Rosemary Ganley |
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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An honour shared with the grassroots people of Peterborough.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
July 13, 2024
When Emily Sauve, the Secretary to Governor General Mary Simon, called me a couple of weeks ago to tell me I had been admitted to the Order of Canada, I had deep emotions.
The first one was immense surprise. I am an ordinary person, a senior, a widow in my late 80's, not an athlete or academic or musician or scientist; but a former teacher with an international outlook who has been blessed by my country in many ways, this latest being the ultimate one.
The second feeling was gratitude. My accident of birth in a northern Ontario town, Kirkland Lake, in this splendid country, to a respected and progressive-thinking couple has been a major blessing. My parents, in their 30's when they met there, had to cope with the religious prejudices of their time - my Catholic relatives behaving the worst! That cured me of any future bias about groups.
I am happy to share this honour with grassroots people in Peterborough. In view of next summer’s celebration of the founding of Peterborough by 2,500 poor and illiterate Irish peasants in 1825, led by a colonial British functionary named Peter Robinson, I did some looking for my roots. They are Celtic on both sides, Scots Presbyterian and Irish Catholic.
But we Burnses and Hoggs arrived later than 1825. It was the 1840s, during the potato famine in Ireland, that my ancestors arrived and got through the sickness sheds at Grosse Isle in the St. Lawrence River, then to be given land in the Ottawa Valley to clear and farm.
The customs officers asked my illiterate ancestors how to pronounce their surname. Because the newcomers couldn’t spell, “Byrnes” became “Burns.” And so it stayed. I asked Mme Sauve to add that name to my “title.”
With joy, I have heard from former students at St. Peter’s and Crestwood, from Jamaican Self-Help participants, from Book Club and the Calendar Girls, from Friday Prayer Group, and the United Way and the YWCA.
Plus, Amnesty International Group 46. A beautiful note came in the mail from the Peterborough Symphony, one from Camp Kawartha, and a creative design from the Sisters of St. Joseph. The Catholic Network for Women’s Equality will do a zoom ritual. A nice message came from a national writer I had once taught at Lakefield College School, Konrad Yakabuski of the Globe and Mail.
I went to hear singer Kathleen Edwards at Market Hall and found that her father, former diplomat Len Edwards, a Saskatchewan boy, is to be inducted at the same time as me.
My young grandchildren are most interested that rock n’ roller Avril Lavigne is in my award “class.” At Fourth Line Theatre this week, managing creative director Kim Blackwell graciously gave me a shout-out before the wonderful performance of “Onion Skins and Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes.”
The dental hygienist was enthusiastic, the neighbours warm in acknowledgment. Kerry at Shoppers Drug Mart was aware. Paul Rellinger interviewed me on the radio. Joelle Kovach, who is a gift as a reporter to this city, did a big spread in the Examiner. Of course she is from Timmins.
The most enthusiastic of all were my American friends. They need something, anything, to cheer about these days. They maintain a fascination with all things monarchical and teased me about protocols and curtsies. They said, wryly, in reference to that dreadful Supreme Court ruling declaring Donald Trump above the law. The decision over which dissenting Justice Sonia Sotomayor wept, “Now we have a king, too.”
We are 83 Canadians named on our national day. The Order was established in 1967, and I join 8,300 others. I hope to live up more fully to its motto: “They desire a better country.” The date of investiture is yet to be announced, so I have time to learn “Good morning, ma’am” in Inuktitut.
But first, there is the Potluck for Activists over 80, at Alan and Linda Slavin’s. That will be a big crowd.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner July 13, 2024 >LINK<
The first one was immense surprise. I am an ordinary person, a senior, a widow in my late 80's, not an athlete or academic or musician or scientist; but a former teacher with an international outlook who has been blessed by my country in many ways, this latest being the ultimate one.
The second feeling was gratitude. My accident of birth in a northern Ontario town, Kirkland Lake, in this splendid country, to a respected and progressive-thinking couple has been a major blessing. My parents, in their 30's when they met there, had to cope with the religious prejudices of their time - my Catholic relatives behaving the worst! That cured me of any future bias about groups.
I am happy to share this honour with grassroots people in Peterborough. In view of next summer’s celebration of the founding of Peterborough by 2,500 poor and illiterate Irish peasants in 1825, led by a colonial British functionary named Peter Robinson, I did some looking for my roots. They are Celtic on both sides, Scots Presbyterian and Irish Catholic.
But we Burnses and Hoggs arrived later than 1825. It was the 1840s, during the potato famine in Ireland, that my ancestors arrived and got through the sickness sheds at Grosse Isle in the St. Lawrence River, then to be given land in the Ottawa Valley to clear and farm.
The customs officers asked my illiterate ancestors how to pronounce their surname. Because the newcomers couldn’t spell, “Byrnes” became “Burns.” And so it stayed. I asked Mme Sauve to add that name to my “title.”
With joy, I have heard from former students at St. Peter’s and Crestwood, from Jamaican Self-Help participants, from Book Club and the Calendar Girls, from Friday Prayer Group, and the United Way and the YWCA.
Plus, Amnesty International Group 46. A beautiful note came in the mail from the Peterborough Symphony, one from Camp Kawartha, and a creative design from the Sisters of St. Joseph. The Catholic Network for Women’s Equality will do a zoom ritual. A nice message came from a national writer I had once taught at Lakefield College School, Konrad Yakabuski of the Globe and Mail.
I went to hear singer Kathleen Edwards at Market Hall and found that her father, former diplomat Len Edwards, a Saskatchewan boy, is to be inducted at the same time as me.
My young grandchildren are most interested that rock n’ roller Avril Lavigne is in my award “class.” At Fourth Line Theatre this week, managing creative director Kim Blackwell graciously gave me a shout-out before the wonderful performance of “Onion Skins and Peach Fuzz: The Farmerettes.”
The dental hygienist was enthusiastic, the neighbours warm in acknowledgment. Kerry at Shoppers Drug Mart was aware. Paul Rellinger interviewed me on the radio. Joelle Kovach, who is a gift as a reporter to this city, did a big spread in the Examiner. Of course she is from Timmins.
The most enthusiastic of all were my American friends. They need something, anything, to cheer about these days. They maintain a fascination with all things monarchical and teased me about protocols and curtsies. They said, wryly, in reference to that dreadful Supreme Court ruling declaring Donald Trump above the law. The decision over which dissenting Justice Sonia Sotomayor wept, “Now we have a king, too.”
We are 83 Canadians named on our national day. The Order was established in 1967, and I join 8,300 others. I hope to live up more fully to its motto: “They desire a better country.” The date of investiture is yet to be announced, so I have time to learn “Good morning, ma’am” in Inuktitut.
But first, there is the Potluck for Activists over 80, at Alan and Linda Slavin’s. That will be a big crowd.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner July 13, 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 ritual has a historic moral power that bears thinking about.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
July 6, 2024
The University of Alberta, Edmonton is set in a huge, sprawling campus with 40,000 students. It also has a sense of humour. The huge dominating structure that is the gymnasium is painted bright yellow. So of course, it is universally known as the “Butterdome.”
When the time came for my eldest grandson to graduate in engineering from U of A, I couldn’t get a ticket for the lengthy ceremony, they were in such high demand. But the second choice, a week later, turned out to be a fascinating and happy one. It was the initiation ceremony welcoming about 50 new engineers, a ceremony conducted by a voluntary group of engineers in this area, which turned out to be a solemn commitment in word and symbol, to ethics and responsibility.
Entitled “The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer”, (colloquially known as the “iron ring” ceremony), it is an entirely Canadian initiative started by six engineers in Montreal in 1925. Prof H.E.T. Haultain of the University of Toronto had the original idea that new engineers should have an oath or creed, something along the lines of the Hippocratic oath in medicine. He called on the English poet, Rudyard Kipling, who knew Canada well, having travelled across the country on the engineering feat of its time, the CPR Railway, to help design a suitable service.
For more than 100 years, in locations across the country usually close to universities with engineering departments, iron ring ceremonies have involved 550,000 engineers. This one last week in Alberta took place on the eighth floor of an engineering building in Edmonton with wraparound windows looking out on green vistas down toward the river valley.
In an effort to grasp this campus, which is vastly larger but not as picturesque as Trent, I learned the name of the building we’re headed for, called “DICE”. That’s for the “Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering”.
The hour-long ceremony was very moving. It contains a realistic pledge. As my Peterborough friend Rod Williamson, recalling his own iron ring reception said, he has never forgotten the humility of Kipling’s reference to “the natural perversity of inanimate objects”, reminding the engineer that the materials and design with which they work demand respect.
Kipling also wrote of the iron ring, which is placed on the little finger of the working hand: “It is not smoothed off at the edges; it is hand- hammered all around. It has neither beginning nor end, and will cut into a gold ring if worn next to it, thus showing that one had better keep one’s money-getting quite separate. It has been instituted with the simple end of directing the new engineer toward a consciousness of his profession and its significance”.
The groups of volunteers who host iron ring ceremonies are known as “camps”. There are 28 such camps in Canada. The ritual was conducted by an engineer in a kilt, backed up by seven “obligated” engineers, who are called wardens.
It had an almost liturgical feel to it. The program asked that guests refrain from applause or picture-taking. It stressed that engineers have an obligation to the common good, and repeated the phrase, “Your equals or your betters” to describe the desired attitudes toward others.
It was with more humour that afterwards, many photos were taken of newly minted engineers in front of the emblem of the U of A’s department of engineering: a beaver chomping on a tree.
Entirely optional for new graduates and not necessary for practising one’s profession as an engineer, the iron ring ritual nonetheless has a historic moral power that bears thinking about.
One comes away with the feeling that every trade and profession and occupation today might do well to institute a similar end-of- studies promise- taking.
I myself will think of it with confidence when crossing a bridge or taking an elevator.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner July 6, 2024 >LINK<
When the time came for my eldest grandson to graduate in engineering from U of A, I couldn’t get a ticket for the lengthy ceremony, they were in such high demand. But the second choice, a week later, turned out to be a fascinating and happy one. It was the initiation ceremony welcoming about 50 new engineers, a ceremony conducted by a voluntary group of engineers in this area, which turned out to be a solemn commitment in word and symbol, to ethics and responsibility.
Entitled “The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer”, (colloquially known as the “iron ring” ceremony), it is an entirely Canadian initiative started by six engineers in Montreal in 1925. Prof H.E.T. Haultain of the University of Toronto had the original idea that new engineers should have an oath or creed, something along the lines of the Hippocratic oath in medicine. He called on the English poet, Rudyard Kipling, who knew Canada well, having travelled across the country on the engineering feat of its time, the CPR Railway, to help design a suitable service.
For more than 100 years, in locations across the country usually close to universities with engineering departments, iron ring ceremonies have involved 550,000 engineers. This one last week in Alberta took place on the eighth floor of an engineering building in Edmonton with wraparound windows looking out on green vistas down toward the river valley.
In an effort to grasp this campus, which is vastly larger but not as picturesque as Trent, I learned the name of the building we’re headed for, called “DICE”. That’s for the “Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering”.
The hour-long ceremony was very moving. It contains a realistic pledge. As my Peterborough friend Rod Williamson, recalling his own iron ring reception said, he has never forgotten the humility of Kipling’s reference to “the natural perversity of inanimate objects”, reminding the engineer that the materials and design with which they work demand respect.
Kipling also wrote of the iron ring, which is placed on the little finger of the working hand: “It is not smoothed off at the edges; it is hand- hammered all around. It has neither beginning nor end, and will cut into a gold ring if worn next to it, thus showing that one had better keep one’s money-getting quite separate. It has been instituted with the simple end of directing the new engineer toward a consciousness of his profession and its significance”.
The groups of volunteers who host iron ring ceremonies are known as “camps”. There are 28 such camps in Canada. The ritual was conducted by an engineer in a kilt, backed up by seven “obligated” engineers, who are called wardens.
It had an almost liturgical feel to it. The program asked that guests refrain from applause or picture-taking. It stressed that engineers have an obligation to the common good, and repeated the phrase, “Your equals or your betters” to describe the desired attitudes toward others.
It was with more humour that afterwards, many photos were taken of newly minted engineers in front of the emblem of the U of A’s department of engineering: a beaver chomping on a tree.
Entirely optional for new graduates and not necessary for practising one’s profession as an engineer, the iron ring ritual nonetheless has a historic moral power that bears thinking about.
One comes away with the feeling that every trade and profession and occupation today might do well to institute a similar end-of- studies promise- taking.
I myself will think of it with confidence when crossing a bridge or taking an elevator.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner July 6, 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 speed event was accepted into the Olympics in 2020.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
June 29, 2024
I like and applaud sports of all kinds, and I plan to spend many hours this summer admiring the skill and prowess of humans exerting themselves, for glory and for their country, at the Summer Olympics in Paris.
It was with genuine interest that I encountered a pleasant 15-year-old girl from the neighbourhood, at our Manning Avenue potluck party.
Elaina Todd has just finished Grade 9 at Adam Scott Collegiate and she loves, and is good at, the sport of climbing. She is considered, after three years at the sport, to be a national-calibre athlete.
She trains locally at Wayne Smith’s Peterborough facility, Rock and Rope, on Perry Street. Smith himself, originally from Barbados, is an accomplished competitive climber. Additionally, Elaina goes to Scarborough twice a week to Team Boulder Parc for practice with coach Mark Chapman, who also stresses nutrition, fitness and mental strength.
Elaina won the top overall female athlete for Ontario in the three domains of climbing: Speed, Boulder and Lead. I watched a video of her scampering up a wall, from one handhold and foothold to another, with agility, strength and quick decision-making. She has accumulated nine medals at various events, including at provincial-level competitions, where one event has a fixed route on a 15-metre wall set at a 95-degree angle.
The word podium, once a noun, is now also a verb. To “podium” is the desired goal. Elaina finds climbing to be calming, and she enjoys the aspect of figuring out the puzzle.
She has made many friends and plans to continue in the sport. Her parents, Kent Todd of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Chantal Bouillon of the PVNC school board, are outdoor enthusiasts themselves, and they carpool with another local family to support Elaina’s passion and progress in her training. She tells me that the rigors of her sport cause her fatigue and some stress on the fingers and wrists. But she bounces back.
Climbing, both ancient and new, had its origins in people who survived the mountainous areas of the world, and then in military actions, such as the one on the Plains of Abraham by General Wolfe’s soldiers in 1759, scaling cliffs.
The sport is managed by the national body Climbing Escalade Canada. At the provincial level is the Ontario Climbing Federation. As with other sports, especially new ones, finances are a challenge for individuals, families and clubs. As the sport expands, it is hoped that both government and public support will grow.
The speed event was accepted into the Olympics in 2020, partly because that venerable institution was looking to add new sports that attract young people.
I called in at Rock and Rope to chat with two friendly staff, and watch a varied group of climbers, all young and both genders, put chalk on their hands and approach a wall about five metres in height, place both hands and one foot on the wall in front of them, and reach for the handholds of a designated colour inserted in the wall.
Then the effort starts to climb up a pre-set route to the top to press a button. If climbers slip and tumble back, and all did, their landing is cushioned by a thick mat. The floor is completely covered by a thick and forgiving cushion. The climbers wear any type of casual clothing. Special climbing shoes are necessary, lightweight and flexible.
“I have improved my upper body strength,” a young woman told me.
We humans are naturally climbers, as witness even a toddler striving to go “up.” The Olympic motto is “Higher, Faster, Stronger.” One can see where this new sport fits right in. I will look for it in the Olympic schedule this summer and I hope Elaina Todd continues to find joy in it.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner June 29, 2024 >LINK<
It was with genuine interest that I encountered a pleasant 15-year-old girl from the neighbourhood, at our Manning Avenue potluck party.
Elaina Todd has just finished Grade 9 at Adam Scott Collegiate and she loves, and is good at, the sport of climbing. She is considered, after three years at the sport, to be a national-calibre athlete.
She trains locally at Wayne Smith’s Peterborough facility, Rock and Rope, on Perry Street. Smith himself, originally from Barbados, is an accomplished competitive climber. Additionally, Elaina goes to Scarborough twice a week to Team Boulder Parc for practice with coach Mark Chapman, who also stresses nutrition, fitness and mental strength.
Elaina won the top overall female athlete for Ontario in the three domains of climbing: Speed, Boulder and Lead. I watched a video of her scampering up a wall, from one handhold and foothold to another, with agility, strength and quick decision-making. She has accumulated nine medals at various events, including at provincial-level competitions, where one event has a fixed route on a 15-metre wall set at a 95-degree angle.
The word podium, once a noun, is now also a verb. To “podium” is the desired goal. Elaina finds climbing to be calming, and she enjoys the aspect of figuring out the puzzle.
She has made many friends and plans to continue in the sport. Her parents, Kent Todd of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Chantal Bouillon of the PVNC school board, are outdoor enthusiasts themselves, and they carpool with another local family to support Elaina’s passion and progress in her training. She tells me that the rigors of her sport cause her fatigue and some stress on the fingers and wrists. But she bounces back.
Climbing, both ancient and new, had its origins in people who survived the mountainous areas of the world, and then in military actions, such as the one on the Plains of Abraham by General Wolfe’s soldiers in 1759, scaling cliffs.
The sport is managed by the national body Climbing Escalade Canada. At the provincial level is the Ontario Climbing Federation. As with other sports, especially new ones, finances are a challenge for individuals, families and clubs. As the sport expands, it is hoped that both government and public support will grow.
The speed event was accepted into the Olympics in 2020, partly because that venerable institution was looking to add new sports that attract young people.
I called in at Rock and Rope to chat with two friendly staff, and watch a varied group of climbers, all young and both genders, put chalk on their hands and approach a wall about five metres in height, place both hands and one foot on the wall in front of them, and reach for the handholds of a designated colour inserted in the wall.
Then the effort starts to climb up a pre-set route to the top to press a button. If climbers slip and tumble back, and all did, their landing is cushioned by a thick mat. The floor is completely covered by a thick and forgiving cushion. The climbers wear any type of casual clothing. Special climbing shoes are necessary, lightweight and flexible.
“I have improved my upper body strength,” a young woman told me.
We humans are naturally climbers, as witness even a toddler striving to go “up.” The Olympic motto is “Higher, Faster, Stronger.” One can see where this new sport fits right in. I will look for it in the Olympic schedule this summer and I hope Elaina Todd continues to find joy in it.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner June 29, 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. |
Event is a fundraiser for capital equipment for cancer care at the local hospital.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
June 22, 2024
At the 23rd Dragon Boat Festival on Little Lake held June 8, I was astonished at the number of supporters, and the scale of the regatta, with 69 boats racing in heats of four, while a safety boat followed.
I was impressed by the race times, which ranged from 1:12 to two minutes, over a distance of 250 metres, all in windy conditions. I was also touched by the camaraderie and the quiet reflection.
It is a unique community event — a fundraiser for capital equipment for cancer care at the local hospital. A friendly announcer moved the schedule along briskly, marshalling the teams, women and men, in matching T-shirts, pink being predominant. The boats loaded up at the T-wharf and paddled down the lake to the start line.
The races were enthusiastically applauded by fans along the shore and in the grandstand. Six boats with 20 survivors of breast cancer in each drew cheers. There followed a meditative moment of remembrance for people who have died of the disease. Carnations waved in the sunlight.
People in homes along Crescent Street displayed welcome signs for the event. I saw dogs outfitted in pink and toddlers in strollers. There were bikes, tents and gazebos, food and drink, and information. Even a beer garden.
Chair Michelle Thornton said that the online donations were spectacular. The festival raised $262,000 for the PRHC Foundation.
The team names were witty: I noticed “Heat Strokes” and “Dragon our Tail.” The police department boat included the chief himself. The firefighters’ boat was “Fireflies.” References to chests figured largely in team names.
Paddlers were led to the dock, just as in the Olympics, by a sign bearer and a lot of laughter.
Office or warehouse or company morale must rise several notches, as 20 employees from each part of a company get to know each other and spend a Saturday this way. Each team has one practice in the days before the event. Some teams do their flexing exercises on the spot, before clambering into a boat, all life-jacketed. Each boat has a rhythm-keeper with a drum, and a steersperson with a long oar. They skillfully bring the heavy boats alongside the dock for an exchange of paddlers.
It has a sorrowful side, of course. Everyone has been touched in some way by breast cancer. One woman said to me, “I have four friends at this very moment in various stages of treatment.”
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, two in five Canadians can expect to be diagnosed with cancer. In Peterborough, the host team, "Survivors Abreast" started 25 years ago, after the idea had been developed in Vancouver by a physician Don McKenzie.
I couldn’t help but think of my own harrowing experience with fear of that diagnosis. The year was 1979, and we had just arrived in the coastal capital of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam.
We had not had a chance to make friends. But when I needed an examination for a suspicious lump, the nurse at the Canadian High Commission led me to a pleasant physician, whom I recognized from church. He examined me in the broom closet of the city’s hospital, the Muhimbili (renamed in a post-colonial move from its former name, the Princess Margaret Hospital).
He said, “That needs to come out. I’ll see you here next Tuesday.” Seeing my stricken face, he added, “We have our first Tanzanian pathologist now.”
After two days in the hospital under mosquito netting, my new British friends having brought me food, water and bedsheets — and having baked a birthday cake for my 11-year-old — our relief was palpable.
That lump turned out to be benign. But it was the beginning of an awareness of the toll this illness takes, and the ways in which women’s leadership is making a positive difference for us all.
May each person going through anything similar have a similar outcome as mine. Survivors will support them while they do.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner June 22, 2024 >LINK<
I was impressed by the race times, which ranged from 1:12 to two minutes, over a distance of 250 metres, all in windy conditions. I was also touched by the camaraderie and the quiet reflection.
It is a unique community event — a fundraiser for capital equipment for cancer care at the local hospital. A friendly announcer moved the schedule along briskly, marshalling the teams, women and men, in matching T-shirts, pink being predominant. The boats loaded up at the T-wharf and paddled down the lake to the start line.
The races were enthusiastically applauded by fans along the shore and in the grandstand. Six boats with 20 survivors of breast cancer in each drew cheers. There followed a meditative moment of remembrance for people who have died of the disease. Carnations waved in the sunlight.
People in homes along Crescent Street displayed welcome signs for the event. I saw dogs outfitted in pink and toddlers in strollers. There were bikes, tents and gazebos, food and drink, and information. Even a beer garden.
Chair Michelle Thornton said that the online donations were spectacular. The festival raised $262,000 for the PRHC Foundation.
The team names were witty: I noticed “Heat Strokes” and “Dragon our Tail.” The police department boat included the chief himself. The firefighters’ boat was “Fireflies.” References to chests figured largely in team names.
Paddlers were led to the dock, just as in the Olympics, by a sign bearer and a lot of laughter.
Office or warehouse or company morale must rise several notches, as 20 employees from each part of a company get to know each other and spend a Saturday this way. Each team has one practice in the days before the event. Some teams do their flexing exercises on the spot, before clambering into a boat, all life-jacketed. Each boat has a rhythm-keeper with a drum, and a steersperson with a long oar. They skillfully bring the heavy boats alongside the dock for an exchange of paddlers.
It has a sorrowful side, of course. Everyone has been touched in some way by breast cancer. One woman said to me, “I have four friends at this very moment in various stages of treatment.”
According to the Canadian Cancer Society, two in five Canadians can expect to be diagnosed with cancer. In Peterborough, the host team, "Survivors Abreast" started 25 years ago, after the idea had been developed in Vancouver by a physician Don McKenzie.
I couldn’t help but think of my own harrowing experience with fear of that diagnosis. The year was 1979, and we had just arrived in the coastal capital of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam.
We had not had a chance to make friends. But when I needed an examination for a suspicious lump, the nurse at the Canadian High Commission led me to a pleasant physician, whom I recognized from church. He examined me in the broom closet of the city’s hospital, the Muhimbili (renamed in a post-colonial move from its former name, the Princess Margaret Hospital).
He said, “That needs to come out. I’ll see you here next Tuesday.” Seeing my stricken face, he added, “We have our first Tanzanian pathologist now.”
After two days in the hospital under mosquito netting, my new British friends having brought me food, water and bedsheets — and having baked a birthday cake for my 11-year-old — our relief was palpable.
That lump turned out to be benign. But it was the beginning of an awareness of the toll this illness takes, and the ways in which women’s leadership is making a positive difference for us all.
May each person going through anything similar have a similar outcome as mine. Survivors will support them while they do.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner June 22, 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. | |
Women have a strong sense of social responsibility and a desire to support their community.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
June 6, 2024
I first grasped the concept of women donating to each other’s causes back in 1995. A group of local women, led by the visionary Linda Slavin, announced that Peterborough had to have representation at the U.N. Conference on Women in Beijing, China. The group supported five of us.
There, I was among 30,000 women from every country who had come for 10 days to meet each other in huge theme tents and see what we had in common.
Turned out it was a lot. We all lived in societies that were ruled by men, some worse than others, some criminally so. I vividly remember women from the global south speaking over and over of the deprivation and misogyny they endured in a heavily patriarchal world.
“What most do you need?” several voices asked. “Money, and access to publishing,” they replied. Then Helen La Kelly Hunt, scion of a very rich Texas oil company — a burgeoning feminist and a conscientious Southern Baptist — stood to pledge millions of dollars to several southern networks. It was my introduction to women with social awareness, choosing to donate money independently to causes where it would be effectively used to uplift women and children.
Consider the recent announcement from Melinda French Gates, that she would donate almost her entire fortune — $150 billion — to women’s causes both in the U.S. and worldwide, among which are reproductive and sexual health organizations. She gets it. As my grandchildren would say, “she’s real.”
But to leave the superwealthy and look at Canada in general, as education becomes equal, so do employment opportunities in most fields. Women are earning more money, although statistics say they still earn 75 percent of what men do for the same job.
Since 2012, the Toronto Dominion Bank has studied the phenomenon of women and giving. Their latest report, called "Trust and Transformation," was done in 2023. It runs to 35 pages, with a lot of smiling and diverse faces, and it has some very interesting facts.
Researchers did 60 one-on-one interviews with diverse women: employees, volunteers, CEO's and directors, from across the country. My friend Jamie Rowe, who is a financial adviser at TD, got me a copy of the report.
What it found is that women have a strong sense of social responsibility and a desire to support their community. Some respond to spontaneous desires. Others are planned. An experience of hardship in childhood motivates some. Some act out of gratitude for their well-being in this country. Still others appreciate seeing visible outcomes. There is an increasing desire to give internationally. Not one interviewee mentioned tax benefits or public recognition.
In 2020, Canadian women reported total net income of $632 billion, an annual increase of 4.4 percent. Women make up 21 percent of boards now, and 25 percent of executive offices. There are 86,000 charities in the country. Two out of three people working in this sector are women. Women make up 44 percent of volunteers.
I’m a senior, on a fixed but livable income, thanks to my union and CPP. I give to several local, national, and international groups, modest amounts, but regular and monthly. I study the organizations to learn the percentages they spend on administration, versus the proportion for services. In Jamaican Self-Help days, the board kept the administration portion at 15 percent.
The United Way of Peterborough has wisely brought some attention to this research on giving with the inauguration of Women United, led by volunteer chair Maryam Monsef, and staffed vigorously by United Way. Women United was launched with a sold-out gala on May 30, at which 20 “Women of Impact” were celebrated. I noticed that they were on the younger side. But not to be forgotten is the philanthropic spirit among Peterborough women that has long been nurtured. Twenty years ago, 18 women raised $200,000 for flood relief, led by Mayor Sylvia Sutherland, with their “notorious” calendar.
May we grow the spirit of giving among us.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner June 6, 2024 >LINK<
There, I was among 30,000 women from every country who had come for 10 days to meet each other in huge theme tents and see what we had in common.
Turned out it was a lot. We all lived in societies that were ruled by men, some worse than others, some criminally so. I vividly remember women from the global south speaking over and over of the deprivation and misogyny they endured in a heavily patriarchal world.
“What most do you need?” several voices asked. “Money, and access to publishing,” they replied. Then Helen La Kelly Hunt, scion of a very rich Texas oil company — a burgeoning feminist and a conscientious Southern Baptist — stood to pledge millions of dollars to several southern networks. It was my introduction to women with social awareness, choosing to donate money independently to causes where it would be effectively used to uplift women and children.
Consider the recent announcement from Melinda French Gates, that she would donate almost her entire fortune — $150 billion — to women’s causes both in the U.S. and worldwide, among which are reproductive and sexual health organizations. She gets it. As my grandchildren would say, “she’s real.”
But to leave the superwealthy and look at Canada in general, as education becomes equal, so do employment opportunities in most fields. Women are earning more money, although statistics say they still earn 75 percent of what men do for the same job.
Since 2012, the Toronto Dominion Bank has studied the phenomenon of women and giving. Their latest report, called "Trust and Transformation," was done in 2023. It runs to 35 pages, with a lot of smiling and diverse faces, and it has some very interesting facts.
Researchers did 60 one-on-one interviews with diverse women: employees, volunteers, CEO's and directors, from across the country. My friend Jamie Rowe, who is a financial adviser at TD, got me a copy of the report.
What it found is that women have a strong sense of social responsibility and a desire to support their community. Some respond to spontaneous desires. Others are planned. An experience of hardship in childhood motivates some. Some act out of gratitude for their well-being in this country. Still others appreciate seeing visible outcomes. There is an increasing desire to give internationally. Not one interviewee mentioned tax benefits or public recognition.
In 2020, Canadian women reported total net income of $632 billion, an annual increase of 4.4 percent. Women make up 21 percent of boards now, and 25 percent of executive offices. There are 86,000 charities in the country. Two out of three people working in this sector are women. Women make up 44 percent of volunteers.
I’m a senior, on a fixed but livable income, thanks to my union and CPP. I give to several local, national, and international groups, modest amounts, but regular and monthly. I study the organizations to learn the percentages they spend on administration, versus the proportion for services. In Jamaican Self-Help days, the board kept the administration portion at 15 percent.
The United Way of Peterborough has wisely brought some attention to this research on giving with the inauguration of Women United, led by volunteer chair Maryam Monsef, and staffed vigorously by United Way. Women United was launched with a sold-out gala on May 30, at which 20 “Women of Impact” were celebrated. I noticed that they were on the younger side. But not to be forgotten is the philanthropic spirit among Peterborough women that has long been nurtured. Twenty years ago, 18 women raised $200,000 for flood relief, led by Mayor Sylvia Sutherland, with their “notorious” calendar.
May we grow the spirit of giving among us.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner June 6, 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 collection, the construction, and the rightness of the site have come together after 13 arduous years.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
May 30, 2024
I waited six days to visit this site, after its official opening on Saturday, May 11. My anticipation was growing.
I read the Globe and Mail architecture critic’s rave review. It seems on the way to becoming an impressive national icon already, marking just what we need to celebrate at this moment: three cultures that connected in creation over hundreds of years, now being honored just at the right consequential moment, in 2024.
The signage is in three languages, beginning with First Nations. Jiimaan Kinomaagewin, The Canadian Canoe Museum, le Musee Canadien du Canot, is its full title.
The collection, the construction, and the rightness of the site have come together after 13 arduous years. It is a phenomenon giving glory to our past, right here in Peterborough - tasteful, spacious, and peaceful, and honest in its storytelling. Walking through and around becomes a spiritual experience.
Looking up frequently, seeing some of the canoes above, and looking at the walls covered in huge photos of the waters and the landscapes where the watercraft were designed, built and paddled, gives new meaning to the word “immersion.”
The founders, architects, interior designers, board and staff have had a vision, and no doubt have learned from the mistakes of other museums. This one has not too much print to read, not too much video to watch, or script to listen to. But those it has are golden. Olympic Gold Medalist kayaker Adam van Koeverden said, “This is the best vehicle I’ve ever spent time in.”
In size, the museum is 65,000 square feet over two storeys. Its display area on the second level, in a space of 20,000 square feet, shows about 100 canoes at any one time. The other 600 in the collection, are carefully stored in a space on the ground floor on open shelves.
On the first floor is a welcoming entrance, and to the right is a shoppe of books, clothing and artifacts linked to the canoe. To the center and left, the goodies of the popular Silver Bean Café are offered. It has access to an outdoor terrace. Also on the first floor is a canoe-building workshop entitled the Living Traditions Centre, where curator Jeremy Ward will teach and work his magic.
I was charmed by the storytelling infused in the exhibits. The fur trade, upon which Canada was built, was enabled by the canoe. The international presence of the exhibits begins with dugouts from Africa, then from Asia, followed by those developed in Canada’s north. I salute the global consciousness this demonstrates, and the possibility it suggests for interconnectedness.
The sad story of the loss of 12 boys and a teacher in 1978 in a sudden storm on Lake Temiskaming in northern Ontario, is told by a survivor who urges society to keep planning canoe trips for the sake of the benefits they offer. One of the four canoes, the Pere Lalemant, is exhibited.
The docks are to marvel at - wide, straight and accessible. Nearby is a building to house rentals, storage, and classes. My two-hour visit was capped off by a short paddle in a canoe at the invitation of friend Michael Van der Herberg, who had brought his family of four across Little Lake from the Art Gallery of Peterborough.
From that water vantage point, I saw the subtlety of the museum. It is next to Beavermead Park, but not so gigantic that it dwarfs the natural landscape. I then bought a single senior membership for $65, which will permit me unlimited visits for one year.
In 2013, the Senate of Canada declared the future Canoe Museum and its collection of canoes “a cultural asset of national significance.” The work of the board and its staff since then, especially director Carolyn Hyslop and chair Kevin Malone, has resulted in a creation that will make the senate and the people of Canada happy, proud and more fully educated about our history, as it has been shaped by this silent, graceful boat.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner May 30, 2024 >LINK<
I read the Globe and Mail architecture critic’s rave review. It seems on the way to becoming an impressive national icon already, marking just what we need to celebrate at this moment: three cultures that connected in creation over hundreds of years, now being honored just at the right consequential moment, in 2024.
The signage is in three languages, beginning with First Nations. Jiimaan Kinomaagewin, The Canadian Canoe Museum, le Musee Canadien du Canot, is its full title.
The collection, the construction, and the rightness of the site have come together after 13 arduous years. It is a phenomenon giving glory to our past, right here in Peterborough - tasteful, spacious, and peaceful, and honest in its storytelling. Walking through and around becomes a spiritual experience.
Looking up frequently, seeing some of the canoes above, and looking at the walls covered in huge photos of the waters and the landscapes where the watercraft were designed, built and paddled, gives new meaning to the word “immersion.”
The founders, architects, interior designers, board and staff have had a vision, and no doubt have learned from the mistakes of other museums. This one has not too much print to read, not too much video to watch, or script to listen to. But those it has are golden. Olympic Gold Medalist kayaker Adam van Koeverden said, “This is the best vehicle I’ve ever spent time in.”
In size, the museum is 65,000 square feet over two storeys. Its display area on the second level, in a space of 20,000 square feet, shows about 100 canoes at any one time. The other 600 in the collection, are carefully stored in a space on the ground floor on open shelves.
On the first floor is a welcoming entrance, and to the right is a shoppe of books, clothing and artifacts linked to the canoe. To the center and left, the goodies of the popular Silver Bean Café are offered. It has access to an outdoor terrace. Also on the first floor is a canoe-building workshop entitled the Living Traditions Centre, where curator Jeremy Ward will teach and work his magic.
I was charmed by the storytelling infused in the exhibits. The fur trade, upon which Canada was built, was enabled by the canoe. The international presence of the exhibits begins with dugouts from Africa, then from Asia, followed by those developed in Canada’s north. I salute the global consciousness this demonstrates, and the possibility it suggests for interconnectedness.
The sad story of the loss of 12 boys and a teacher in 1978 in a sudden storm on Lake Temiskaming in northern Ontario, is told by a survivor who urges society to keep planning canoe trips for the sake of the benefits they offer. One of the four canoes, the Pere Lalemant, is exhibited.
The docks are to marvel at - wide, straight and accessible. Nearby is a building to house rentals, storage, and classes. My two-hour visit was capped off by a short paddle in a canoe at the invitation of friend Michael Van der Herberg, who had brought his family of four across Little Lake from the Art Gallery of Peterborough.
From that water vantage point, I saw the subtlety of the museum. It is next to Beavermead Park, but not so gigantic that it dwarfs the natural landscape. I then bought a single senior membership for $65, which will permit me unlimited visits for one year.
In 2013, the Senate of Canada declared the future Canoe Museum and its collection of canoes “a cultural asset of national significance.” The work of the board and its staff since then, especially director Carolyn Hyslop and chair Kevin Malone, has resulted in a creation that will make the senate and the people of Canada happy, proud and more fully educated about our history, as it has been shaped by this silent, graceful boat.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner May 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. |
Having a secure home, even if modest, is crucial to personal progress.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
May 26, 2024
The late great Canadian Quaker scientist, Ursula Franklin, once said this society is criss-crossed, up and down, east to west, with voluntary groups of all kinds and sizes, who are up and doing good for others. That is our greatness, our effectiveness, said she.
Visiting various yard sales in Peterborough these days — 'tis the season for them — one sees the truth of that remark. Last weekend, Amnesty International had its yard sale. The most popular items were the plants, nurtured by Tina Dyck on Cameron Street.
I also spent time at the sale, part of the East City network of sales, at 385 Lansdowne St., getting familiar with the prodigious effort of the three-year-old group of veteran social activists, Peterborough Action for Tiny Homes — PATH.
Its vision is large, but its style is humble. “We are just one of several efforts to confront homelessness,” said Margaret Slavin, who is one of those Quakers who Ursula Franklin must have been speaking of.
Its earnings on the day came to $1,400. What can be more down-to-earth and committed than a yard sale for a cause? It is labour intensive. One starts by asking the public for gently used goods. I remember the early days of Jamaican Self-Help, after the deadly hurricane of 1988 that levelled the country. Our open front porch was filled to overflowing with bags and boxes of donated items.
Then there is the sorting, the pricing, the setting out, the hoping for good weather, and the conducting of pleasant interactions with customers while explaining the cause for which it all is being done. After that, the taking down, re-boxing, dealing with the rubbish, and finding another cause to take your leftovers.
One of our most pressing needs is housing, especially affordable housing. Having a secure home, even if modest, is crucial to personal progress. “You have to be able to lock your things up,” a homeless man told me. It is the first step in rehabilitating lives.
Understanding this, a small group began to meet three years ago. The group included Fr. Leo Coughlin, Trish Campbell, Margaret Slavin, Margie Sumadh, Sue Gontier, Dave and Joanne Sumner, and Sheila Howlett, all smart, hardworking, and socially conscious, middle-class citizens. They learned about the sleeping cabin concept as a first step. Grace United Church funded and built the first “tiny home” to be displayed, which garnered public attention and support when demonstrated on the lawn of Emmanuel United Church and at other locations.
It was consciousness-raising for Peterborough. The structure has just a bed, electricity, a window, and a door that can be locked. It has no water, kitchenette, or bathroom. “A campground,” says Slavin. But it provides the desperate with safety and privacy. The group began to look for land for its project.
One of the aspects of this grassroots effort, which is to be celebrated, is the level of co-operation among like-minded organizations and groups. Habitat for Humanity PKR came forward to say it was acquiring the former Humane Society property on Lansdowne Street and would be willing to rent the building and land for three years to PATH. Elizabeth Fry Society provides receipts for donations.
The land question for PATH has led to city hall. Slow, arduous negotiations to change the zoning of 385 Lansdowne Street East from commercial to residential, so that the tiny homes can be built and occupied, are ongoing. Keith Dalton, another volunteer with many skills, came forward to design the setting for 24 cabins. Fire inspectors called for eight-foot spaces between cabins, not five.
Essential services, such as cooking, laundry and bathing, will be available in the main building. Donations of goods pour in. Holiday Inn has donated bags of linen. There is a knowledge developing that everyone can help in some way.
Although PATH cannot afford paid staff at this point, I could sense no sign of volunteer burnout. May it flourish.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner May 26, 2024 >LINK<
Visiting various yard sales in Peterborough these days — 'tis the season for them — one sees the truth of that remark. Last weekend, Amnesty International had its yard sale. The most popular items were the plants, nurtured by Tina Dyck on Cameron Street.
I also spent time at the sale, part of the East City network of sales, at 385 Lansdowne St., getting familiar with the prodigious effort of the three-year-old group of veteran social activists, Peterborough Action for Tiny Homes — PATH.
Its vision is large, but its style is humble. “We are just one of several efforts to confront homelessness,” said Margaret Slavin, who is one of those Quakers who Ursula Franklin must have been speaking of.
Its earnings on the day came to $1,400. What can be more down-to-earth and committed than a yard sale for a cause? It is labour intensive. One starts by asking the public for gently used goods. I remember the early days of Jamaican Self-Help, after the deadly hurricane of 1988 that levelled the country. Our open front porch was filled to overflowing with bags and boxes of donated items.
Then there is the sorting, the pricing, the setting out, the hoping for good weather, and the conducting of pleasant interactions with customers while explaining the cause for which it all is being done. After that, the taking down, re-boxing, dealing with the rubbish, and finding another cause to take your leftovers.
One of our most pressing needs is housing, especially affordable housing. Having a secure home, even if modest, is crucial to personal progress. “You have to be able to lock your things up,” a homeless man told me. It is the first step in rehabilitating lives.
Understanding this, a small group began to meet three years ago. The group included Fr. Leo Coughlin, Trish Campbell, Margaret Slavin, Margie Sumadh, Sue Gontier, Dave and Joanne Sumner, and Sheila Howlett, all smart, hardworking, and socially conscious, middle-class citizens. They learned about the sleeping cabin concept as a first step. Grace United Church funded and built the first “tiny home” to be displayed, which garnered public attention and support when demonstrated on the lawn of Emmanuel United Church and at other locations.
It was consciousness-raising for Peterborough. The structure has just a bed, electricity, a window, and a door that can be locked. It has no water, kitchenette, or bathroom. “A campground,” says Slavin. But it provides the desperate with safety and privacy. The group began to look for land for its project.
One of the aspects of this grassroots effort, which is to be celebrated, is the level of co-operation among like-minded organizations and groups. Habitat for Humanity PKR came forward to say it was acquiring the former Humane Society property on Lansdowne Street and would be willing to rent the building and land for three years to PATH. Elizabeth Fry Society provides receipts for donations.
The land question for PATH has led to city hall. Slow, arduous negotiations to change the zoning of 385 Lansdowne Street East from commercial to residential, so that the tiny homes can be built and occupied, are ongoing. Keith Dalton, another volunteer with many skills, came forward to design the setting for 24 cabins. Fire inspectors called for eight-foot spaces between cabins, not five.
Essential services, such as cooking, laundry and bathing, will be available in the main building. Donations of goods pour in. Holiday Inn has donated bags of linen. There is a knowledge developing that everyone can help in some way.
Although PATH cannot afford paid staff at this point, I could sense no sign of volunteer burnout. May it flourish.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner May 26, 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. |
It will take experts in mass manipulation to analyze this one.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
May 18, 2024
Increasingly fearful of a possible return of Donald Trump to America’s highest office and realizing that that election is a mere six months away, I turn my gaze to the phenomenon of his MAGA supporters. They are many.
What are they thinking when he announces his worst, most harmful and vindictive intentions? Why don’t they see the recent horror film “Civil War” set in a future America, which is at literal war with itself within its borders?
I was sorely tempted to use the word “dim” in describing such people. But a friend, who has some training in journalistic language, said to me, “You really can’t use the word ‘dim’ in print about ordinary people.”
Always agreeable, I asked, “What, then, shall I use?”
“Low-information,” she answered.
So be it, “low-information” it shall be.
Succinctly, American founding father Thomas Paine (1737-1809) wrote, “To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”
From what system of education do these low-information voters come? From what understanding of the threats to their own rights? From what grasp of the meaning of democracy and of its fragility? From what denial of the vices of this grotesque figure?
He has told them clearly what he intends: he won’t necessarily accept the results of an election until he decides if he agrees, he will move quickly to deport millions of immigrants, and he will punish the FBI and the Justice Department for daring to bring cases of criminality against him. Moreover, he speaks of withdrawing from NATO and cozying up to the world’s dictators. In my worst nightmare, he will invade and take Canada’s water.
Another troubling question is whether the military and police would follow presidential orders of this nature. Insofar as the forces are trained in obedience above all, it is a genuine concern.
American attitudes? Hard to read. The peaceful transfer of power after elections is fundamental to democracy, I’m sure they heard about it in Grade 6 Civics. If not, the schools should be ashamed.
We Canadians ought to look to our own civics education. I challenge, here and now, our departments of education and our elected school trustees to investigate the state of it. Our Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ratified in 1982, is a mite complex, with its “opt-out” provision — the “notwithstanding clause,” mentioned just last week in a warning by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. It has never been used by the federal government.
Perhaps worse than this Republican candidate and his wily ways are the presumably well-educated, but utterly self-serving and cynical, members of his party. They line up to support his spurious claims, though they know differently, in order to win his favor for their own future appointments. Tim Scott, J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio and Kari Lake are some of them. It is astonishing how they abandon conscience and country for ambition.
The lady who shot her dog is no longer in contention.
Canadian influence on this sorry situation is bound to be slight. Our global affairs people, led by Canadian ambassador to the U.S.A. Kristen Hillman, are at work imagining a Trump second term. Canadian fact checker Daniel Dale, now with CNN, points out his multiple lies for those watchers who keep an open mind. Most worrisome are the people who come to the Trump rallies and yell, having left their thinking powers at home.
However, on the positive side, many voices in society are urging voters to observe, judge and act. Among my favorites are Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale, Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, comics Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, Professor Cornel West, John Dean, poet Anne Lamott and the entire staff of the Atlantic magazine. They devoted a whole issue, 24 writers, to assessing the deadly risks ahead.
It will take experts in mass manipulation to analyze this one.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner May 18, 2024 >LINK<
What are they thinking when he announces his worst, most harmful and vindictive intentions? Why don’t they see the recent horror film “Civil War” set in a future America, which is at literal war with itself within its borders?
I was sorely tempted to use the word “dim” in describing such people. But a friend, who has some training in journalistic language, said to me, “You really can’t use the word ‘dim’ in print about ordinary people.”
Always agreeable, I asked, “What, then, shall I use?”
“Low-information,” she answered.
So be it, “low-information” it shall be.
Succinctly, American founding father Thomas Paine (1737-1809) wrote, “To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”
From what system of education do these low-information voters come? From what understanding of the threats to their own rights? From what grasp of the meaning of democracy and of its fragility? From what denial of the vices of this grotesque figure?
He has told them clearly what he intends: he won’t necessarily accept the results of an election until he decides if he agrees, he will move quickly to deport millions of immigrants, and he will punish the FBI and the Justice Department for daring to bring cases of criminality against him. Moreover, he speaks of withdrawing from NATO and cozying up to the world’s dictators. In my worst nightmare, he will invade and take Canada’s water.
Another troubling question is whether the military and police would follow presidential orders of this nature. Insofar as the forces are trained in obedience above all, it is a genuine concern.
American attitudes? Hard to read. The peaceful transfer of power after elections is fundamental to democracy, I’m sure they heard about it in Grade 6 Civics. If not, the schools should be ashamed.
We Canadians ought to look to our own civics education. I challenge, here and now, our departments of education and our elected school trustees to investigate the state of it. Our Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ratified in 1982, is a mite complex, with its “opt-out” provision — the “notwithstanding clause,” mentioned just last week in a warning by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. It has never been used by the federal government.
Perhaps worse than this Republican candidate and his wily ways are the presumably well-educated, but utterly self-serving and cynical, members of his party. They line up to support his spurious claims, though they know differently, in order to win his favor for their own future appointments. Tim Scott, J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio and Kari Lake are some of them. It is astonishing how they abandon conscience and country for ambition.
The lady who shot her dog is no longer in contention.
Canadian influence on this sorry situation is bound to be slight. Our global affairs people, led by Canadian ambassador to the U.S.A. Kristen Hillman, are at work imagining a Trump second term. Canadian fact checker Daniel Dale, now with CNN, points out his multiple lies for those watchers who keep an open mind. Most worrisome are the people who come to the Trump rallies and yell, having left their thinking powers at home.
However, on the positive side, many voices in society are urging voters to observe, judge and act. Among my favorites are Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale, Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, comics Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, Professor Cornel West, John Dean, poet Anne Lamott and the entire staff of the Atlantic magazine. They devoted a whole issue, 24 writers, to assessing the deadly risks ahead.
It will take experts in mass manipulation to analyze this one.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner May 18, 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. |
Israel is a nation state, but at the cost of displacing hundreds of thousands of inhabitants.
Rosemary Ganley
The Peterborough Examiner
May 11, 2024
We are transfixed these days by the suffering in Palestine. How is a westerner to take a position, except to beg for a ceasefire? But we owe it to the deep tragedy that continues to scar that region to learn the history of two peoples, before we speak.
And to take as our guide an Israeli-American, Linda Dittmar, who has moved from ardent Zionism to being an advocate for Palestinians. It is recorded in her beautiful, recent book “Tracing Homelands.”
When I saw the cold hatred in the eyes of the Hamas attackers on October 7, I sensed this was deeper than other conflicts. It had been 75 painful years in its gestation. And even longer.
I knew about the Balfour Declaration of 1917, whereby the British Empire, then in charge of Palestine, issued an order that declared two things: the Jews had a right to a “natural home,” and Palestinian Arab rights had to be “protected.”
One goal has been achieved; Israel is a nation state, but at the cost of displacing hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. The resulting deadly impasse is called by many “the world’s most intractable conflict.”
In 1945, at the end of the Second World War, there was massive worldwide sympathy for the Jewish people coming out of their unimaginable suffering in Europe — the Holocaust — inflicted by the Nazis. Thousands of survivors came to Israel. Most of the world applauded.
The Zionists among them, calling for such a homeland, have been passionate, and in many ways, justified. But what about the people already living there? For them, it was the horrific Nakba.
Into my quandary about justice and injustice has come Dittmar’s book, published in 2023, before the Hamas attack. Age 85 now, Dittmar grew up in Tel Aviv in a middle-class family in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and was a loyal Israeli girl, ignorant of the Nakba in 1948 when Israel forces depopulated 450 Palestinian villages, and forced 750,000 men, women and children into exile.
She was never taught about it. There was a policy of ignoring this grievous displacement, a kind of conspiracy of silence. She was unknowing and uncritical of the ways by which her people had acquired their land, believing it had been willed by God to a special people.
Her years as a student in the U.S., starting when she was 21 in 1961, opened her eyes. She experienced turbulent times there: the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. And access to information about the unjust origin story of her young country.
Years later, Dittmar went on an awareness trip organized by an Israeli non-government organization called Zochrot (We Remember). It further opened her eyes to the catastrophe that had befallen the Palestinians.
Her unease grew. Her personal change, the conversion of her Zionist views, happened over a 12-year period. It makes for a riveting read. Dittmar now lives in Boston, and has a doctoral degree from Stanford University.
Her book is a timely, dramatic first-person account of a Jewish woman who attended patriotic Jewish youth camps, and even spent two years in the IDF, who seeks to know, and, with anguish, to write about her awakening. She bravely publishes at a time of great polarization resulting from a raging and unequal war.
But rather than encountering hatred from Jews, she has been flooded with invitations to speak about her experience to all kinds of audiences.
There is an aura of deep sadness and nostalgia, as Dittmar recalls her childhood among Palestinians. But she is convinced that without the painful facing of its past among Israelis, the resentment and grievance among Palestinians will endure from generation to generation in the Middle East.
Linda Dittmar is a brave and righteous Jew. One hopes the words of Jesus, “the truth shall set you free” will prove true.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner May 11, 2024 >LINK<
And to take as our guide an Israeli-American, Linda Dittmar, who has moved from ardent Zionism to being an advocate for Palestinians. It is recorded in her beautiful, recent book “Tracing Homelands.”
When I saw the cold hatred in the eyes of the Hamas attackers on October 7, I sensed this was deeper than other conflicts. It had been 75 painful years in its gestation. And even longer.
I knew about the Balfour Declaration of 1917, whereby the British Empire, then in charge of Palestine, issued an order that declared two things: the Jews had a right to a “natural home,” and Palestinian Arab rights had to be “protected.”
One goal has been achieved; Israel is a nation state, but at the cost of displacing hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. The resulting deadly impasse is called by many “the world’s most intractable conflict.”
In 1945, at the end of the Second World War, there was massive worldwide sympathy for the Jewish people coming out of their unimaginable suffering in Europe — the Holocaust — inflicted by the Nazis. Thousands of survivors came to Israel. Most of the world applauded.
The Zionists among them, calling for such a homeland, have been passionate, and in many ways, justified. But what about the people already living there? For them, it was the horrific Nakba.
Into my quandary about justice and injustice has come Dittmar’s book, published in 2023, before the Hamas attack. Age 85 now, Dittmar grew up in Tel Aviv in a middle-class family in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and was a loyal Israeli girl, ignorant of the Nakba in 1948 when Israel forces depopulated 450 Palestinian villages, and forced 750,000 men, women and children into exile.
She was never taught about it. There was a policy of ignoring this grievous displacement, a kind of conspiracy of silence. She was unknowing and uncritical of the ways by which her people had acquired their land, believing it had been willed by God to a special people.
Her years as a student in the U.S., starting when she was 21 in 1961, opened her eyes. She experienced turbulent times there: the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. And access to information about the unjust origin story of her young country.
Years later, Dittmar went on an awareness trip organized by an Israeli non-government organization called Zochrot (We Remember). It further opened her eyes to the catastrophe that had befallen the Palestinians.
Her unease grew. Her personal change, the conversion of her Zionist views, happened over a 12-year period. It makes for a riveting read. Dittmar now lives in Boston, and has a doctoral degree from Stanford University.
Her book is a timely, dramatic first-person account of a Jewish woman who attended patriotic Jewish youth camps, and even spent two years in the IDF, who seeks to know, and, with anguish, to write about her awakening. She bravely publishes at a time of great polarization resulting from a raging and unequal war.
But rather than encountering hatred from Jews, she has been flooded with invitations to speak about her experience to all kinds of audiences.
There is an aura of deep sadness and nostalgia, as Dittmar recalls her childhood among Palestinians. But she is convinced that without the painful facing of its past among Israelis, the resentment and grievance among Palestinians will endure from generation to generation in the Middle East.
Linda Dittmar is a brave and righteous Jew. One hopes the words of Jesus, “the truth shall set you free” will prove true.
Rosemary Ganley's column in the Peterborough Examiner May 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. |