Posts with the featured tag

Barris Beat

Fewer epics, please

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Christine Sinclair of the Canadian women’s soccer team. Courtesy The Record, U.K.

The Olympics have dominated much of our attention the past week. And as I suggested in my column last week, nobody deserves the attention or the applause more than these dedicated young athletes. However, there is one side effect to watching, listening to and reading about the Games I find bothersome. And it came up the other night just before the women’s soccer semi-final match between Team Canada and Team U.S.A. Somebody asked an analyst how important the game was for the Canadian women.

“Hugely,” she said. “It’s the most important game ever.”

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Barris Beat

Empty Olympics

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Courtesy CBC.ca, Susan Nattrass, Edmonton-based trap shooter.

Somewhere in the palatial offices of the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland, they missed something. Yes, they’ve awarded the successful bids: it’s Sochi, Russia, in the winter of 2014 and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in the summer of 2016. They finally got all nations signed on to having women recognized as athletes. That’s all good. But when it came down to the most basic quotient of the games – putting bums in seats – it appears the IOC brain trust has bobbled the baton. The commentators spotted it right away.

“Why are there so many empty seats?” one of them said, Sunday.

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Barris Beat

Between the eyes question

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Toronto Police march in tribute to officer killed in the line of duty in 2011. Photo courtesy Octavian Lacatusu.

Everybody’s been talking about it this week. Most people have an opinion. Some blame gangs. Others point their fingers at government. A few say the courts are too lenient. But just about everybody has something to say about guns and gun crime. It came up at the milk store the other day. One man looked at it this way.

“Hey, it could be a lot worse,” he said. “Look at Detroit.”

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Barris Beat

Suffering for art sake

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Jennifer Carroll as Maud. Photo courtesy Lucy Maud Montgomery Society of Ontario.

The great English poet and satirist John Donne called it a treasure. French impressionist painter Claude Monet considered it torture. American author Helen Keller said it was an inspiration. Nobel Prize laureate William Faulkner claimed humankind could endure vast quantities of it, but that it resulted in greatness. Then there was philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s view of suffering.

“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger,” he said.

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Barris Beat

A trio is born

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The Three Musketeers

We got the call the morning after the official start of summer and the day before the actual due date. Our son-in-law phoned that Friday to say that our daughter was in the Port Perry Hospital maternity ward and contractions were coming fairly quickly. A couple of hours later – at 8:52 a.m., June 22 – her third baby was born. And we were grandparents for a fourth time. A few hours after that, we were in the hospital room, holding him, enjoying his first sounds and wondering.

“Have you decided on a name?” my wife asked.

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Barris Beat

Subtle but passionate Canadian

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Dave Zink, proprietor of Grenadier Militaria in Port Perry.

In the fall of 2001, a man dropped by the original location of the Grenadier Militaria store in Port Perry. It wasn’t long after the store had opened its doors for the first time. Although he didn’t know Dave Zink, the proprietor of the store, Dave Robinson asked a favour. A production (by the Borelians Community Theatre) needed military props and uniforms to authenticate an upcoming show. Robinson, then a history teacher at Port Perry High School, wondered if Zink might loan some of his unique artefacts to the production. Robinson couldn’t believe what happened.

“He said, ‘Yes,’” Robinson said. “And right away, I knew Dave Zink was a valuable asset to the community because he was so supportive.”

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Barris Beat

Summer on wheels

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Last week, I was heading out of town on one of the 400-series highways. It was a Friday afternoon. Traffic was slow. There were the usual volume holdups and the usual culprits – semis and commuter buses, but mostly cars towing boats, cars towing tent trailers, four-by-fours loaded to the gunwales with camping gear, and lots of RVs. One sported a bumper sticker that kind of summed up the moment.

“Don’t follow me,” it said. “I have no idea where I’m going.”

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Barris Beat

Government versus democracy

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To talk about sickness among salmon, in B.C. is to break the law.

It was Sunday afternoon. Our writers’ conference was wrapping up. About 200 of this country’s most celebrated novelists, poets and non-fiction writers had gathered for the weekend at a Vancouver hotel to discuss writers’ issues. But before our annual general meeting of The Writers’ Union of Canada broke up, one of TWUC’s founding members, Andreas Schroeder, rose to read a motion put forward by B.C. members of the union.

“Whereas Bill 37-2012 (about to be passed in the B.C. Legislature) will make it an offence for anyone to disclose the presence of a reportable animal disease (in B.C.),” Schroeder said. “Be it resolved that the union opposes the muzzling of both the press and public discourse.”

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Barris Beat

Jobs and dodos

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Jobs that go the way of the dodo bird are often the ones we rely on most.

The other day a canoeing partner of mine mentioned he’d faced a bit of dilemma. His cedar-strip canoe, which he and I had used one spring to paddle down the Black River in Muskoka, was in need of repair. Stored out in the open, the canoe had generally resisted the elements fairly well, except where the water had collected in the canoe gunwales and caused some of the wood to rot.

“I needed somebody to repair the damage,” he said. “Surprisingly, I found a guy near Huntsville. That’s what he did – repaired canoe gunwales.”

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Barris Beat

Leading change with kindness

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June Callwood worked as a professional freelance writer for 66 years. "It's All About Kindness," a new book, offers reflections on her care and concern for others. Photo by David Henderson.

On days such as Victoria Day, and its anachronistic connection to life in 2012, I wonder about how change happens. Is it just the passage of time that helps us recognize that monarchs are people too? Is it just greater access to information that brings down a Berlin Wall? Is it just mellowing that makes a Toronto mayor realize gay lifestyle is a fact of life? Well, yes, time, knowledge and acclimatizing help. But change happens because some push to make it happen. Or, as writer June Callwood observed during a 2002 lecture:

“The profession of journalism enjoys its finest moments when it speaks against oppression and greed.”

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