Ted Barris • Page 7 of 102 • author

Join our Merit Travel D-Day 80th Anniversary Tour – May 15-26, 2024

Written by Ted Barris on December 11th, 2023December 11th, 2023. 2 Comments

If you can imagine yourself riding in a WWII-vintage Jeep around the D-Day beaches for an afternoon…

Or discovering Canada’s actual role in the Dieppe raid…

Or meeting a Great War tunnelling expert who also serves beer and lunch near Passchendaele…

Then our upcoming D-Day 80th Anniversary Tour is for you! Merit Travel has just put the seats for our trip on the market. We leave on our 10-day trip on May 15, 2024. Check the details at this Merit Travel link: https://www.merittravel.com/d-day-tour

And, if you’re available, I’m hosting a ZOOM with Merit Travel this Thursday, Dec. 14 at 2 p.m. to describe the tour and answer your questions.

Fighting fakery

Written by Ted Barris on December 7th, 2023December 5th, 2023. Leave a comment

Sports Illustrated website offering profile of reporter Drew Ortiz.

Have you ever read a story in a magazine and wondered who the reporter was who wrote it? Well, I have, often. More specifically, imagine that you were reading an edition of Sports Illustrated a few weeks back. You saw a story that caught your attention written by Drew Ortiz. If you then searched the Sports Illustrated website to find out more about Ortiz, here’s the message you’d have found:

“Nowadays, there is rarely a weekend that goes by where Drew isn’t out camping, hiking, or just back on his parents’ farm,” the SI site said.

Well, the mystery around Drew Ortiz and his SI story intrigued reporters at a New York-based science and technology publication called Futurism. They did some checking and discovered that the photo of Drew Ortiz could be traced to an Artificial Intelligence image website with the description: “neutral white young-adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes.” (more…)

A calling that rings true

Written by Ted Barris on November 30th, 2023November 30th, 2023. 2 Comments

Lew Gregor (far right) and Peter Viney (far left) of Royal Canadian Legion (Branch 170) executive welcome me and other new member Pam Forrest, Nov. 28, 2023.

I accomplished something this week I’ve wanted to for probably 50 years. I recently received an email from Lew Gregor, friend and membership chair of the Royal Canadian Legion. He was inviting me to the Branch 170 general meeting Tuesday night.

“I want to welcome you,” his note said, “as a new member of the Legion.” (more…)

Music of our lives

Written by Ted Barris on November 23rd, 2023November 22nd, 2023. Leave a comment

Most regular readers of the Barris Beat have recognized from the vintage of some of my memories that I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s. During most of those formative years, I lived either in or around Toronto. So, whatever was going on in the Big Smoke culturally, either I was in the middle of it, or I missed it by accident.

Of course, there is that famous quote attributed to one of Robin Williams, Pete Townsend (of The Who) or Timothy Leary:

“If you can remember the ’60s, you weren’t there.”

The implication, of course, is that youth culture of the 1960s meant its participants wasted themselves 24/7 on drugs, alcohol, sex, love-ins, rock ’n’ roll, revolutionary literature and/or anti-war demonstrations. Well, I admit – with one or two exceptions on that list – that I was there. And I can remember it. (more…)

Planning to keep my boots on

Written by Ted Barris on November 16th, 2023November 16th, 2023. Leave a comment

Alex Barris in 1950s reporting for the Globe and Mail.

I remember the day I learned what I would do the rest of my life. I received a message from a historical society in the U.S. It described an overseas tour planned for that fall of 2017. Participants would fly to Europe and retrace the wartime steps of Gen. George Patton’s 94th Infantry Division – to halt the Nazi breakout toward Antwerp – a.k.a. the Battle of the Bulge.

That’s where my father served as a medic in the U.S. Army. I needed to experience that tour. But that meant I’d have to quit my position as a journalism professor at Centennial College in Toronto.

“You’ll have to speak to our retirement specialist,” the dean of Centennial’s communication school told me.

I met the specialist in his office a few days later.

“So…” he enthused, “are you ready for retirement?”

“You don’t know anything about me,” I said. “I’m not retiring. I’m just going back to where I came from.” (more…)

Canada’s veterans would not be amused

Written by Ted Barris on November 9th, 2023November 12th, 2023. Leave a comment

Grace MacPherson put her pride of country above all else in the Great War.

Grace MacPherson had all the credentials she needed to become an ambulance driver in the Great War. The first woman in Vancouver to earn a driver’s licence. The first woman to purchase a car in that city. When war broke out in 1914, she even paid her own way to Britain offering her skills as a driver to the Red Cross ambulance corps.

When she gained an audience with Sam Hughes, Canada’s minister of militia and war in 1917, to plead her case, however, he turned her down.

“I’ll stop any woman from going to France,” Hughes blustered.

“With your help, or without it,” Miss MacPherson said, “I will serve.” (more…)

Speaking first, engaging the brain later

Written by Ted Barris on November 3rd, 2023November 3rd, 2023. 1 Comment

Premier Ford and Finance Minister Bethlanfalvy ignoring the Greenbelt scandal. YouTube

I thought I was in complete control of the moment. I’d read – both aloud and to myself – all the appropriate practice phrases. I arrived right on time for my first CBC Radio News announcing audition at the main Toronto studios. They gave me the audition scripts – a newscast, a piece of poetry and lists of words in French, Italian, German and English to just read aloud during my audition.

I had time to review the copy, then I entered the studio to record my audition. Everything went swimmingly – including the French, Italian and German. But then I tripped up on an English word. I came across the word “epitome,” paused and said:

“E-pi-tome,” with the emphasis on the first syllable, as if I’d said “epic tome.” And the moment I mispronounced it, I knew I was wrong and I wished I could’ve quickly crammed the word back in my mouth to say it properly the first time. But it was too late. (more…)

NHL shoots and misses the point

Written by Ted Barris on October 25th, 2023October 25th, 2023. Leave a comment

NHLer Travis Dermott when he played for the Erie Otters. MSNBC

I’m considering becoming an Arizona Coyotes fan. Not because I have an affinity for either the Arizona desert or the wily mammal in the team name. Since I’ve lived in or around Toronto most of my life, I’ve always considered myself a Leafs fan by default.

But I’m beginning to think – even in sports – I should support people with more admirable attitudes. And recently, Coyotes defenceman Travis Dermott did an admirable thing. He used Pride Tape on his hockey stick in a game Saturday night.

“I have some family involved in the LGBTQ community,” he told ESPN in 2021. “I’d like to step forward and take part in supporting them.” (more…)

Remembrance from witnesses and moviemakers

Written by Ted Barris on October 19th, 2023October 20th, 2023. Leave a comment

Commander Ericson (Jack Hawkins) makes life and death decision in “The Cruel Sea.”

Commander George Ericson is crouched on the bridge of his corvette warship. He’s peering through a sighting device, lining up his counterattack against an enemy he can’t see, a submerged U-boat in the Atlantic waters directly ahead of him.

“What’s it look like now, Number One?” Ericson calls to his first officer, who is on a sonar device.

“It’s the firmest contact we’ve ever had,” the sonar operator shouts back from below deck.

There’s sudden consternation on Cmdr Ericson’s face. Merchant sailors whose ship has just been torpedoed are thrashing about in the water. They’re shouting for help. “There’s men in the water just about there,” Ericson says.

“Well, there’s a U-boat just underneath them.”

(more…)

Ford’s foxes in our hen house

Written by Ted Barris on October 13th, 2023October 13th, 2023. Leave a comment

Choosing expediency over experience. Pinterest

We had considered many options. People. Places. Past knowledge. We knew the subject – youth violence and alienation – required some very specific understanding of the causes and effects of the problem. We had plenty of college and university experts on hand because we worked among them. But somehow we sensed to get to the root of the problem, we had to get closer to the ground. There was a vital element missing in our approach.

It was experience. (more…)