I sat on our back porch after sunset one evening this week. I was looking for them. The light was dying fast, which was why I was there. I kept scanning the skies over our backyard and our neighbours’ yards, looking, looking. One of my grandchildren was with me and wondered what I was doing, why I was so intent.
“They should be here by now,” I said softly.
“What should be here?” he asked.
“The bats,” I said. “I haven’t seen them this year.” (more…)
That morning, about three and a half weeks ago, this political candidate was on the firing line. Two CTV journalists had fashioned their feature interview with him based on some hard-hitting questions. Then, the TV journalists invited questions from those in the audience. Several of my journalism students, invited to the studio, got their chance to ask questions. And the politician answered them thoughtfully. Then, with the broadcast over, the politician headed for his tour bus to dash to his next event. As we were leaving the studio, my students passed by the candidate’s tour bus.
“Hold it there,” I said to my students, suggesting they pose in front of the logo on the bus. I raised my cell phone to snap the picture, when…
“Wait a second,” the young politician shouted from just outside camera range. “Let me join you,” and he jumped into the shot next to the student journalists and thanked them for being part of a political selfie. (more…)
My world of words has been turned upside down this week. One of our own has been accused of the worst sin in our profession – taking the ideas of another writer and presenting them as her own. According to Carol Wainio, an Ottawa-based blogger, in 2009 Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente wrote an editorial about something called enviro-romanticism. In her column, among other things, she wrote about non-governmental organizations.
“They believe traditional farming in Africa incorporates indigenous knowledge that shouldn’t be replaced by science-based knowledge introduced from the outside,” Wente wrote.
I had a chance encounter with a member of the Wounded Warriors the other night. I had just completed a presentation about the battle at Vimy Ridge at the Whitby Public Library. On our way out of the library, he gave me an update on plans the group has to take about 30 younger Canadian vets on a bicycle tour of Normandy later this spring. (By the way, they’re doing it entirely on private donations. No government funding.) He recounted a recent exchange between his group and a Veterans Affairs Canada committee reviewing the needs Canada’s latest vets – those returning from Afghanistan. He was encouraging greater support for vets with post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Give them time,” the VAC rep apparently said. “They’ll get over it.”