Posts with the Queen’s Park tag

Barris Beat

A Maud Maud world

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New garden at St. Paul's Presbyterian Church in Leaskdale, Ont., on Saturday, June 20, 2015.
New garden at St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Leaskdale, Ont., on Saturday, June 20, 2015.

It was getting late on Saturday afternoon. The chief dignitary at our event, the lieutenant governor of Ontario, had moved on to her next appointment. Most of the remaining dignitaries had left too. Only the volunteers were left cleaning up and chatting with us hangers-on. Suddenly a car pulled up and a couple emerged.

“Has the event already happened?” the woman asked. “Have they unveiled the sculpture?”

“The sculpture of Maud?” I repeated. “Yes, they have.”

“We’ve come a long way,” she said.

“Don’t worry. Just about everybody’s gone,” I said. “But the sculpture’s not going anywhere. She’s just waiting for you.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Leading by example

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Two air force cadet warrant officers and a visitor at the end of a family gathering in Oshawa.
Two air force cadet warrant officers – Declan Lloyd, left, and Adam Boyden – and a visitor at the end of a family gathering in Oshawa.

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.

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Barris Beat

Call for honesty

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Margaret Wente says she is not a serial plagiarist.

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.

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Barris Beat

Making memory permanent

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Today a tourist trap, Checkpoint Charlie between 1961 and 1989 trapped East Berliners inside the Iron Curtain.
Today a tourist trap, Checkpoint Charlie between 1961 and 1989 trapped East Berliners inside the Iron Curtain.

During a college class the other day, I wanted to give my broadcasting students a sense of the power of television as tool of influence in the 20th century. I chose something in their lifetime – the fall of the Berlin Wall – in 1989. That’s when the Western media began covering the activities of dissidents in East Germany, I said. And that sparked the popular uprising that pressured the Communist regime to open crossing points at the Wall. To make sure my students understood the context, I asked if everybody knew the basis of the Cold War.

“Was Canada involved?” one of my students asked.

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