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Barris Beat

OnStage Uxbridge – 200 years behind the times

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Rock musical “Hair” as a statement of the times.

There had been demonstrations against the production in various cities around the world, back in the late 1960s. People were all in flap about the profanity, the references to drugs and promiscuity, the anti-war sentiment, and, oh yes, the nudity.

As the second act of Hair, the American Tribal Love-Rock Musical opened at the Royal Alex Theatre in Toronto, where I saw it in 1970, the stage was covered in a transparent screen. Behind it, those members of the cast who chose to, removed their clothes, stood still facing the audience behind the scrim and chanted together:

“Beads, flowers, freedom and happiness.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Enough with broken promises

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U.S. President Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam, after breaking promise to keep American boys out of it.

In 1964, I remember U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) uttering these words: “We’re not about to send American boys … 10,000 miles away from home … to war.”

Johnson was promising to keep U.S. troops out of the war in Vietnam. In fact, his administration and the one following it sent more than 3 million American soldiers into an unwinable war. Nearly 60,000 of those young men died. They died of a broken promise. (more…)

Barris Beat

Where the Ford government allegiances lie

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Oath-taking – a practice for those wishing to tell the truth.

When I cross the border into the United States, it happens. When we go through security checks at international airports, it happens. When I was approached by the Ontario Court for jury duty, it happened. At those moments and others, we are asked:

“Do you swear that this is the truth?”

It’s called an oath. And when we cross an international border, Customs and Immigration officers need to know we’re being honest. Going through Pearson Airport security and onto public commercial airlines, security needs to know we’re abiding by the law. And if we’re meeting our civic duty in the Ontario court system, the judge needs to hear us say, “Yes, that’s the truth.”

So why don’t any of those protocols of oath-taking, of abiding by the rules, apply to Ford government officials around Conservative policies regarding protection of Greenbelt lands? (more…)

Barris Beat

Another Ford Greenbelt review?

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Richard Nixon, found out, covering up the truth, nearly impeached, claiming, “I am not a crook!” Poliitico.

I dodged most of the last few months of my university classes to see it. I sensed – as a journalist-in-training in the early 1970s – that reality was more important than theory. So, we all crowded into a student lounge at Toronto Metropolitan University (then Ryerson) to watch the daily TV Senate Committee hearings into connections between the Watergate break-in and then president Richard Nixon.

I specifically remember Committee Chair Sen. Sam Ervin sparring with Nixon’s then White House adviser John Ehrlichman.

“The President seems to extend executive privilege way out past the atmosphere,” Ervin said later. “What he says is executive privilege, is nothing but executive poppycock.” (more…)

Barris Beat

When a ship of state is sinking…

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Not living up to responsibility costs lives. HistoryExtra.

In 1979, I met and interviewed a seaman named Steve Prentice; he was in his 80s then. Just before midnight on April 14, 1912, the ship on which he served, RMS Titanic, struck an iceberg 600 kilometres off Newfoundland. As a junior purser, his job was to serve the needs of passengers and crew.

That night, he happened to be close to the bridge of the Titanic, just as the ship’s designer Thomas Andrews told Bruce Ismay, the chairman of White Star, and Titanic’s senior officer Edward Smith what he’d seen below decks.

“What’s her position?” Ismay asked Andrews.

“The position, sir, is that she’s going to sink,” Andrews said. “The water’s coming straight up. The bulkheads won’t help her in any way at all.”

Young Steve Prentice then spent the next 90 minutes convincing as many passengers as possible to get to the lifeboats. It was his job. (more…)

Barris Beat

Signs of development = the Greenbelt gravy train

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Signs of the times. Is this creating affordable housing?

They seemed to pop up overnight. One day I was driving through Pickering up Brock Road and there was the Greenbelt land – fields, gullies and natural forest. The next day, following the same route, there were signs as big as all outdoors shouting out to all who passed:

“100-foot by 300-foot lots!” those signs proclaimed.

As I recall, it was just before the recent Greenbelt controversy erupted that I first saw the signs. (more…)

Barris Beat

Bad judgment must be called out

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Playing on a tree on the other side of the fence was so inviting, but, it turned out, against the rules.

It happened when I was about nine. The public-school playground got a little boring, so a bunch of us found a maple tree just across the back fence of the schoolyard to climb, sit in and hang from. Word got around to the principal, Mr. Palmer Kilpatrick. If for no other reason than fear of liability, he announced that the tree was off limits.

That didn’t stop us. Next day, we headed back over the fence and scrambled back up the tree. Suddenly, it got quiet. All my fellow tree-climbers disappeared. I was alone. I looked down and there was Mr. Kilpatrick standing at the foot of the tree.

“Ted, come down,” he said sternly. “You know you’re not supposed to be up there.”

“Yes sir,” and I came down. Everybody else who’d climbed the tree with me that day had taken off. And I could have too. But something inside me said, “Fess up and face the consequences.” (more…)

Barris Beat

What Bethlenfalvy’s 100 don’t see

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Peter Bethlenfalvy speaks to his 100 about building not being accountable. YouTube photo.

He preferred to present the government’s first-quarter fiscal results, focus on Ontario’s deficit projection for 2023-24. But reporters preferred a response from Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy to the Greenbelt controversy in his riding.

“The 100 people I talked to say ‘build,’” he answered. “That’s what I hear and that’s why we’re going to continue on our build.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Billion-tree promise

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What a pledge to plant trees can yield. Photo – Stop Sprawl Durham.

There was a short news clip about a week ago. It captured the Canadian minister of energy and natural resources smiling for the cameras. The video showed him joining the mayor of Surrey, B.C. Together, Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and Mayor Brenda Locke planted a tree symbolic of long-range plans to help restore Canada’s tree population, reduce the effects of severe weather (flooding or drought) and rescue a warming planet.

“Planting two billion trees over 10 years is a key part of Canada’s plan to fight climate change,” Wilkinson said on August 2. “Every tree planted is a step toward a healthier, more sustainable Canada.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Dog days of summer

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Running mate, Jazz, coming home from emergency surgery.

I’m not exactly sure when it happened. My pal and I had gone out for one of our regular runs. He tends to run much faster than I can. But suddenly he pulled up and began to limp. I don’t know if he twisted his leg on a stone or a pothole or what. But we were soon at the hospital where I got the word.

“Looks like a torn ligament,” the doctor said. “May need surgical treatment.”

“Really?” I was incredulous. (more…)