grange, a CBC broadcaster, and Bruce Poon Tip, the founder of a travel agency called G Adventures, that is remarkable in its sensitivity to local cultures.
Two names stood out as we glanced at the list of 63 recipients. We determined to find Dr. Savage Bear and Joe Average. This is Canada at its most gloriously diverse. Savage Bear is an Indigenous scholar and activist with a doctorate, who is head of Native Studies at McMaster University.
Joe Average is a man who has lived with HIV/AIDS while advocating for HIV /AIDS treatment worldwide. He was wearing pearls, and so was I, so we connected warmly. Sadly, Joe died on Christmas Eve in Vancouver.
Also being honoured were five people in wheelchairs, one an accomplished artist without arms, who paints with a paintbrush in her mouth. On the sporty side, we recognized and chatted with hockey commentator Craig Simpson, honouring his father, and with Maritime curler Colleen Jones. The vigour of women’s soccer goalkeeper, Karina Le Blanc, who brought her four-year-old daughter, was evident. She propelled her team to victory over the 17 years she played.
I took delight meeting book host Shelagh Rogers, now Chancellor of Queen’s University, and the Governor General’s partner Whit Fraser, a New Glasgow boy who spent 40 years covering the north for CBC. He has written “True North Rising” and a new novel. He also said, “Her mission is my mission.”
It is clear their mission is to bind us ever more closely together, to face a tough world.
We Canadians need our heroes and heroines, our leaders and people of conscience because, in the next two years, we will have to define ourselves sharply against our southern neighbours. We will have to rediscover and recommit to our liberal values and desires, our communal consciousness -- one that doesn’t have dollar signs attached to it. One that values sharing, equity, care for our common home, a welcome of immigrants, a taste for simplicity, especially in living quarters, and a high regard for thought and intelligence.
What American popular culture celebrates, we will need to examine critically. Their election showed that 70 million voters’ judgment of character was unsound. Oh, America, you have had so much tolerance for lies. You are now led by two men, one unelected (Elon Musk) who have six wives and 17 children between them, have amassed billions, and also act like vindictive dictators.
The MAGA madness.
We have our Trump-lite symptoms to contend with. Our education, especially in history, has to strengthen: our moral fibre rendered less flabby, our environment healed, and the threats from America confronted.
We have the fellow citizens to do all that, if we join them.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner January 11, 2024 >LINK<
My granddaughter made me a good-looking cardboard replica of the medal, to “wear every day.” Do I wear a small one on my gym clothes at the YMCA? Do I bequeath the large one to a descendant, or does it have to go back to the Government of Canada?
Such questions tend to engross one, on entering the world of official protocols. One advantage is that it distracts one for a while from the troubling matters of state: conflicts everywhere, the dreary drone of Trump, woes and resignations, and the tiresome, unrelenting blame for everything laid on the now-resigned prime minister by Conservatives.
They do lack graciousness.
My three days in Ottawa compare to the delights of our wedding weekend in August 1961, in Kirkland Lake. This time, I was accompanied by three handsome men — two sons and a grandson — plainly enjoying themselves as they met and mingled with Canadian achievers of all kinds. We gravitated to the sports figures and the people with Jamaican backgrounds, having lived in Kingston, Jamaica for three years. We had a “yardie” picture taken: Hamlin Grange, a CBC broadcaster, and Bruce Poon Tip, the founder of a travel agency called G Adventures, that is remarkable in its sensitivity to local cultures.
Two names stood out as we glanced at the list of 63 recipients. We determined to find Dr. Savage Bear and Joe Average. This is Canada at its most gloriously diverse. Savage Bear is an Indigenous scholar and activist with a doctorate, who is head of Native Studies at McMaster University.
Joe Average is a man who has lived with HIV/AIDS while advocating for HIV /AIDS treatment worldwide. He was wearing pearls, and so was I, so we connected warmly. Sadly, Joe died on Christmas Eve in Vancouver.
Also being honoured were five people in wheelchairs, one an accomplished artist without arms, who paints with a paintbrush in her mouth. On the sporty side, we recognized and chatted with hockey commentator Craig Simpson, honouring his father, and with Maritime curler Colleen Jones. The vigour of women’s soccer goalkeeper, Karina Le Blanc, who brought her four-year-old daughter, was evident. She propelled her team to victory over the 17 years she played.
I took delight meeting book host Shelagh Rogers, now Chancellor of Queen’s University, and the Governor General’s partner Whit Fraser, a New Glasgow boy who spent 40 years covering the north for CBC. He has written “True North Rising” and a new novel. He also said, “Her mission is my mission.”
It is clear their mission is to bind us ever more closely together, to face a tough world.
We Canadians need our heroes and heroines, our leaders and people of conscience because, in the next two years, we will have to define ourselves sharply against our southern neighbours. We will have to rediscover and recommit to our liberal values and desires, our communal consciousness -- one that doesn’t have dollar signs attached to it. One that values sharing, equity, care for our common home, a welcome of immigrants, a taste for simplicity, especially in living quarters, and a high regard for thought and intelligence.
What American popular culture celebrates, we will need to examine critically. Their election showed that 70 million voters’ judgment of character was unsound. Oh, America, you have had so much tolerance for lies. You are now led by two men, one unelected (Elon Musk) who have six wives and 17 children between them, have amassed billions, and also act like vindictive dictators.
The MAGA madness.
We have our Trump-lite symptoms to contend with. Our education, especially in history, has to strengthen: our moral fibre rendered less flabby, our environment healed, and the threats from America confronted.
We have the fellow citizens to do all that, if we join them.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner January 11, 2024 >LINK<
| Book titles by Rosemary Ganley include "Soundings," "Gleanings," "Positive Community" and "Jamaica Journal." Access the Yellow Dragonfly Press "Books" page >here< for purchasing information. |
The degree of human curiosity is remarkable in Peterborough.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
December 21, 2024
First of all, an apology. Last week’s column omitted the names of three more Peterborough- area Members of the Order of Canada. They are Katherine Carleton, Executive Director of Orchestras Canada, whom I heard play the clarinet just last night at the Peterborough Symphony concert, Dr. William Fox, a distinguished archeologist at Trent, and Mark Cameron of Hastings, paramedic- response trainer. We ought to have a chapter.
It sure is a tangled world we have to make our way in these days. A glance at reliable news sources demonstrates that keeping our balance, while being open to the new and the better, is the way to cope and even, dare we hope, to thrive.
I’m at my limit in learning new technical things. A neighbour had to come over, for heaven’s sake, and show me how to work the coffee maker!
But I eat up poetry, philosophy, theology, and history. My present reading of “Rome,” a rich story well told by Australian writer Robert Hughes, teaches me a lot about the regime now being installed down south, and how long we may have to endure it. I love the cartoon showing a wife saying to her husband as they prepare for bed, “Set the alarm for 2028.”
Above all, one keeps learning. The degree of human curiosity is remarkable in Peterborough, as shown by the 34 courses and workshops which will draw adult students over to Catharine Parr Traill College in the winter of 2025 via in-person courses.
Traill is the friendliest of places for community members, with a staff and principal who welcomes us, a coffee shop called The Trend, a mid-town location, on-street parking, comfortable rooms to relax in and a colourful history since 1964, when it started as a women’s college.
We, who may not so much care about gathering credentials as in achieving cultural competence, or just relaxing by the use of our hands, feel at home there.
Take a look at the variety of offerings. Bengali or Chinese, Arabic, or an introduction to Latin, western classical music or Middle Eastern music, photo skills or coiled basketry, drawing animal portraits or doing fluid art, financial planning and preparing for retirement, trying playwriting with Kim Blackwell, or reading and writing poetry.
There will be a course in “St Patrick and the Beginning of Irish Christianity’” in anticipation of the commemoration of the arrival, 200 years ago, of 2300 Irish settlers to the area. These were the Peter Robinson Settlers, and the events will take place in August, 2025.
There will be a workshop in “Processing the American Election” which plans to bring in, on zoom, diplomat Greg Dempsey, from the Canadian Embassy in Washington. Another workshop will focus on “Can the Catholic Church Change?”
The university leadership, mindful of its debt to the Peterborough community for its whole- hearted early financial support, is committed to making learning affordable, interesting and responsive. Unionized workers in this small city agreed to a check-off from their pay for this new college in the early sixties.
Today’s new president, Dr. Cathy Bruce, is at home at the grassroots, I recall her volunteering with Jamaican Self Help to come to the inner city of Kingston, Jamaica and teach teachers basic math skills. Dr. Bruce was a great hit.
Every instructor with Trent University Continuing Education is passionate about their subject, and motivated to share their passion. It makes classes lively.
Trent was founded 60 years ago, “born of the will and generosity of the community,” said former president Steven Franklin in 2014. I enjoyed reading Darcy Jenish’s book from that year, marking 50 years of Trent.
The love of learning in its broadest sense inspires Continuing Education today. The costs vary from $36 for a workshop to $168 for a course. Registrations before December 31 will have a discount. The website is www.trentu.ca/continuingeducation.
The university motto is, brilliantly, “Nunc cognosco en parte,” which means “Now I know in part.”
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner December 21, 2024 >LINK<
It sure is a tangled world we have to make our way in these days. A glance at reliable news sources demonstrates that keeping our balance, while being open to the new and the better, is the way to cope and even, dare we hope, to thrive.
I’m at my limit in learning new technical things. A neighbour had to come over, for heaven’s sake, and show me how to work the coffee maker!
But I eat up poetry, philosophy, theology, and history. My present reading of “Rome,” a rich story well told by Australian writer Robert Hughes, teaches me a lot about the regime now being installed down south, and how long we may have to endure it. I love the cartoon showing a wife saying to her husband as they prepare for bed, “Set the alarm for 2028.”
Above all, one keeps learning. The degree of human curiosity is remarkable in Peterborough, as shown by the 34 courses and workshops which will draw adult students over to Catharine Parr Traill College in the winter of 2025 via in-person courses.
Traill is the friendliest of places for community members, with a staff and principal who welcomes us, a coffee shop called The Trend, a mid-town location, on-street parking, comfortable rooms to relax in and a colourful history since 1964, when it started as a women’s college.
We, who may not so much care about gathering credentials as in achieving cultural competence, or just relaxing by the use of our hands, feel at home there.
Take a look at the variety of offerings. Bengali or Chinese, Arabic, or an introduction to Latin, western classical music or Middle Eastern music, photo skills or coiled basketry, drawing animal portraits or doing fluid art, financial planning and preparing for retirement, trying playwriting with Kim Blackwell, or reading and writing poetry.
There will be a course in “St Patrick and the Beginning of Irish Christianity’” in anticipation of the commemoration of the arrival, 200 years ago, of 2300 Irish settlers to the area. These were the Peter Robinson Settlers, and the events will take place in August, 2025.
There will be a workshop in “Processing the American Election” which plans to bring in, on zoom, diplomat Greg Dempsey, from the Canadian Embassy in Washington. Another workshop will focus on “Can the Catholic Church Change?”
The university leadership, mindful of its debt to the Peterborough community for its whole- hearted early financial support, is committed to making learning affordable, interesting and responsive. Unionized workers in this small city agreed to a check-off from their pay for this new college in the early sixties.
Today’s new president, Dr. Cathy Bruce, is at home at the grassroots, I recall her volunteering with Jamaican Self Help to come to the inner city of Kingston, Jamaica and teach teachers basic math skills. Dr. Bruce was a great hit.
Every instructor with Trent University Continuing Education is passionate about their subject, and motivated to share their passion. It makes classes lively.
Trent was founded 60 years ago, “born of the will and generosity of the community,” said former president Steven Franklin in 2014. I enjoyed reading Darcy Jenish’s book from that year, marking 50 years of Trent.
The love of learning in its broadest sense inspires Continuing Education today. The costs vary from $36 for a workshop to $168 for a course. Registrations before December 31 will have a discount. The website is www.trentu.ca/continuingeducation.
The university motto is, brilliantly, “Nunc cognosco en parte,” which means “Now I know in part.”
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner December 21, 2024 >LINK<
| Book titles by Rosemary Ganley include "Soundings," "Gleanings," "Positive Community" and "Jamaica Journal." Access the Yellow Dragonfly Press "Books" page >here< for purchasing information. |
There have been four Peterborough residents who have received the honour.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
December 14, 2024
The Order of Canada is a national honours system first announced on July 1, 1967, the 100th year of our Confederation. It recognizes Canadians at ceremonies twice a year, held at Rideau Hall in Ottawa, people who have, in the opinion of the Selection Committee, made significant contributions to the country.
Admirers say there is something in the water here in Peterborough, since I am the fourth recipient of this honour. The others are Lynn Zimmer, former Executive Director of the YWCA, who started the first shelter for abused women in Canada; Dr Betsy McGregor of Stoney Lake, a PCVS graduate who worked internationally in animal health; and the recently deceased Jon Grant, a national business leader and philanthropist.
When I got the good news in a phone call from Governor General Mary Simon’s office in June, I felt delighted. Here was a chance to honour my forebears and to lift up again the goodness in Peterborough. The motto of the Order is, in Latin, Desiderata meliorem patria: “They desire a better country.”
Everyone I know and see has that desire, working and volunteering to make things better. I saw this desire for good again December 1, at a service called “Hope Abides” at St James United Church. It was designed for people who are keenly feeling their losses at this time of year. With the gentle leadership of Rev Julie van Haaften and music by Dan Bronson, consoling words from seven different faith traditions were offered: Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Bahai, Christian, Unitarian and Wicca. All are here in our city.
So I will get myself to Ottawa for 11 a.m. on December 12 with two sons from Newmarket and Edmonton, and one grandson, from Montreal, in tow. There will be 60 people in my “class.” We will be prepped by staff so that the Governor General can easily attach the pin on our left breast over the heart, the pin in the shape of a six-pointed snowflake with a maple leaf in the centre.
I’m practising my Inuktitut so I can say “Good morning, Ma’am.” It’s “piyagtik.” I wish I knew an Inuk speaker and could practice.
I’ll have to ask if we curtsey, and will need to practise that too. We trip up to the front, one by one, as our 75-word citation is read aloud. No, that’s the wrong word, to “trip.” My citation stresses my involvement in international work and in feminism. We turn for the official photographer, and the deed is done.
Then it is off to lunch in the residence, where Mme Simon circulates. Tours of Rideau Hall are offered.
My family is hosting a small reception at a nearby restaurant at which I anticipate seeing some old friends: Alex Neve, former executive director of Amnesty International Canada, and Deputy Minister Gina Wilson of the Department of Indigenous Services. Plus Mary Hunt and Diann Neu, who founded the American NGO Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual 40 years ago, and who are flying up from Washington. I tease them that no doubt they will want to see a real estate agent, too.
There are three levels of honours. We Members of the Order can use the designation C.M. after our name. The next level, the Officer of the Order, can use O.C. The highest level, the Companion of the Order, C.C. The youngest inductee was hero Terry Fox in 1980. Since 1967, there have been a total of 8,375 persons inducted.
Governor General Mary Simon, appointed for a five-year term, and her spouse, Whit Fraser, a former CBC journalist who wrote “True North Rising” in 2023, are widely admired for their work in binding us up. She hosted Pope Francis in 2022 on his pilgrimage of apology to Indigenous people in the north.
I so look forward to meeting poet bill bissett, women’s soccer goalie Karina LeBlanc, and curler Colleen Jones, plus Shelley Ambrose of The Walrus and the Chief Justice of Canada, M. Claude Wagner.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner December 14, 2024 >LINK<
Admirers say there is something in the water here in Peterborough, since I am the fourth recipient of this honour. The others are Lynn Zimmer, former Executive Director of the YWCA, who started the first shelter for abused women in Canada; Dr Betsy McGregor of Stoney Lake, a PCVS graduate who worked internationally in animal health; and the recently deceased Jon Grant, a national business leader and philanthropist.
When I got the good news in a phone call from Governor General Mary Simon’s office in June, I felt delighted. Here was a chance to honour my forebears and to lift up again the goodness in Peterborough. The motto of the Order is, in Latin, Desiderata meliorem patria: “They desire a better country.”
Everyone I know and see has that desire, working and volunteering to make things better. I saw this desire for good again December 1, at a service called “Hope Abides” at St James United Church. It was designed for people who are keenly feeling their losses at this time of year. With the gentle leadership of Rev Julie van Haaften and music by Dan Bronson, consoling words from seven different faith traditions were offered: Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Bahai, Christian, Unitarian and Wicca. All are here in our city.
So I will get myself to Ottawa for 11 a.m. on December 12 with two sons from Newmarket and Edmonton, and one grandson, from Montreal, in tow. There will be 60 people in my “class.” We will be prepped by staff so that the Governor General can easily attach the pin on our left breast over the heart, the pin in the shape of a six-pointed snowflake with a maple leaf in the centre.
I’m practising my Inuktitut so I can say “Good morning, Ma’am.” It’s “piyagtik.” I wish I knew an Inuk speaker and could practice.
I’ll have to ask if we curtsey, and will need to practise that too. We trip up to the front, one by one, as our 75-word citation is read aloud. No, that’s the wrong word, to “trip.” My citation stresses my involvement in international work and in feminism. We turn for the official photographer, and the deed is done.
Then it is off to lunch in the residence, where Mme Simon circulates. Tours of Rideau Hall are offered.
My family is hosting a small reception at a nearby restaurant at which I anticipate seeing some old friends: Alex Neve, former executive director of Amnesty International Canada, and Deputy Minister Gina Wilson of the Department of Indigenous Services. Plus Mary Hunt and Diann Neu, who founded the American NGO Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual 40 years ago, and who are flying up from Washington. I tease them that no doubt they will want to see a real estate agent, too.
There are three levels of honours. We Members of the Order can use the designation C.M. after our name. The next level, the Officer of the Order, can use O.C. The highest level, the Companion of the Order, C.C. The youngest inductee was hero Terry Fox in 1980. Since 1967, there have been a total of 8,375 persons inducted.
Governor General Mary Simon, appointed for a five-year term, and her spouse, Whit Fraser, a former CBC journalist who wrote “True North Rising” in 2023, are widely admired for their work in binding us up. She hosted Pope Francis in 2022 on his pilgrimage of apology to Indigenous people in the north.
I so look forward to meeting poet bill bissett, women’s soccer goalie Karina LeBlanc, and curler Colleen Jones, plus Shelley Ambrose of The Walrus and the Chief Justice of Canada, M. Claude Wagner.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner December 14, 2024 >LINK<
| Book titles by Rosemary Ganley include "Soundings," "Gleanings," "Positive Community" and "Jamaica Journal." Access the Yellow Dragonfly Press "Books" page >here< for purchasing information. |
Settlers need partners to do the teaching.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
December 7, 2024
Janet McCue performs at a Welcome Winter Party
There is a pleasant face we frequently see at events around Peterborough. The person carries an eagle feather or a drum, wears a ribbon skirt and has smudging materials. She has a strong voice and a talent for singing - a proud, friendly person everyone can easily identify with.
Janet Mc Cue never says no to an invitation to open a rally, a class or a demonstration, if it is peaceful, and aligns with her progressive values. And if her presence and leadership will lead to Settlers and other members of the white community in which she lives, learning about Indigenous values, history and rituals.
She told me she tries to do three generous things each day: be it delivering food or clothes, or being present at a court or sentencing hearing as an Elder - a Knowledge Keeper.
I have seen Janet drum, sing, explain and teach on three occasions in town recently: the Abraham Festival on September 22 at St James Church, the “Peace in Gaza” rally at Quaker Park on October 6, and the “Butterfly Run” fundraiser for Peterborough’s Butterfly Garden, which offers to support families and individuals who have experienced loss during pregnancy, the loss of a child, or infertility.
Now, a youthful 62 years of age, Janet McCue grew up in Curve Lake speaking only Ojibway until she was five. She was surrounded by loving grannies, aunties and cousins. Her father was singer-composer Stu McCue, and her mother, a maternity nurse. Stu McCue, as leader of the group “West Wind,” was inducted into the Peterborough Pathway of Fame in 1998 under the entertainment designation. Janet received the same honour in 2011 for community and cultural betterment. She tells me with a smile, “We are the only father-daughter combination in the Pathway.”
She went to school in Millbrook and has training in massage therapy. Early on her ambition was to be a chef.
We spoke of the great loss to Canada on the recent death of Justice Murray Sinclair of Winnipeg who had chaired the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission for six harrowing years. It issued 94 Recommendations for change in 2015.
Janet feels that reconciliation is going slowly. She reluctantly tells me of an occasion recently when she was insulted by a man using pejorative anti-Indigenous words. Her loyal partner of 14 years, Sean, jumped to her defence and schooled the offender roundly. The couple care for Janet’s mother in their home. Every second Thursday Janet and her group, “Healing Drums,” sing at the Canoe Museum.
Janet McCue and Sheila Howlett had a time of collecting and taking winter clothes and skates to an Indigenous community in the far north called Mishkeegomang. They thoughtfully included a skate sharpener. Then Janet was manager of a drop-in centre for the homeless on Water Street called “Our Space” from 2010 to 2014.
But reconciliation has to be widespread, countrywide and generalized.
Many Settler Canadians are awakening to the hard realization that our forbears pursued racist policies regarding the native people who inhabited these lands. Many are eager to make amends. What jolted many in the dominant society to a new realization of a dark past was the discovery of unmarked graves at the site of a residential school in Kamloops B.C., just three years ago.
Settlers need partners to do the teaching - patient people willing to endure their ignorance and lead them - people such as Chiefs Keith Knott, Laurie Carr and Taynar Simpson in our area. Poets, writers and musicians must be sought out and their work studied. Online courses in the full history of Canada can be taken, personal conversations initiated from a position of Settler humility.
The region is rich in such resources for reconciliation.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner December 7, 2024 >LINK<
Janet Mc Cue never says no to an invitation to open a rally, a class or a demonstration, if it is peaceful, and aligns with her progressive values. And if her presence and leadership will lead to Settlers and other members of the white community in which she lives, learning about Indigenous values, history and rituals.
She told me she tries to do three generous things each day: be it delivering food or clothes, or being present at a court or sentencing hearing as an Elder - a Knowledge Keeper.
I have seen Janet drum, sing, explain and teach on three occasions in town recently: the Abraham Festival on September 22 at St James Church, the “Peace in Gaza” rally at Quaker Park on October 6, and the “Butterfly Run” fundraiser for Peterborough’s Butterfly Garden, which offers to support families and individuals who have experienced loss during pregnancy, the loss of a child, or infertility.
Now, a youthful 62 years of age, Janet McCue grew up in Curve Lake speaking only Ojibway until she was five. She was surrounded by loving grannies, aunties and cousins. Her father was singer-composer Stu McCue, and her mother, a maternity nurse. Stu McCue, as leader of the group “West Wind,” was inducted into the Peterborough Pathway of Fame in 1998 under the entertainment designation. Janet received the same honour in 2011 for community and cultural betterment. She tells me with a smile, “We are the only father-daughter combination in the Pathway.”
She went to school in Millbrook and has training in massage therapy. Early on her ambition was to be a chef.
We spoke of the great loss to Canada on the recent death of Justice Murray Sinclair of Winnipeg who had chaired the National Truth and Reconciliation Commission for six harrowing years. It issued 94 Recommendations for change in 2015.
Janet feels that reconciliation is going slowly. She reluctantly tells me of an occasion recently when she was insulted by a man using pejorative anti-Indigenous words. Her loyal partner of 14 years, Sean, jumped to her defence and schooled the offender roundly. The couple care for Janet’s mother in their home. Every second Thursday Janet and her group, “Healing Drums,” sing at the Canoe Museum.
Janet McCue and Sheila Howlett had a time of collecting and taking winter clothes and skates to an Indigenous community in the far north called Mishkeegomang. They thoughtfully included a skate sharpener. Then Janet was manager of a drop-in centre for the homeless on Water Street called “Our Space” from 2010 to 2014.
But reconciliation has to be widespread, countrywide and generalized.
Many Settler Canadians are awakening to the hard realization that our forbears pursued racist policies regarding the native people who inhabited these lands. Many are eager to make amends. What jolted many in the dominant society to a new realization of a dark past was the discovery of unmarked graves at the site of a residential school in Kamloops B.C., just three years ago.
Settlers need partners to do the teaching - patient people willing to endure their ignorance and lead them - people such as Chiefs Keith Knott, Laurie Carr and Taynar Simpson in our area. Poets, writers and musicians must be sought out and their work studied. Online courses in the full history of Canada can be taken, personal conversations initiated from a position of Settler humility.
The region is rich in such resources for reconciliation.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner December 7, 2024 >LINK<
| Book titles by Rosemary Ganley include "Soundings," "Gleanings," "Positive Community" and "Jamaica Journal." Access the Yellow Dragonfly Press "Books" page >here< for purchasing information. |
Entire evening became a thoughtful seminar in international moral thinking.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
November 30, 2024
In a week when the city was embroiled in controversy about funding for the arts, I made my way to Champlain College at Trent to see a riveting film and to meet two remarkable Canadians - physician James Orbinski, who served as international president of Médecins sans Frontieres and accepted the Nobel prize for Peace in 1999, and eminent director-producer Peter Raymont, here in Peterborough to accept the first Traill College Filmmaker- in-Residence at Trent.
It was the inauguration of the new fellowship that honours Raymont, and the screening of his 88-minute, award- winning documentary from 2008 on Orbinski. If that was not gift enough, the subject of the documentary James Orbinski, was there too.
The entire 3-hour evening became a thoughtful seminar in international moral thinking - just what universities should be about - good, evil and human responsibility.
The technology of streaming has reduced the communal effects of large-screen experiences in movie theatres with others. But those are the ones I love. Recently I saw “Oppenheimer,” “One Love,” “Barbie,” “Conclave” and “The Eras Tour” on the big screen at the Galaxy Cinema. I remember them and I remember the reactions of others.
The film that sparked deep discussion and emotion at Trent was Raymont’s film “Triage: Dr James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma,” plus the Q & A with both of them that followed.
How do I hear about inspiring local events such as these? I subscribe online to the weekly Traill Tales, put out by Principal Michael Eamon and his assistant Samantha Perritt every Friday. It's a cheery digest of news for students, and notices of upcoming public events. Always seeking to deepen and expand the links between “town” (Peterborough) and “gown” (Trent), I often find events to take in.
A Trent graduate from 1984, Orbinski spent several years as a doctor in the middle of conflict zones in Somalia, Rwanda and the Congo. He saw and tried to alleviate unspeakable human cruelty and suffering. He was a close associate of Canadian general Romeo Dallaire, and with him, a fierce critic of the international “hands off” policy of western governments during the genocide in Rwanda. In 100 days in 1994, civil war in the small African country led to the massacre, often by means of machetes, of up to 800,000 Tutsi people by rival Hutus.
Orbinski spoke articulately, calmly and modestly on his ways of coping. He said that he learned contemplation from his time with Quakers, and from knowing the eminent peace activist and Quaker Dr. Ursula Franklin. He tried to help heal the most awful wounds imaginable. Moreover, he can reflect on the larger questions they pose.
The creativity of Traill College principal Eamon led to this memorable evening. By my estimate, filmmakers rank high on the list of artists who influence the direction of society. With this fellowship, an important filmmaker spends two weeks on campus chatting with students, giving a public lecture, and getting to know the local arts scene.
Accomplished director and producer Peter Raymont started at the NFB when he was 21, and is the winner of 35 international prizes for his work, including Emmys, Genies and a Sundance Festival award. He has made 100 social justice films, including “Shake Hands with the Devil,” and a documentary on painter Tom Thomson entitled “West Wind.”
Raymont is the Ken Burns of Canada.
I hope that students of medicine and, really, of all the disciplines see this documentary, and read Orbinski’s book, “An Imperfect Offering” for glimpses into his heart and mind.
Orbinski, who has 3 children of college age, has just accepted the appointment of President of Massey College in Toronto. With his science and psychology background, a keen sense of justice and a gifted filmmaker to tell his story, Canadians are able to learn about and take pride in such leaders.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner November 30, 2024 >LINK<
It was the inauguration of the new fellowship that honours Raymont, and the screening of his 88-minute, award- winning documentary from 2008 on Orbinski. If that was not gift enough, the subject of the documentary James Orbinski, was there too.
The entire 3-hour evening became a thoughtful seminar in international moral thinking - just what universities should be about - good, evil and human responsibility.
The technology of streaming has reduced the communal effects of large-screen experiences in movie theatres with others. But those are the ones I love. Recently I saw “Oppenheimer,” “One Love,” “Barbie,” “Conclave” and “The Eras Tour” on the big screen at the Galaxy Cinema. I remember them and I remember the reactions of others.
The film that sparked deep discussion and emotion at Trent was Raymont’s film “Triage: Dr James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma,” plus the Q & A with both of them that followed.
How do I hear about inspiring local events such as these? I subscribe online to the weekly Traill Tales, put out by Principal Michael Eamon and his assistant Samantha Perritt every Friday. It's a cheery digest of news for students, and notices of upcoming public events. Always seeking to deepen and expand the links between “town” (Peterborough) and “gown” (Trent), I often find events to take in.
A Trent graduate from 1984, Orbinski spent several years as a doctor in the middle of conflict zones in Somalia, Rwanda and the Congo. He saw and tried to alleviate unspeakable human cruelty and suffering. He was a close associate of Canadian general Romeo Dallaire, and with him, a fierce critic of the international “hands off” policy of western governments during the genocide in Rwanda. In 100 days in 1994, civil war in the small African country led to the massacre, often by means of machetes, of up to 800,000 Tutsi people by rival Hutus.
Orbinski spoke articulately, calmly and modestly on his ways of coping. He said that he learned contemplation from his time with Quakers, and from knowing the eminent peace activist and Quaker Dr. Ursula Franklin. He tried to help heal the most awful wounds imaginable. Moreover, he can reflect on the larger questions they pose.
The creativity of Traill College principal Eamon led to this memorable evening. By my estimate, filmmakers rank high on the list of artists who influence the direction of society. With this fellowship, an important filmmaker spends two weeks on campus chatting with students, giving a public lecture, and getting to know the local arts scene.
Accomplished director and producer Peter Raymont started at the NFB when he was 21, and is the winner of 35 international prizes for his work, including Emmys, Genies and a Sundance Festival award. He has made 100 social justice films, including “Shake Hands with the Devil,” and a documentary on painter Tom Thomson entitled “West Wind.”
Raymont is the Ken Burns of Canada.
I hope that students of medicine and, really, of all the disciplines see this documentary, and read Orbinski’s book, “An Imperfect Offering” for glimpses into his heart and mind.
Orbinski, who has 3 children of college age, has just accepted the appointment of President of Massey College in Toronto. With his science and psychology background, a keen sense of justice and a gifted filmmaker to tell his story, Canadians are able to learn about and take pride in such leaders.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner November 30, 2024 >LINK<
| Book titles by Rosemary Ganley include "Soundings," "Gleanings," "Positive Community" and "Jamaica Journal." Access the Yellow Dragonfly Press "Books" page >here< for purchasing information. |
Finding some solace on a journey to the Mount.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
November 23, 2024
After the negative shock of November 5, and all it portends for the society next door breaking apart, we have to pick ourselves up, look around, and celebrate the goodness that is here. Not only that, but contribute to the goodness.
So, I took myself over to The Mount Community Centre on Monaghan Road, to see what was new.
Turns out quite a lot is new. Deeply committed to diversity, the board under the gifted leadership of lawyer Steve Kylie, has recently hired Arshed Bhatti, a new Executive Director. Arshed is a Pakistani-Canadian with two post-secondary degrees, and considerable experience in community development, a Muslim who has studied in Japan and the U.K.
Bhatti’s energy, ideas and pure friendliness are bound to take the Mount Community Centre forward.
The Mount’s story is remarkable in itself. Built in 1895, the Mount was the motherhouse of a community of Roman Catholic nuns for over 100 years, the Sisters of St Joseph of Peterborough, who taught in the schools, helped in the parishes, offered piano lessons at the convent and built and then administered St Joseph’s Hospital with its School of Nursing on Rogers Street. Altogether, these women played a major role in the development of Peterborough.
The large chapel at the Mount became the church of choice for many Catholics, and the Spirituality Centre, under Sr Joyce Murray, Terry Dance and Cheryl Lyon, was a theological hub locally.
But time does not stand still. In 2009, the Sisters built a modern, ecologically-friendly convent just south of the historic original building.
Social justice has been a major theme for the Sisters, so they were pleased when it was sold in 2013 to the Peterborough Poverty Reduction Network. Homelessness was becoming a major challenge for this community, so a small creative group of citizens began to meet to discuss converting the building to affordable housing units.
They undertook fundraising with the aim of renovating the interior into 68 apartments, almost all at affordable rates. Some are accessible. A few are at market rates. This offers a revenue stream, and also gives opportunities for community- building. An additional group of 4 women is housed in the nearby farmhouse.
The Mount Community Centre is multi-faceted. It offers rental space to like-minded community organizations such as the VON and the Kawartha Land Trust. There are also many differently-sized areas in which to host parties, meetings, art exhibits and cultural events. It also has a state- of- the- art kitchen.
All this is managed by 3 and a half staff members. One is a full- time volunteer and former school principal, who in her spare time cooks up jellies and jams at Christmas time as a Mount fundraiser. All my gift-giving will soon be looked after.
Volunteers are at the heart of the operation. Every Friday, a group of men with skills arrives to do repairs. St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church has found a space and a home at the Mount for its congregation. If the Mount Community Centre once had a strongly Catholic identity, this has given way to a profoundly ecumenical character.
The setting, on 10 acres of treed land in the heart of the city, lends itself to a community garden, and here, volunteer Blair Sawa has set to work.
Into this busy, highly-principled atmosphere, Arshed Bhatti has stepped with enthusiasm. The Mount Community Centre fits perfectly with his ideas of inclusive community, ecological awareness and the meeting of basic human needs.
It is an example of a vision, followed by growth, and seeded by generosity. All levels of government have stepped up, as have many businesses.
The Mount seeks monthly donors from among Peterburians. Knowing from personal experience the importance of regular, if small, donations to a good cause, I have decided to become one.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner November 23, 2024 >LINK<
So, I took myself over to The Mount Community Centre on Monaghan Road, to see what was new.
Turns out quite a lot is new. Deeply committed to diversity, the board under the gifted leadership of lawyer Steve Kylie, has recently hired Arshed Bhatti, a new Executive Director. Arshed is a Pakistani-Canadian with two post-secondary degrees, and considerable experience in community development, a Muslim who has studied in Japan and the U.K.
Bhatti’s energy, ideas and pure friendliness are bound to take the Mount Community Centre forward.
The Mount’s story is remarkable in itself. Built in 1895, the Mount was the motherhouse of a community of Roman Catholic nuns for over 100 years, the Sisters of St Joseph of Peterborough, who taught in the schools, helped in the parishes, offered piano lessons at the convent and built and then administered St Joseph’s Hospital with its School of Nursing on Rogers Street. Altogether, these women played a major role in the development of Peterborough.
The large chapel at the Mount became the church of choice for many Catholics, and the Spirituality Centre, under Sr Joyce Murray, Terry Dance and Cheryl Lyon, was a theological hub locally.
But time does not stand still. In 2009, the Sisters built a modern, ecologically-friendly convent just south of the historic original building.
Social justice has been a major theme for the Sisters, so they were pleased when it was sold in 2013 to the Peterborough Poverty Reduction Network. Homelessness was becoming a major challenge for this community, so a small creative group of citizens began to meet to discuss converting the building to affordable housing units.
They undertook fundraising with the aim of renovating the interior into 68 apartments, almost all at affordable rates. Some are accessible. A few are at market rates. This offers a revenue stream, and also gives opportunities for community- building. An additional group of 4 women is housed in the nearby farmhouse.
The Mount Community Centre is multi-faceted. It offers rental space to like-minded community organizations such as the VON and the Kawartha Land Trust. There are also many differently-sized areas in which to host parties, meetings, art exhibits and cultural events. It also has a state- of- the- art kitchen.
All this is managed by 3 and a half staff members. One is a full- time volunteer and former school principal, who in her spare time cooks up jellies and jams at Christmas time as a Mount fundraiser. All my gift-giving will soon be looked after.
Volunteers are at the heart of the operation. Every Friday, a group of men with skills arrives to do repairs. St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church has found a space and a home at the Mount for its congregation. If the Mount Community Centre once had a strongly Catholic identity, this has given way to a profoundly ecumenical character.
The setting, on 10 acres of treed land in the heart of the city, lends itself to a community garden, and here, volunteer Blair Sawa has set to work.
Into this busy, highly-principled atmosphere, Arshed Bhatti has stepped with enthusiasm. The Mount Community Centre fits perfectly with his ideas of inclusive community, ecological awareness and the meeting of basic human needs.
It is an example of a vision, followed by growth, and seeded by generosity. All levels of government have stepped up, as have many businesses.
The Mount seeks monthly donors from among Peterburians. Knowing from personal experience the importance of regular, if small, donations to a good cause, I have decided to become one.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner November 23, 2024 >LINK<
| Book titles by Rosemary Ganley include "Soundings," "Gleanings," "Positive Community" and "Jamaica Journal." Access the Yellow Dragonfly Press "Books" page >here< for purchasing information. |
Art groups in this city more than justify their subsidies.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
November 16, 2024
I benefit, as does all of Peterborough and region, from the rich, varied and long- cultivated arts offerings which our city has developed. Mostly on a shoestring, and with a huge volunteer commitment.
Music, drama, dance, poetry, fiction, storytelling and festivals are what make life meaningful, and what contribute so deeply to making citizens progressive in their views about society and themselves.
As the U.S results show vividly, we will need now to increase and amplify the arts is the lives of Canadians to strengthen our fabric as an independent country. I speak now, not as a former teacher of literature in English, but as an elder, a columnist, and a “believer in a better country” as the Order of Canada citation says.
I assure Mr. Laidman, the Mayor and Council, that in addition to being an arts lover, I am a jockette too. Ask me anything about the Petes, so-far, losing season. One can’t grow up in Kirkland Lake and be uncaring about hockey in any form. But let’s not pit our enormous expenditure on sports facilities with the truly meager amounts our council is proposing we budget for arts institutions such as the Peterborough Symphony, Showplace and the Art Gallery of Peterborough. Our municipal budget is $411 million. Can we therefore withdraw this proposal of cuts of between 25% and 100% to institutions that are crucial to our spirits?
Continuing my argument that I also support the essential place of sports in a healthy life, either as participant or spectator, I have season tickets to our semi-pro men’s soccer team, the Electric City FC. I believe in fitness, and practise yoga every week at Activity Haven. I belong to the YMCA, making heavy use of the rowing machine. One year, I even took the BIKE challenge and cycled in the winter on spiked tires, until the sad day I wiped out.
But ladies and gentlemen, we do not live by bread alone. Most of the time I live in my mind, my imagination and my soul.
Here’s where the proposed cuts make no sense, except perhaps to an accountant. No, that’s not fair to accountants. The arts groups in this city, more than justify even more generous subsidies. It’s only good economics to recognize the revenue they generate, the jobs, the ticket sales, and the tourism dollars.
What is priceless is our reputation, as behooves a town with a university and a community college, that we are a sophisticated society of people who know what’s important. The arts sector is responsible for attracting more and more valuable citizens, some of whom one day may run for council, and possess convictions, which so many others have expressed, about what factors make a city worth living in.
Just this weekend, I had my patriotism deepened by a play, and my geographic knowledge of Canada expanded by a presentation on our most northerly rivers. One was $27 and the other free.
How could I get to Toronto and have similarly first-class experiences?
I sympathize with the difficulty of budget debates and decisions. But with this proposed budget we are cutting large percentages of former grants from the arts, out of balance. Everyone suffers, mostly in their thinking, imagining, feeling and compassion, and defining ourselves as 21st century Canadians, unique and different from other nationalities.
Shall we even mention how the arts define a place for the young, showing them ways to express themselves, and places to practise their talent?
The dynamic of civic pride also plays into this choice. We are a proud people, and we can afford to do it all - or be seen to be trying to do right by our population.
Time is short for Council and its advisors to amend their budget, and at least restore the grants to the arts organizations that in so many ways, define us.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner November 16, 2024 >LINK<
Music, drama, dance, poetry, fiction, storytelling and festivals are what make life meaningful, and what contribute so deeply to making citizens progressive in their views about society and themselves.
As the U.S results show vividly, we will need now to increase and amplify the arts is the lives of Canadians to strengthen our fabric as an independent country. I speak now, not as a former teacher of literature in English, but as an elder, a columnist, and a “believer in a better country” as the Order of Canada citation says.
I assure Mr. Laidman, the Mayor and Council, that in addition to being an arts lover, I am a jockette too. Ask me anything about the Petes, so-far, losing season. One can’t grow up in Kirkland Lake and be uncaring about hockey in any form. But let’s not pit our enormous expenditure on sports facilities with the truly meager amounts our council is proposing we budget for arts institutions such as the Peterborough Symphony, Showplace and the Art Gallery of Peterborough. Our municipal budget is $411 million. Can we therefore withdraw this proposal of cuts of between 25% and 100% to institutions that are crucial to our spirits?
Continuing my argument that I also support the essential place of sports in a healthy life, either as participant or spectator, I have season tickets to our semi-pro men’s soccer team, the Electric City FC. I believe in fitness, and practise yoga every week at Activity Haven. I belong to the YMCA, making heavy use of the rowing machine. One year, I even took the BIKE challenge and cycled in the winter on spiked tires, until the sad day I wiped out.
But ladies and gentlemen, we do not live by bread alone. Most of the time I live in my mind, my imagination and my soul.
Here’s where the proposed cuts make no sense, except perhaps to an accountant. No, that’s not fair to accountants. The arts groups in this city, more than justify even more generous subsidies. It’s only good economics to recognize the revenue they generate, the jobs, the ticket sales, and the tourism dollars.
What is priceless is our reputation, as behooves a town with a university and a community college, that we are a sophisticated society of people who know what’s important. The arts sector is responsible for attracting more and more valuable citizens, some of whom one day may run for council, and possess convictions, which so many others have expressed, about what factors make a city worth living in.
Just this weekend, I had my patriotism deepened by a play, and my geographic knowledge of Canada expanded by a presentation on our most northerly rivers. One was $27 and the other free.
How could I get to Toronto and have similarly first-class experiences?
I sympathize with the difficulty of budget debates and decisions. But with this proposed budget we are cutting large percentages of former grants from the arts, out of balance. Everyone suffers, mostly in their thinking, imagining, feeling and compassion, and defining ourselves as 21st century Canadians, unique and different from other nationalities.
Shall we even mention how the arts define a place for the young, showing them ways to express themselves, and places to practise their talent?
The dynamic of civic pride also plays into this choice. We are a proud people, and we can afford to do it all - or be seen to be trying to do right by our population.
Time is short for Council and its advisors to amend their budget, and at least restore the grants to the arts organizations that in so many ways, define us.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner November 16, 2024 >LINK<
| Book titles by Rosemary Ganley include "Soundings," "Gleanings," "Positive Community" and "Jamaica Journal." Access the Yellow Dragonfly Press "Books" page >here< for purchasing information. |
Voters in the U.S. dismissed the pleas of many on election day.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
November 9, 2024
I spent election night at a pub with about 25 Democrats Abroad who live and work in Peterborough. Their psychic suffering was palpable. They wore name tags with their state identified, and they would point to the nametag and then apologize for its results: “Indiana” one said ruefully, “Ohio” said another sadly, and “Georgia.”
I recognize that there is a worldwide turn to the right, and a widespread urge to turn out incumbents, some deserved, others undeserving.
But how can a thinking person go into a ballot box and mark an X for this particular presidential candidate, who has shown them over and over for years, up to the final week of this campaign and since he entered public life in 2016, that he has no virtues at all either intellectual or personal?
That is utterly beyond my comprehension.
In fact, he has 92 convictions for criminal acts. What more evidence would a law-loving American voter need? He has coarsened public utterance with unrepeatable gutter language and images, many of a woman-hating sexual nature. I don’t know any other country in the world in which politicians get away with this kind of nasty. repetitive and racist blathering.
Into the toxic world of media, such a personality enters. Voters were warned about his narcissistic personality disorder, but then dismissed the pleas of a score of psychiatrists that he was unfit for office.
It’s an unregulated media stew. Media in the United States are private, serving up profits and shock-fare. Some, such as CNN and MSNBC ,are marginally better than others. But without a perspective and some practice in critical inquiry, the average American is at sea, and vulnerable to the worst lies and conspiracy notions. To think public opinion there is shaped by the likes of Joe Rogen and Tucker Carlson is to weep. And the ruin that is Robert F. Kennedy.
I’m trying to take some lessons from the awfulness of the American result for our upcoming elections. Mr Trump portrayed the “bad boy” of so much film fare, and he convinced many immature men/boys that the world was treating them badly, so they must strike out. He would lead the effort. Some leader.
We must strengthen media study and critical thinking at all stages in our schools. One Democrat I was with last night, a former teacher said, “Kids can learn critical thinking from age seven.”
We must teach what democracy and the rule of law means, in simple terms. Americans have a harder task with their cumbersome electoral college system that so privileges the individual states. And we have a federal office of conducting elections, operated by Elections Canada, which is above manipulation. A dark joke on election night went like this: “There will be lots of job openings in the next four years for those who can help with cult recovery.” How much damage to the human enterprise will be done before such a recovery is complete, no one knows.
Perhaps the most crucial thing we can do (sorry, Mr Poilievre) is to invest, in a hands-off way, in the CBC. And donate to Friends of Canadian Media as individuals.
At a meditation group I was in recently, it was posed, “What will you continue to do, no matter the result? And what will you take up anew?” I pledged to myself to maintain my efforts at educating Canadians, and I will increase my donations to Friends of Canadian Media. A Nova Scotian wrote recently, “In a nation this size, sparsely populated, there is no way we could have a national identity at all without the CBC.”
Trumpism may be short-lived for many reasons. The gentleman’s age and health for one. His possible incarceration. Buyers’ remorse for another, when it hits home in many negative ways what the voters have done.
I’ll join with others to expose and defeat trumpism on either side of the border.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner November 9, 2024 >LINK<
I recognize that there is a worldwide turn to the right, and a widespread urge to turn out incumbents, some deserved, others undeserving.
But how can a thinking person go into a ballot box and mark an X for this particular presidential candidate, who has shown them over and over for years, up to the final week of this campaign and since he entered public life in 2016, that he has no virtues at all either intellectual or personal?
That is utterly beyond my comprehension.
In fact, he has 92 convictions for criminal acts. What more evidence would a law-loving American voter need? He has coarsened public utterance with unrepeatable gutter language and images, many of a woman-hating sexual nature. I don’t know any other country in the world in which politicians get away with this kind of nasty. repetitive and racist blathering.
Into the toxic world of media, such a personality enters. Voters were warned about his narcissistic personality disorder, but then dismissed the pleas of a score of psychiatrists that he was unfit for office.
It’s an unregulated media stew. Media in the United States are private, serving up profits and shock-fare. Some, such as CNN and MSNBC ,are marginally better than others. But without a perspective and some practice in critical inquiry, the average American is at sea, and vulnerable to the worst lies and conspiracy notions. To think public opinion there is shaped by the likes of Joe Rogen and Tucker Carlson is to weep. And the ruin that is Robert F. Kennedy.
I’m trying to take some lessons from the awfulness of the American result for our upcoming elections. Mr Trump portrayed the “bad boy” of so much film fare, and he convinced many immature men/boys that the world was treating them badly, so they must strike out. He would lead the effort. Some leader.
We must strengthen media study and critical thinking at all stages in our schools. One Democrat I was with last night, a former teacher said, “Kids can learn critical thinking from age seven.”
We must teach what democracy and the rule of law means, in simple terms. Americans have a harder task with their cumbersome electoral college system that so privileges the individual states. And we have a federal office of conducting elections, operated by Elections Canada, which is above manipulation. A dark joke on election night went like this: “There will be lots of job openings in the next four years for those who can help with cult recovery.” How much damage to the human enterprise will be done before such a recovery is complete, no one knows.
Perhaps the most crucial thing we can do (sorry, Mr Poilievre) is to invest, in a hands-off way, in the CBC. And donate to Friends of Canadian Media as individuals.
At a meditation group I was in recently, it was posed, “What will you continue to do, no matter the result? And what will you take up anew?” I pledged to myself to maintain my efforts at educating Canadians, and I will increase my donations to Friends of Canadian Media. A Nova Scotian wrote recently, “In a nation this size, sparsely populated, there is no way we could have a national identity at all without the CBC.”
Trumpism may be short-lived for many reasons. The gentleman’s age and health for one. His possible incarceration. Buyers’ remorse for another, when it hits home in many negative ways what the voters have done.
I’ll join with others to expose and defeat trumpism on either side of the border.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner November 9, 2024 >LINK<
| Book titles by Rosemary Ganley include "Soundings," "Gleanings," "Positive Community" and "Jamaica Journal." Access the Yellow Dragonfly Press "Books" page >here< for purchasing information. |
A pleasant visit took place at the Canadian Embassy to the Holy See.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
November 2, 2024
"Ordain Women" Action, with Rosemary Ganley holding the "M"
The Roman Catholic world meeting, called the synod, concluded in Rome on October 30. It was historic in style, and it emphasized process, such as praying and listening and keeping secrets. Not a parliament by any stretch, but a month-long meeting of 368 selected persons, mostly churchmen of every level, enlivened by the participation of 70 women and one family.
I spent two weeks there, not a delegate by any means, but taking part in mild demonstrations for change, meeting other global activists (from 10 countries), and bearing witness for Canadian feminist Catholics and others.
One noisy and amusing demonstration took place on the morning the Women's Ordination Conference from the U.S. held a "Kick the Can Down the Street" action, in reference to the reality that the Vatican keeps moving contentious issues to a vague future time. One spokesperson, a Cardinal, explained that the women’s ordination issue came at an "inopportune" time. Since I‘ve been at this for 50 years, I decided to kick away at empty Campbell soup cans, and then held the "M" in the huge sign, "Ordain Women."
Another group held illicit ordinations of six women on a boat on the Tiber River. Then there was the unfurling of a beautiful fifty-foot quilt by Catholics for Choice of Washington, with touching quotes from 50 Catholic women who have had abortions. The quilt arrived in a hockey bag, so of course I helped carry it to the Via della Conciliazione, the broad avenue that runs down to St Peter's Basilica. All was under the watchful eye of the Italian carabinieri.
Then there was a women’s walk with fans declaring "Fan the Flames of Change," into Vatican Square, where we had been warned we might be detained. As I was making my moral decision to proceed or not, I was intercepted by a reporter from Der Spiegel, the influential German daily. I chose that. My companion, retired theology professor and longtime Europe hand, Susan Roll, delighted the reporter by speaking in German. Oh, to be multi-lingual.
A pleasant visit took place at the Canadian Embassy to the Holy See where we met the newly-installed ambassador Joyce Napier, former journalist (at CBC and CTV) and delightful person who, as it happens, is a fellow member of the Order of Canada with me (class of June, 2024, not yet inducted, but empowered to use the letters C.M. after our names).
We took to lunch one of my heroines, Marianne Duddy Burke, who heads DIGNITY U.S.A, the gay and lesbian alliance, which has helped groups of gay Catholics grow in 20 countries. We dined with former St Jerome’s College president, Michael Higgins, correspondent for the Globe and Mail, while launching his lively book on Pope Francis entitled "The Jesuit Disruptor."
We enjoyed meeting CBC Radio correspondent in Rome, Megan Williams, who taped nine minutes of our responses to good questions, and got it aired on "The World Tonight" on Sunday, October 6. Megan arrived at our guesthouse on her bike, which may be the best way to get around Rome.
Here's a word for activists of all kinds working for justice: your presence and small efforts mount up. Days after I got home on October 18, 100 of these voting delegates staged a walkout of sorts over the issue of women. That’s the topic of Study Group #5 of ten study groups. Its make-up is secret and nobody knows what its mandate is, but it must report by next spring. The walkout group, impressive in number, included all orders of the church, top to bottom. Answers were demanded.
Overall, women and others were disappointed at the lack of action in the 52-page final document.
Responding to last week’s column about my difficulty finding the Trevi Fountain, one witty reader reassured me that the Trevi Fountain is on wheels.
We will see. As for me, I‘m giving up church politics for Lent. But just Lent. And just the politics.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner November 2, 2024 >LINK<
I spent two weeks there, not a delegate by any means, but taking part in mild demonstrations for change, meeting other global activists (from 10 countries), and bearing witness for Canadian feminist Catholics and others.
One noisy and amusing demonstration took place on the morning the Women's Ordination Conference from the U.S. held a "Kick the Can Down the Street" action, in reference to the reality that the Vatican keeps moving contentious issues to a vague future time. One spokesperson, a Cardinal, explained that the women’s ordination issue came at an "inopportune" time. Since I‘ve been at this for 50 years, I decided to kick away at empty Campbell soup cans, and then held the "M" in the huge sign, "Ordain Women."
Another group held illicit ordinations of six women on a boat on the Tiber River. Then there was the unfurling of a beautiful fifty-foot quilt by Catholics for Choice of Washington, with touching quotes from 50 Catholic women who have had abortions. The quilt arrived in a hockey bag, so of course I helped carry it to the Via della Conciliazione, the broad avenue that runs down to St Peter's Basilica. All was under the watchful eye of the Italian carabinieri.
Then there was a women’s walk with fans declaring "Fan the Flames of Change," into Vatican Square, where we had been warned we might be detained. As I was making my moral decision to proceed or not, I was intercepted by a reporter from Der Spiegel, the influential German daily. I chose that. My companion, retired theology professor and longtime Europe hand, Susan Roll, delighted the reporter by speaking in German. Oh, to be multi-lingual.
A pleasant visit took place at the Canadian Embassy to the Holy See where we met the newly-installed ambassador Joyce Napier, former journalist (at CBC and CTV) and delightful person who, as it happens, is a fellow member of the Order of Canada with me (class of June, 2024, not yet inducted, but empowered to use the letters C.M. after our names).
We took to lunch one of my heroines, Marianne Duddy Burke, who heads DIGNITY U.S.A, the gay and lesbian alliance, which has helped groups of gay Catholics grow in 20 countries. We dined with former St Jerome’s College president, Michael Higgins, correspondent for the Globe and Mail, while launching his lively book on Pope Francis entitled "The Jesuit Disruptor."
We enjoyed meeting CBC Radio correspondent in Rome, Megan Williams, who taped nine minutes of our responses to good questions, and got it aired on "The World Tonight" on Sunday, October 6. Megan arrived at our guesthouse on her bike, which may be the best way to get around Rome.
Here's a word for activists of all kinds working for justice: your presence and small efforts mount up. Days after I got home on October 18, 100 of these voting delegates staged a walkout of sorts over the issue of women. That’s the topic of Study Group #5 of ten study groups. Its make-up is secret and nobody knows what its mandate is, but it must report by next spring. The walkout group, impressive in number, included all orders of the church, top to bottom. Answers were demanded.
Overall, women and others were disappointed at the lack of action in the 52-page final document.
Responding to last week’s column about my difficulty finding the Trevi Fountain, one witty reader reassured me that the Trevi Fountain is on wheels.
We will see. As for me, I‘m giving up church politics for Lent. But just Lent. And just the politics.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner November 2, 2024 >LINK<
| Book titles by Rosemary Ganley include "Soundings," "Gleanings," "Positive Community" and "Jamaica Journal." Access the Yellow Dragonfly Press "Books" page >here< for purchasing information. |
Columns
by
Rosemary Ganley
The
Peterborough Examiner
>link<
Rosemary Ganley
