Posts with the Joe Biden tag

Barris Beat

The balloon menace

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Anita Anand, minister of national defence, addresses 204th Toronto Garrison Officers’ Ball on Feb. 11, 2023.

The evening was all about military pomp and circumstance. Hundreds of Canadian Armed Services personnel had gathered last Saturday night at the Beanfield Centre on the CNE grounds for Toronto’s premier social event in the military community. I actually landed a ticket and was seated at a table of Navy regulars and reservists. The 204th edition of the Garrison Officers’ Ball was well underway, when the Minister of National Defence arrived in time to address guests at the ball.

“I have important news to share with you,” Anita Anand said. “Today at 3:41 p.m. aircraft assigned to NORAD successfully took down (a) high-altitude airborne object. The object, flying at an altitude of 40,000 feet, had unlawfully entered Canadian air space and posed a reasonable threat to the safety of civilian flight.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Thinking in herds

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Gatherings such as the Jan. 6, 2021,  insurrection on U.S. Capitol building illustrated all that’s wrong with herd thinking.

It’s human science. We are a species that gathers. We must gather, connect communicate and socialize. It’s quite simply in our DNA. And to our detriment, it’s our gathering in these two years of the pandemic that has been our undoing. And now it’s the fifth wave, the Omicron wave. The number of COVID-19 patients in Canadian hospitals rose 67 per cent last week over the week before, and Ontario is leading the way in high case numbers. So, once again, the Ontario government has decided to lock everything down to prevent us from gathering.

“We face a tsunami of new cases in the coming days and weeks,” Premier Doug Ford told reporters at a news conference on Monday. “The math isn’t on our side.”

But there are, I think, much more dangerous aspects to our species’ gatherings these days than just pandemic viruses. (more…)

Barris Beat

Summer for women

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Marie-Philip Poulin – Captain Canada scores the winner! Toronto Star

On Aug. 31, I joined my daughter for an event to remember. Canada’s women’s hockey team faced its arch rival – the Americans – in a three-on-three overtime period in Calgary for the International Ice Hockey Federation world championship. Just over seven minutes into sudden death, team captain Marie-Philip Poulin broke in on the U.S. goal and put a wrist shot off the crossbar down into the net for the victory. The Toronto Star interviewed former Leafs goalie coach Steve McKichan after the game.

“That’s the Hall of Fame bardown shot in women’s hockey,” and he went on to say in the history of greatest Canadian hockey goals, “it was top-five.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Grim era of demonization

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Among flags flying at the Caen Museum in France (during a tour of Canadians I led) was national German (black, red and gold) flag, during 2004 D-Day anniversary. observances.

We arrived in Normandy that spring in time for the anniversary observances of the liberation of France. Street posts, balconies and memorial parks were festooned in patriotic bunting, streamers and the national flags of France, Britain, America and Canada. And Germany!

“Why is the German flag with red, gold and black included?” I asked our tour guide on the trip.

“New theme this year,” she said. “Remembrance and reconciliation.” (more…)