He felt compelled to act. He could not hold his tongue. He sensed that if he didn’t step in and say something, all the evils of the past might be repeated. That’s why during a neo-Nazi meeting in the Netherlands about 1960, Heiman de Leeuw demanded entry to the meeting as well as a voice to express his concern.
“You don’t deserve to be living in this country,” he told the supporters of fascism assembled in the hall. “I refuse to keep silent.” (more…)
Early in May, 70 years ago, a Second World War glider pilot named Martin Maxwell tasted freedom for the first time in nearly eight months. On Sept. 17, 1944, during his second airborne operation, he had delivered British soldiers and equipment in a controlled crash landing near Arnhem, Holland, during the Operation Market Garden, only to be wounded and captured days later. But on May 1, 1945, with the Germans surrendering all over Europe, Maxwell regained his freedom.
“A British tank came into our POW camp,” he said, “and we were liberated.” (more…)
On Sunday morning, I picked up one of the Toronto daily newspapers. I saw images of city towers tumbling, apartments smouldering and people wandering aimlessly in the streets. Two days later, I watched breaking news on TV and I saw a dishevelled downtown, stores smouldering and people wandering in the streets.
The first disrupted city was Kathmandu, Nepal. The second was Baltimore, Maryland, in the east-central U.S.
Did it occur to anybody else that civil unrest looks a lot like the aftermath of an earthquake? (more…)
I remember as a boy of six or seven, when my mom and dad and sister and I got a lift out to Malton (that’s the former name for Pearson International) Airport for a marathon flight to New York. I was almost jumping out of my skin, I was so excited. I think for a month afterward all I ever said in gatherings of more than two people was:
“You know what I did? I flew to New York on an airplane.” (more…)
Under different circumstances, classical piano fans in the Greater Toronto Area by now might be raving about a unique performance they’d seen and heard of Rachmaninoff’s Concerto No. 2. They might have joined the thousands of concert-goers who’ve witnessed her brilliance on the piano keys at such venues as Carnegie Hall and Royal Albert Hall. They might have been able to say they saw the once child prodigy now internationally celebrated concert pianist Valentina Lisitsa. Instead, she took advantage of her celebrity to offer her pro-Russian view of Ukrainian politics.
“The new school year begins in Odessa with teachers forced to wear tribal dress, a truly European custom,” she tweeted (in 2014) in an apparent slam at the cultural dress of her native Ukraine. (more…)
A couple of Saturdays ago, the district Scouts assembled in a local box store parking lot. They had a large dumpster – open at one end – into which they were piling used electronic equipment that folks around town wanted to discard. By the time a photographer friend and I arrived there about midday for a peek at what was going on, the dumpster was nearly full. He and I began nosing through the discarded electronics to see what the Scouts had collected.
“Old, well-used, communications artefacts,” I said and then asked my buddy, “I wonder whether you and I qualify?” (more…)
The evening was winding down. The last of the catering staff at the hall folded up the dining tables and chairs. The flags that had presided over the ceremony all evening had disappeared back into their sheaths. I had autographed the last of some books people had purchased. Among the last of the cadets recognized for his service during the course of the evening approached me with a final request.
“Sir, would you allow us to take a photograph with you?” Warrant Officer Adam Boyden, 19, asked.
“Sure,” I said, “but you can call me Ted.”
He smiled back respectfully, called his friend, Warrant Officer Declan Lloyd to join us in the photograph, and the three of us posed for several smart-phone snapshots before everybody said their last good-nights and left the hall.
Last week, I received an email from one of the young reporters in our journalism program at Centennial College. The message proved a bit alarming. We had sent this young man, in his 20s, and one of his female classmates – both senior students in our program – to a national forum in Ottawa. The message said that the conference organizers were preventing our two reporters from gaining access to many of the forum proceedings.
“Apparently media people are not allowed into the meetings,” our reporter told me in his message. “We hope to get into workshops. Wish us luck.” (more…)
An acquaintance of mine told me about the night he met up with a music legend. For weeks, before Paul McCartney’s most recent concert stop in Toronto, my acquaintance and his partner debated whether they should part with the cash required to get into the Air Canada Centre to see and hear the former Beatle. My friend said they vacillated over the expense. Then, realizing they might miss an opportunity to see and hear the creator of such landmark songs as “Yesterday,” “Hey Jude” and “Live and Let Die,” the couple gathered as much cash as they could, dashed to the ACC, but arrived after the concert had begun.
“The scalpers were there with a few last tickets,” my acquaintance said. “But with the concert already underway, I guess they figured they’d better unload the tickets.” (more…)
You’ve seen the advertisement on TV in the past few weeks. The two swaddled infants appear lying on a multi-coloured mat. The babies seem contented and comfortable as they lie there. One is cooing; the other has a partial smile. As I looked at the ad, it never occurred to me to ask what gender the infants were. But then we’re told…
“Both of them could be head of a class… could lead a nation,” the voice-over announcer said. “Yet one of them won’t even be given a chance, simply because she’s a girl.” (more…)